Song Premiere: Dar Williams, "Time, Be My Friend"

A rousing drum solo kicks off “Time, Be My Friend,” as if to awaken us and rouse us from our slumbers. The song unfolds with a languorous motion, following a crisp guitar line that echoes through the entire song and over which Williams layers her rich vocals. There’s an almost psychedelic quality to the shimmering Beatles-esque meditation on the nature of time. With a ruminative spirit, which is the first track on Dar Williams’ new album I’ll Meet You Here, out on October 1 on Renew/BMG, the singer pleads with “Time” to slow down a bit so that she can “walk it with for a little while.” Filled with clever lines such “Time, I’ll make it up to you this time,” the songs recalls the treasures that Time has brought the singer as she wakes up to the realization that all of us have only so much time and that we might best live within it by making time our friend rather than running against it.

As Williams points out: “I wrote this song to keep myself from developing what I call a time disorder. It’s like an eating disorder, but it has to do with not knowing how to take in each minute and each hour as it happens. I realized that Time is just this wonderful thing that turns the wheel of the seasons, lets our wonderful friendships evolve, and keeps us moving forward. I kept on asking if I was doing things right, and Time was like, ‘I don’t know. Here’s a sunset. And man, what a great song to write during lockdown, even though I wrote it in 2018.”