My third most-read SOTD blog entry is Dar Williams’ ‘When I Was a Boy,’ my 83rd Song of the Day post.
This one owes most of its 1,089 page views to YouTube. I uploaded a copy of the song, along with a link back to my blog, when I couldn’t find it on the site. So fans of Dar Williams, or at least of this song, have stumbled upon my post after finding that video.
Today’s SOTD is one of my very favorite songs. I’ve already featured it on the blog in its studio form so today I’ve chosen a live version that mirrors the original.
The first three songs I’ve written about this week discussed adolescent romance, adult romance and married life. Today’s song has many meanings but it fits into the narrative I’m going for this week because it focuses on children.
Dar Williams, over the four or five albums of hers I own, is frequently mediocre. But she is also frequently magnificent. She has written three or four songs I would stack up against anything anybody’s written, ever. This is one of them.
I’m not going to write a whole lot about why this song is so great, because I think it pretty much says everything all by itself. It’s bittersweet and charming and more than a little sad, especially for a father of two little boy-girls.
Meet Me In Montauk 