The End of the Summer
Song by Song

"I write my songs like people make junk sculptures; little piece by little piece, a bit here, a chunk there," explains Williams. "I've spent a lot of the last three years on the road, listening to the radio, and I've heard a lot of pop and modern-rock music. So, as I was writing the songs for this record (End of Summer), those were a lot of the sounds I had in my head."

ARE YOU OUT THERE
This is my ode to all the small radio stations and late night radio heroes who changed the lives of millions of kids out in the suburbs. I never knew about Vin Scelsa's show growing up, but I did discover New York's Pacifica station, WBAI, and from them I learned the "politics of love and music" and felt like a secret radical. Long live the Pacifica network! I took the names of our local deejays, Jim Olson and Johnny Memphis, because they are two of my present radio heroes.

PARTY GENERATION
This is a folk song about a guy who wants to live in a beer commercial, and believe it or not, sometimes I feel like that guy. Jeff Golub did the wailing guitar stuff, and the Razor & Tie office was my frat chorus. I feel like I really bonded with my label that day, in a beer commercial kind of way.

IF I WROTE YOU
I started writing this song in Austin, Texas, and to me the influence of the area is obvious. There's more open space than in many of my songs, and there is an insinuation that the narrator is clean and sober now, which would describe many Texan songwriters I know today. Larry Campbell's guitar parts and Richard Shindell's harmony made me very emotional for a while, but I'm getting over that.

WHAT DO YOU HEAR IN THESE SOUNDS
Everyone says that therapy makes people "worse than they already are". This was not my experience. I think everyone was more happy after I went, and, as a nice perk, it saved my life. Thanks to all the women who sang on this, to Steve Miller for piecing it all together, and, of course, all my therapists.

THE END OF THE SUMMER
I started writing this while I was living out in the farmland by the Connecticut River. Out there, you can't escape knowing what month it is: the fields, farmstands, and school buses let you know. Bill Dillon plays the accompaniment on this, and I think he gives this recording its soul.

TEENAGERS KICK OUR BUTTS
As an adult it amazes me how petty adults can be, with each other and with teenagers. When I was a teenager, I remember noticing that the most sanctimonious adults were the most hypocritical, but I also remember thinking, "But maybe I'm wrong. I'm just a teenager." I want to encourage adolescent suspicion. Also, I think today's teenagers are really wonderful, and I think they're going to save the world, so we should treat them well. Steve had Mark Egan do a post-modern retro bass thing that makes it sound like a cross between a road house and a Disney film.

MY FRIENDS
This one was long due, of course. Of all that's happened with my career over the last few years, I'm the most proud of my friendships, which survived my constant life of travelling. I've adopted the Christine Lavin "Call your loved ones from an airport" model and highly recommend it.

BOUGHT AND SOLD
This is my attempt to get banned at Wal-Mart. My fingers are crossed. I love the arrangement of this song, because it sounds like all these different instruments and traditions meeting at the crossroads, or the market center. Hopefully the richness of the instruments offsets the monoculture descibed in the song.

ROAD BUDDY
I started writing this on the drive from Edmonton to Calgary, in Alberta. There's a lot of North American road myths that don't hold up under scrutiny, even with cappucino at the truck stops. Even the beautiful highways can make me feel very lonely and ungrounded.

IT'S A WAR IN THERE
I wanted to make this song beautiful as well as terrifying. I think the worst thing about mental illness and depression is that one is very attuned to what is beautiful, and yet one feels completely unworthy and unable to receive this beauty.

BETTER THINGS
My sister Meredith played this song for me when I was in high school. She said, "I love this song. It's so nice," which, growing up in a high pressure suburban town, was really significant. It was like Ray Davies was wishing us well, with no strings attached. This was pretty alien to us. I thought I should spread the word!