Dar Williams: Well, it's autobiographical, but it didn't happen to me. I think it was inspired by a kid who died in a car accident in my high school, who was a real angel... He was high, it was a stolen car, he did wrap it around a tree. He was high a lot, I think, toward the end, and he was the type of guy in health class who you'd call a bad kid, and he clearly was not. And I always wondered if he thought or felt that he was a bad kid who would never go to Heaven... And, uh, I never smoked pot in high school, so I'm very free about the whole thing. I once said, "Mo' better kid to smoke a joint than go to the mall", and got in trouble with lots of teachers and stuff...(laughs) But he was kind of a loose kid, and he was really beloved as this kid who really loved other kids, and at his funeral service, this one friend of his said how he, this dead kid, said, "Do you ever get choked up when your dad says he loves you?" (Laughs) He turned out to be, like, a superangel! And that absolutely changed my life in how I trusted various forms of authority, after the kid who died... So that's to me that song...he's also a very funny kid.
Splendid: Oh, were some of the jokes his?
Dar Williams: No, although his brother came up to me and said, "You know you got his...there's something in that song where you knew him better than you realized. And, you know, he had a Biology Class beauty contest, and I got second place. That kind of thing.
Dar Williams: Well, it's autobiographical, but it didn't happen to me. I think it was inspired by a kid who died in a car accident in my high school, who was a real angel... He was high, it was a stolen car, he did wrap it around a tree. He was high a lot, I think, toward the end, and he was the type of guy in health class who you'd call a bad kid, and he clearly was not. And I always wondered if he thought or felt that he was a bad kid who would never go to Heaven... And, uh, I never smoked pot in high school, so I'm very free about the whole thing. I once said, "Mo' better kid to smoke a joint than go to the mall", and got in trouble with lots of teachers and stuff...(laughs) But he was kind of a loose kid, and he was really beloved as this kid who really loved other kids, and at his funeral service, this one friend of his said how he, this dead kid, said, "Do you ever get choked up when your dad says he loves you?" (Laughs) He turned out to be, like, a superangel! And that absolutely changed my life in how I trusted various forms of authority, after the kid who died... So that's to me that song...he's also a very funny kid.
Splendid: Oh, were some of the jokes his?
Dar Williams: No, although his brother came up to me and said, "You know you got his...there's something in that song where you knew him better than you realized. And, you know, he had a Biology Class beauty contest, and I got second place. That kind of thing.