Dar Williams' 2000 album "TheGreen World" is packed with softly lyrical, melodic, poignant and politicalsongs. Each is a beautiful whole, suffused with an aching melody that lasts longafter the song ends. The imagery shines real, fantastic, absurd, shocking,painful. Her themes of loss, pain and injustice resonate with everyone who hasbeen a child adventuring in the bathtub and told to get out immediately. Eachsong resonates; collectively they give a view of discovery, questioning,theorizing, loving that is personal yet universal.

One song is aboutantiwar activist Philip Berrigan, who tried to dismantle a plane that had droppeddepleted uranium bombs on Iraq and Bosnia. The song is a plea, vocalizing hisprotest of the killing of innocents: "Better the files than the bodies ofchildren." This is especially important now, since our government is againthreatening to bomb Iraq, killing those who have never threatened us, neverharmed us, and whom the real government cares nothing about. This song describesthe ignorance and double-think that the government is committing.

Eachsong is pure soul with melodies you hardly notice you're singing. Each ispoignant, some trivial and yet intensely personal and affecting, and some vastlyimportant yet beautiful, and easy to understand. The world is brown and scarred.Let's try to make it green