60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “If It Makes You Happy”—Sheryl Crow

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Rob is back to share the 10 worst songs he performed during his college open-mic-night phase, as he dives into Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy.” Later, Rob is joined by 'Baltimore Banner' columnist Leslie Gray Streeter to discuss Sheryl Crow’s career and the mistreatment of women music stars by the media (53:00). Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Leslie Gray Streeter Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Joanna Robinson. Join us every week on the Prestige TV podcast feed is your favorite ringer hosts like Bill Simmons, Van Lathen, Mallory Rubin, Sean Fentasy, Chris Ryan, Julia Lippman, and many more cover the latest episodes of your favorite TV obsessions. From boardrooms to throne rooms to courtside and through the mushroom apocalypse, we'll be here throughout the week breaking it all down. Subscribe to the Prestige TV podcast feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Look out!

Top 10 worst songs I attempted during my ill-advised. college open mic night phase in ascending order of badness. Here we go. Number 10. Drive by the cars. From their 1984 masterpiece, Heartbeat City, the cars were the first band I ever loved. Rest in peace, Benjamin, or, rest in peace, Rick O'Kasick. One time I played Drive and afterward this dude comes up to me and he's like, did you write that?

And I beamed with pride, as I told the guy, no. The guitar is a Takamini acoustic electric cutaway far nicer than I deserve. The guitar is aware of this, my unworthiness. The guitar remarks upon my unworthiness often to this day. The guitar is sitting at a corner of this office as I type this and also say this, a little dusty perhaps the guitar as it does. dustily remarks upon my poor life choices. The guitar is like, oh, no time to play me.

Too busy. Oh, you'd rather play Horizon Zero Dawn on your PlayStation 5. That's a great use of your time, you pons. Capo on the fourth fret for Drive. I did a pretty good job with Drive. I don't mind telling you. This is top 10 worst versions attempted by me, right? The actual original songs are all.

masterpieces pretty much. I should dust off the old guitar. Get out the capo and try to relearn drive. That would sincerely be a great use of my time. I'm going to do that. Right after I get to this new Zelda, number nine. Don't, don't let's start. This is the worst part to believe for all the Don't let's start by They Might Be Giants from their eponymous 1986 debut album. They Might Be Giants. The band I've loved the most, I suspect. Did you know MTV in 1999 did a countdown of the 100 greatest music videos ever made? And Michael Jackson's thriller was number one.

And Green Day's basket case was number 100. and give it away by the red hot chili peppers was number 36 and pour some sugar on me by death leopard was number 82 and don't let start by they might be giants was number 89 the don't let start video is not quite as good as the video for janet jackson's love will never do without you that's the 88th best video and it's just a little bit better than the video for letty cravitz's are you going to go my way that's the 90th best video i agree with all of that, except number one should have been Billy Jean. On this list, Billy Jean was the 35th best video ever. Just make Billy Jean number one and thriller number 35. Everything else is fine. I admire the audacity of me. Arranging Don't Let's Start for solo acoustic guitar, even if the result was a little frantic, let's say. Let's just say you're lucky. You never personally witnessed me frantically wailing, I don't want to live in this world no more. And you're sitting there at the front room, a coffee house on the bucolic campus of Ohio

University in Athens, Ohio, drinking your vanilla flavored ice coffee or whatever, and minding your own goddamn business. And now you're dealing with me. Up on stage, wailing, frantically and you're thinking I don't want to live in this world no more either. Number eight. Yeah, that happened. That happened frequently. Tonight, tonight by Smashing Pumpkins,

one of my specialties. Uh-huh. Hello, my name is Rob and I'm here to crucify the insincere. Number seven. Long after the thrill of living is gone. The thrill of living was gone, my friends. as I attempted

and also quite frantic version of John Cougar, Mellencamp's Jack and Diane. I think during the drum break, I attempted to use harmonics. Right? Like, booming, booming,

I was feeling myself at this point. And consequently, I fear that my take on Jack and Diane kind of sucked. It sucked on a chilly dog if you'll forgive the expression. Number six. I'm willing to wait.

