Passionate Kisses

The song opens with a jangly, sun-warmed guitar figure that feels like the musical equivalent of light through a dirty window — hopeful and a little worn at the same time. The production has that classic early-nineties roots-rock warmth, all organic instruments and real room sound, nothing synthetic or over-processed. Williams's voice is looser here than on some of her more anguished work, almost playful, though underneath the playfulness is real hunger. The lyric is deceptively simple and genuinely radical — a woman listing what she deserves from life and love and refusing to apologize for the wanting. It was written by Mary Chapin Carpenter but Williams made it fully her own, inhabiting its spirit so completely it's hard to hear anyone else perform it without comparing. The song sits in that lineage of feminist country and Americana that runs from Loretta Lynn through to Brandi Carlile — music that asserts female desire and dignity without making either into a tragedy or a manifesto. It's a song that makes you want to open a window. You reach for it when you're feeling undervalued, when you've been settling for less than you know you want, when you need something to remind you that wanting is not weakness. It has the rare quality of feeling like a personal anthem and a communal one simultaneously, specific enough to mean something real, open enough for anyone to walk inside.