As a confessional songwriter who's always been drawn to conflicting emotions and damaged psyches, Williams has found much to write about in these troubled times. When we spoke recently, at the height of Zoom cocktail parties, social distancing and COVID-19, the singer-songwriter was enduring a third week of staying home with her husband (and manager) Tom Overby. Like everyone else during this enforced pause, she was addicted to the news cycle and growing ever more restless and worried.
"Regimes around the world, this virus, I mean we just had a tornado come through Nashville and blow the roof off our front porch - it does feel like things are falling apart right now. It feels very biblical. You walk outside and there's a feeling of something much bigger than I am."
Unsure about what's next, and with redemption worryingly absent, Williams agrees that these days the divide between good and evil seems uncommonly stark. It's a subject she directly addresses in the menacing "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," near the center of Good Souls Better Angels. "The whole Satan thing, the devil has been in music for a long time. I've always loved Delta blues and Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads. And The Louvin Brothers had their album, Satan is Real. As I said to someone the other day, well, I guess maybe we just need locusts now. It feels very apocalyptic. And it's gotten more so since I finished those songs."
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