My turn. Willing to Wait by Sebedo, from their lovely 1996 album, Harmacy, featuring various lovely songs that I used to terrorize various innocent ladies via various love lord mixtapes I compiled in this era. Ooh, Sebado, that's indie rock. Shout out, Lou Barlow. I respect the medium coolness of this song choice, but this is. strikes me as awfully morose in context. The context being Friday night on a college campus,

and I'm up there mulling about the various innocent ladies I don't deserve. And you're sitting there with your vanilla iced coffee like, this guy's going to be waiting a while. Number five, if you're listening to my voice right now and you're thinking to yourself, can this guy even hit Bono's high notes on U2's with or without you? Let me assure you that I cannot. And we haven't even gotten to the her part yet. Without you, it is. Number four.

Good gravy. You don't want me holding a note for that long. I'm clinging to that note like it's a chunk of the Titanic. The first time I ever used the internet, I used. I used the internet to print out the guitar tablature for Radiohead's Street Spirit fade out. And suffice it to say I have since used the internet for less noble purposes, but suffice it to also say that I did not exactly immerse myself in love here playing Street Spirit, which, as you might be aware, has a whole lot of notes, just a tremendous quantity. of guitar notes here to play frantically. Yikes, I don't think so.

Number three. They certainly do when I attempt everybody hurts by REM, another of my specialties. And usually it was fine. But as I believe I've mentioned, one time I played this whole song with my whole guitar out of tune. And then I spent the night in jail. It was Friday night. I spent the rest of the weekend in jail. Sometimes everything is wrong. Wrap it up, Rob. Number two. Oh my God. Number one. Let me tell you something about that guitar chord right there on every breath you take by the police. Right when he's singing every move you make, I do not care for that guitar cord on a

of the fact that I cannot play that chord as I find that chord to be too stretchy. It hurts my hand. My hand cannot stretch that far, apparently. My hands are quite large, I know, but they're not yours. They are my own. Nevertheless, I cannot play that fucking chord. I certainly can't play that fucking chord while trying to sing like sting. Also, I believe I attempted this song at Open Might Night only once. And I made it like 45 seconds. And then I gave up. I straight up bailed, dude.

I was just like, oh, fucking sorry. And then I played tonight tonight again. You want to know what else? You know what else? I was on a date at the time. I took a girl on a date to see me play at Open Mind. I am whispering because I don't actually want you to know this. I made this poor girl sit there and watch me botch fucking every breath you take on a date.

Obviously, this was my idea. Obviously, there would not be a second day. Holy shit, that is mortifying. Oh, it's sorry. Some technical difficulties there. I'm sorry if you couldn't hear me say the last several things I said. That's too bad. More successfully.

For a brief but lovely and enriching time, I played some open mic nights with a buddy of my name Carly. Carly lived in my dorm. She played soccer. She asked me to play James Taylor's Carolina in my mind so she could sing it. And so I did. And all her soccer teammates came to Open Mike Night to watch her sing it. And she did awesome.

And so we had a modest little open mic night thing for a while, me and Carly. And Carly asked me to learn a bunch more songs she wanted to sing. And most of these songs I was not familiar with. And that, for me, was the enriching part. I am walking out in the rain and I am listening to the low moan of the dial tone again. Both hands by Annie DeFranco from her eponymous 1990 debut album. Just a tremendously pleasing, almost soothing song to play on guitar. Both hands.

Something about the frantic but composed, clipped nature of it, the split seconds of silence. And the way every word in the phrase can't get. through gets its own less soothing chord. And I am getting nowhere with you, and I can't let it go, and I can't get through. It's a pretty rad song, man. So Carly gets me into Ani DiFranco, right? And Carly would sure like to sing other Ani DeFranco songs, but quickly Carly discovers

that the vast majority of Ani's catalog is beyond my modest grasp, guitar-wise, on account of the stretchiness and percussiveness and fanciness. One time Carly sits me down with an Ani live album and she's like, can you learn this song Gravel? I heard the sound of your bike

as your wheels hit the gravel and then your engine and the driveway cutting off. And I heard even that much like the first 40 seconds and I was just like, I doubt it. That sounds pretty fancy. but we may do

Carly and I. She really wanted to do something by the Indigo Girls. I don't have a conscious memory of actually doing an Indigo Girl song, but we had to have, I think.

