Interview: Dara Starr Tucker Focuses on the Moment in Album TIME WOULDN'T WAIT

Vocalist, songwriter, and cultural commentator Dara Starr Tucker returns with her most emotionally resonant album to date: Time Wouldn’t Wait, a soul-stirring collection of original compositions and cinematic reimaginings that reflect on the passage of time, the beauty of impermanence, and the power of presence, to be released via Green Hill on August 15, 2025.

Tucker weaves a rich tapestry of sound and story in the new album, which features a dynamic blend of seven of Tucker’s original songs alongside deeply personal renditions of songs from classic and contemporary films. She reimagines “Pure Imagination” (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), the hauntingly beautiful “Twilight and Mist” (Legends of the Fall), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “I Have Dreamed” (The King and I), and showcases a stunning cover of Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” from Barbie. The album is compellingly listenable. (You can preview some of it on Apple Music here.)

Read a conversation with Tucker about the album below.

Time Wouldn't Wait explores impermanence and the power of presence. What makes those themes feel urgent or important to you right now?

We recorded this album about a week after the election. I’d spent the year pounding away online: videos on Project 2025, why the parties aren’t the same, what fascism is.  By the time the election came, I was depleted. Learning the outcome took even more away from me.  Recording this record became this little capsule that took me out of that time. For three days, I was in the studio with musicians, reconnecting to a creative vein I hadn’t tapped into in a while. It helped me to begin my healing and reckoning process, and I hope this can be a balm for someone else, too. 

You're very active on TikTok and social media, where it's very easy to get sucked into an endless scroll, but this album is very much about living in the moment and appreciating your time. How do you strive to strike a balance between that in your own life?

I do so much online work that I don't think there is much of a balance. I'm still working on it. I still find time to get around my new home city of Los Angeles a bit, and the fact that this album is out this summer is bringing me back into a healthy space within my music and creating and performing online and in person. 

Can you walk us through the inspiration behind one or two of the tracks on the album that you wrote?

It's fun to remember the origins of "Tall Georgia Pines." In 2018, I was still living in Nashville and my husband Greg and I were coming back from south Florida. We had plane tickets to return home, but I leaned over to him and said, "Don't hate me, but if we can afford to, let's get a car and drive back." It's an eleven-hour drive, and we had done the same thing two years before. The first time, something just didn't feel right about flying that day. I can't explain it. But, this time, I just felt like taking the long way home. Reluctantly my husband agreed, and although it was mid-January, the weather was clear the whole way back. So, about five hours into our trip, we were passing through central Georgia. Having spent a couple of weeks in Savannah the year before, I was in love with the scenery around there. Riding in the car, I got the melody and lyrics for "And these tall Georgia pines been holdin’ all my secrets/ It's been a long, lonely time since I've been down this way." That's all I had, but it kept popping up over the next year or so, and I finished the chorus. Finally, in 2020, my sister, Diamond Tucker, came to visit us for Thanksgiving when it was safe enough to travel just after the lockdown. We were living in the NYC area by then, and she helped me with the melody for both verses and the lyrics for the second verse. I knew I had something that felt special and I didn't want to mess it up. Diamond gave me just what I needed as a co-writer to finish it correctly. I didn't start performing the song in concert until 2022, and this album proved to be a good opportunity to record it. 

With songs ranging from The King and I to Barbie, this album is pretty eclectic. What went into shaping the track list, re-imagining these covers and blending them in with your original music?

As far as the covers go, I wanted to pick songs largely from films that weren't over done, but had melodies that felt familiar. The Great American Songbook is important to me, and I don't think it goes away after the early 1960's. That's why “Pure Imagination” and “What Was I Made For” are included. They belong there. Consequently, I wanted to include original songs of mine that have a cinematic quality to them. Someone online already said they did a double-take when they first heard my song, "Waiting For The Night." They mistakenly thought they recognized it from a movie they viewed, and that's ultimately a good sign. I hope that a few of these songs can find their way onto the screen or stage. I'll say that throughout this album, the lyrics in each of these songs speak to intentionality. Time moves. It does not wait. We have to keep that knowledge close at all times as we make our observations and subsequent decisions. 

Aside from crafting this album, what have you been working on and filling your time with lately?

I'm still raising my voice for what I think is right and sharing other's voices with whom I resonate. I have found this other life as a social media creator uplifting, and it can also be very trying and exhausting. I'm very thankful to have found more of a dedicated audience who appreciates me for what I have to say.  My rising online presence also has made a way for my entry to radio. I am the host of the morning news, public affairs, and arts show, Front Page, on KJLH 102.3 FM in Los Angeles and everywhere on kjlhradio.com. The station is owned by one of my favorite people, the great musician, humanitarian, and activist Stevie Wonder. He's long been a hero to me, and it's cool to be connected with a station whose owner is wholly dedicated to matters of justice and collective liberation.  Since my online audience grew so quickly from my commentaries, many people are still learning that I am a jazz and roots singer-songwriter, and it's exciting to turn them toward the music. We're going to be doing more of that as the record is now on jazz radio stations across the country, and we're gearing up for concerts this year and early next year in Nashville, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta. More dates are still being added. Stay in touch with us about it at any of our platforms online and at darastarrtucker.com

Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Yes! I absolutely love Broadway! Sometime in the next three years, I'm going to take a vacation and come to New York and just see all of the plays that I can over the course of a week. Before we left the east coast for Los Angeles, at the end of December 2024, I was so happy to have seen Audra McDonald in Gypsy! I think she's simply the best of our time. My godsister, Charity Dawson, has been on Broadway for many years and I've loved watching her rise. I think I'm able to live through her vicariously as I may have pursued that path in another life. I can't wait to get back to NYC with a clear schedule and tickets to the theater.