Leigh-Chantelle

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My favourite singer/songwriter of all-time is Dar Williams.

I first discovered Dar in 1996, I was working in a music store and always loved flicking through the CD booklets to see the artwork, layout and read lyrics. I read the lyrics to As Cool As I Am, the first song on the Mortal City album, that was to go in the Shock CDs $19.95 CD bin. I was absolutely blown away by her empowering song about women and being respectful towards our other women folk. I bought the CD that day, listened to the CD that night and have listened to it many a time since.

Here's a new video clip for As Cool As I Am:

This clip features Gary Louris and is an exclusive music video for TheMessageIs.com. The video is "a celebration of the strength of women and a powerful response to recent legislative and personal attacks."

"Every state and every party, both men and women have found creative, resilient ways to say YES to a society that values it's women (including their reproductive systems)," says Dar. "Recently, we needed to underscore this positive force in our country, so here goes!"

Here's the wonderful lyrics to As Cool As I Am:

Yea, there was a time I didn’t like the love, I liked the climbers,
I was no sister then, I was running out of time and one liners,
And I was afraid, like you are when you’re too young to know the time, and
So I watch the way you take your fear and hoard the horizon,
You point, you have a word for every woman you can lay your eyes on,
Like you own them just because you bought the time,
And you turn to me, you say you hope I’m not threatened,

Oh — I’m not that petty, as cool as I am, I thought you’d know this already,
I will not be afraid of women, I will not be afraid of women.

So now were at a club, you watch the woman dancing, she is drunk,
She is smiling and she’s falling in a slow, descending funk,
And the whole bar is loud and proud and everybody’s trying, yeah.
You play the artist, saying, “Is it how she moves, or how she looks?”
I say, It’s loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks,
And as long as she’s got noise, she’s fine.
But I could teach her how I learned to dance when the music’s ended,

Oh — and that’s not petty, as cool as I am, I thought you’d know this already,
I will not be afraid of women, I will not be afraid of women.
You tried to make me doubt, to make me guess, tried to make me feel like a little less,
Oh, I liked you when your soul was bared, I thought you knew how to be scared,
And now its amazing what you did to make me stay,
But truth is just like time, it catches up and it just keeps going,

And so I’m leaving, you can find out how much better things can get,
And if it helps, Id say I feel a little worse than I did when we met,
So when you find someone else, you can try again, it might work next time,
You look out of the kitchen window and you shake your head and say low,
“If I could believe that stuff, Id say that woman has a halo,”
And I look out and say, “Yeah, she’s really blond,”
And then I go outside and join the others, I am the others,

Oh — and that’s not easy, I don’t know what you saw, I want somebody who sees me,
I will not be afraid of women, I will not be afraid of women.

Leigh-Chantelle is an International Speaker & Consultant; Author, Singer/Songwriter and Blogger.
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