We must have. You know what we did? This was my idea. We did the solo Susanna Hoff's version of Eternal Flame by the Bengals. If anybody immersed themselves

in love during my open mic night era, it was Carly and it was here. That's Susanna a hoffs at the first Lilith Fair in 1997. Carly and I played together a dozen times, maybe, maybe less. Just a chill little open might night situation. Didn't last long enough where we developed any kind of following or repertoire or signature song or anything. But to the extent that we did

have a signature song, I know what it was. And what a tremendously pleasing and soothing and melodically deft and subtly percussive little riff this is, right? It has a hypnotic quality. You could live happily in that loop forever. But you wouldn't be totally 100% happy. And that's central to the hypnosis of it, right? The dulcid anxiety of it. The chill, unchillness, the uncertainty. Not Cheryl Crow's uncertainty about herself.

Cheryl Crow's uncertainty about you, man. And I think her strength in the face of your weakness is implied somehow before she sings anything. And then immediately confirmed once she starts singing. God, I feel like hell tonight. Tears of rage I cannot buy. Tears of rage, which is the title of this song written by Bob Dylan and the band, a connection I am just now making. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, this song, of course, is called Strong Enough, and it is, of course, a statement about Cheryl, barely disguised as a question about you. enough to be my man. Whatever Carly would sing that last line at Open Might Night, all her soccer teammates sitting in the crowd would crack up. It was a fun little moment. Strong enough appears, of course, on Cheryl Crow's debut

album, Tuesday Night Music Club, released in 1993 and eventually selling some 7 million copies. In the United States alone, on the strengths of its myriad rad hit singles, including leaving Las Vegas, all I want to do can't cry anymore, and

no, yeah, strong enough is the one. Right? Right. Very soothing and pleasing playing the song and guitar. And when you finally leave that hypnotic little loop and you get to hit the bridge a little more forcefully. And then you pull back again for this little part near the end, this part with a delicacy that is entirely yours, or at least it was mine. One way to put it is that strong enough is a song about how I wasn't a good enough guitar player to play any other Ani DeFranco songs with my friend Carly. I'm not saying that's the most. popular interpretation historically, but that's my interpretation. I can still hear Carly singing just the words, my man, sitting to my left on stage at the front room, and I'm very glad I can still hear her singing that. We're Facebook friends now.

Cheryl Crowe and Tuesday Night Music Club and Tuesday Night Music Club's myriad rad hit singles are synonymous for me with VH1. the music video channel, VH1, which in 1993, as a not terribly perceptive or enlightened or for that matter, strong 15-year-old. VH-1 for me at the time, I thought VH1 was just MTV for moms, Bonnie Rae instead of Metallica, Cheryl Crow instead of Nirvana. Let me reiterate that this was not one of my more enlightened 15-year-old opinions, but we don't have time to list all my enlightened 15-year-old opinions, which are numerous. Yeah?

Strong enough is, unfortunately, for me, not the song that convinced me of the fearsome strength of Cheryl Crow. No, it was this one. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 94th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we are discussing if it makes you happy. By Cheryl Crow from her eponymous, album released in 1996. I remember hearing this song for the first time when I caught the video on MTV.

Thank you very much. I remember, and I mean this, I remember my absolute shock the first time I heard Cheryl rip into this chorus. I never even considered playing the song with Carly because no way was I strong enough to even sit next to somebody singing this hard. All right, indulge me real quick, would you? starting now. Indulge me in a way that's a little more on topic. Let me suggest to you indulgently that the first 10 seconds, respectively, of the first three Cheryl Crow records constitute the greatest three-album run of an album's opening 10 seconds in rock and roll history. Does that makes sense? I couldn't find a less confusing way to put that. Cheryl knows how to kick off a fucking album is my point. So Tuesday Night Music Club or Bonkers, Blockbuster,

1993 debut starts with a song called Run Baby Run, which starts like this. She was born in November, 1963, the day Alice Huxley died. What a bizarre and entrancing opening line for a song. You know who else died the day Aldous Huxley died? C.S. Lewis. You know who else died the day Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis died? John F. Kennedy, just a baffling and tremendous opening line for a song. The first 10 words Cheryl Crow sings in her recorded solo career, the ninth and tenth words are Aldous Huxley.

