Mad River

Album: Emerald (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Dar Williams explained the background to this bleak song about the plight of many young workers in modern America. She told The Daily Telegraph: "I was touring with Joan Osborne and we were watching the Occupy protests in New York. Lots of thoughts came together. About being young and about how it sometimes feels like the world is going to swallow people whole."

    "In the US at the moment there is so little safety net for jobs and health care," she added. "The story in the song about someone being fired and then re-hired with no health rights and less pay is true. Maybe we have a chance to change the rhetoric."

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