Ani DiFranco is an intelligent, passionate and skillful writer. She knows how to tell a story. She knows when a song needs to be lightened by a colloquialism, pun or dark joke. She knows how to make lines pretty and she knows how to make them gritty.
The she has to go and play guitar with this percussive, self-taught virtuosity. And then there's her voice, soft and cute but scored with the Brillo pad of vocal fry.
My song of the day is "As Is" off her 1998 album Little Plastic Castles.