I reread Brave New World. Aldous Huxley's 1932 science fiction novel of Immortal Summer Reading List Renown. I reread Brave New World recently because I am pretentious, and I also finally read Stranger in a Strangeland, Robert A. Einlein's 1961 science fiction novel. And my observation would be that a lot of classic science fiction is just dudes who want to write about medium

weird sex stuff, but they write it as science fiction just for plausible deniability. Now, that's indulgent. Excuse me. Cheryl Crow's second album, entitled Cheryl Crow, and released in 1996, starts with a song called Maybe Angels, which starts

like this. I remember, I remember, and I mean this, I remember my absolute shock when I first heard this. My buddy Jeremy made me borrow the CD. He goes, Cheryl Crow. And I go Cheryl Crow. And he goes Cheryl Crow. And I'm like, all right. And so I borrow this CD. And I play it for the first time. And I hear those first 10, 15 seconds of maybe angels for the first time, the noisy surliness of that opening, the industrial blues, the unsheral croness of that opening. And my quite limited. limited perception in that moment of what Cheryl Crow was capable of. I think Cheryl Crow might have sensed that I underestimated her. I think Cheryl might have heard me tell somebody that VH1 was MTV for mobs. I think Cheryl maybe got a little pissed about that. Justifiably, I deserve it. Cheryl Crow's third album called The Globe Sessions comes out in 1998 and starts with a big

hit called My Favorite Mistake, which starts like this. I love everything happening here. I love the messy live wire studio clatter of this riff starting up. I love the physical clapping sound of the riff itself. I love how she sings ooh-oo and an organ immediately answers her. I love how stoned and grouchy and chill and radiantly unchill it all sounds. She knows how to make an entrance. I would put the first 15 seconds of Cheryl Crow's first three albums up against the first 15 seconds of anyone else's first

three albums. There, that made a little more sense. How hard was that? All right, Cheryl Crow was born in February, 1962, the day jazz saxophonist Leo Parker died. That's all I got. She was born in Kennet, Missouri in the southeastern corner in the boot heel of Missouri, near other modest towns and small communities with names like Frisbee, Cooter, Bragadoccio, Bragg City, 2 G's, Europa, Austin, and Hollywood. This is a part of Missouri, often at great pains to trick you into believing you're not actually in Missouri. She had a reasonably idyllic childhood. Cheryl, as rock stars go, supportive and supermusical parents. Her parents were in a swing band together. In high school, she was a cheerleader and a baton twirler. Cheryl demonstrated the baton twirling on the today's show once.

It's very charming. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1984 with a diggerald in music education. Mizzu named a choral hall after her in 2022. She taught fourth grade and sang in various bar bands and got engaged to a born-again Christian singer dude who told her, quote,

if you're not singing for the Lord, we can't be together, end quote. They ain't together. She decides to go for it. She moves out to Los Angeles, the one in California. She makes $42,000 singing a McDonald's jingle. She hawks a demo tape around town

to no particular avail. Then she bluffs her way into a gig singing backing vocals for Michael Jackson. And voila, Cheryl Crow, the former fourth grade teacher from Kennet, Missouri, is on stage at Wembley Stadium, the one in London, in a giant wig,

singing, I just can't stop loving you with the king of pop. God bless. This is one of those deals where if you have even a casual interest in Cheryl Crow, you likely are aware that she got her big break

singing backup vocals for Michael Jackson. But even when you're on YouTube or whatever, and you're looking right at her and looking right at him and looking right at him touching her flirtatiously to the rapturous cheers of the crowd at Wembley Stadium

as they sing the quite famous Michael Jackson song, you can clearly hear them singing together. Even then, some small, stubborn compartment. of your brain refuses to fully process this information. Or maybe that's just me. My buddy Mike was complaining to me once about people who misuse the word surreal, people who abuse the word surreal and overuse it to mean anything that's like slightly weird.

