Political Patter

Saturday night I went to a Dar Williams concert in Davis Square. She played wonderfully, of course, etc., but her opener got me to thinking. She was, apparently, a pretty well-known folk singer/songwriter in her own right, and none of this speaks anything to her songwriting abilities. Also, I'm a bleeding heart liberal so my opinion herein might not even be important.

Only, between every song some part of her patter had to do with being here for a "Scott Brown benefit" or some other joke about the conservative republicans. I suppose she knows her audience, but Dar's music isn't overwhelmingly liberal (though she is), and I can't help but wonder if maybe this wasn't the place for it. Fine, the majority of the audience were probably Cambridge hippies, but who knows, maybe they brought their right-leaning friends for a night of pretty music.

It just felt odd to me. I'm all for artistic license within a song, because the music is what we came for--but I think patter is such a great opportunity to delve under the music, and the artist. I don't think it's the time for superficial political jokes when, really, the whole world has kind of turned into a superficial political joke.