And Mike's like, you can't just, surreal has to be something that's technically possible, but it's never going to actually happen. Like, I want to go swimming, so I go to the pool. And there's a horse in the swimming pool. What's a horse doing in the swimming pool? That is surreal. Cheryl Crow, singing a duet with Michael Jackson, is the horse in the swimming pool. It's her.

No one is saying it's not her. Her wig is voluminous and like super 80s, but it's not necessarily necessary, given what will soon be the quite famous voluminousness of Cheryl Crow's real hair. It trips me out. man, Cheryl got a lot of unwanted tabloid attention of the Michael Jackson's secret lover variety and that tripped her out. After that she sang backup for Don Henley. See, that's not surreal at all. That makes all kinds of sense.

According to MTV in 1999, Boys of Summer by Don Henley was the 67th best music video made at that point. And the 66th best video was you got to fight for your right to party by the Beastie Boys. That's funny. Don't look back. You can never look back. Time for a solo career. Cheryl connects with a big shot producer named Hugh Paddam, who's worked with Phil Collins,

Paul McCartney, The Police, Sting solo, blah, blah, blah. And in the early 90s, Hugh and Cheryl cut an entire Cheryl Crowe's solo album that never comes out. The label scraps this.

Too glossy, too produced, two 80s, to sting. Too much, it must have been love. and not enough black velvet, you know? That whole record's on YouTube as well, but it's more like a baby Ruth in the swimming pool,

if you'll forgive the expression. By now, Cheryl is dating a gentleman named Kevin Gilbert, and she's playing keyboards in an L.A. rock band, Kevin's got going called Toy Matinee. And Kevin also introduces her to the Tuesday Night Music Club, a hard drinking, acid dropping, shit-talking, occasional songwriting, actual Tuesday night meeting gang of multi-instrumentalist doodly bros, including David Bearwall,

David Ricketts, Dan Schwartz, Brian McLeod, and ringleader producer Bill Betrell, who were all dude broing the Tuesday night away in a local studio called Toad Hall. And these fellas welcome Cheryl into the fold on the third Tuesday, because, as Bill will later explain to Rolling Stone, given, quote, the increasingly macho atmosphere that was developing in the room, it would be nice to have some female energy around that wasn't so blockheaded, end quote. Bill explains this in a 1996 Cheryl Crow Rolling Stone cover story where he says some much ruder things. On account of the fact that by then, this whole Tuesday night situation has blown the fuck up.

But yeah, anyway, Cheryl and the blockhead start writing some songs. Ooh, here's one. Another widely available, but still hard to process Cheryl Crow fact is that the lyrics to all I want to do are a poem she found, a poem called Fun, written by a gentleman named Win Cooper, who was, as you can imagine, ultimately pretty psyched about this development. The lyrics to all I want to do are the poem like near verbatim. It's remarkable. This is a more impressive feat to me than writing your own lyrics. It's remarkable how few alterations Cheryl makes to the words here, as she transforms a random guy's poem into a top five hit song. Even the part about it being Tuesday was already there. See, now this part

is starting to trip me out also. Even though there's no way it happened this way, I'm still picturing unfamous Cheryl Crow in a bookstore reading this poem and then this super famous Cheryl Crow song just appears in a thought bubble over her head. It definitely didn't happen that way because this song is not just her thought bubble, which is why the whole Tuesday night situation. is going to blow the fuck up, but nonetheless. This part's verbatim too. The only difference is that these lines are not the last lines of the poem. What Cheryl Crowe in her briefly married band of blockheads realize.

And this realization will help win all I want to do the 1995 Grammy for record of the year is that these should be the last lines of the song. And then you just hammer at the chorus again. Perfect song. All I want to do is the song that finally breaks Cheryl Crow, the song that makes her famous. It is not, however, the first single released off Tuesday Night Music Club. It is in fact the fourth single. And ooh, this is a fun game. I love this game. Let's play the botched album rollout game. The record label looked at Tuesday Night Music Club and said, which of these songs is going to get 7 million people to buy this record? And their first guess, the first single was Run Baby Run, aka the Aldous Huxley song. Great chorus, great song, great album opener, great opening line, as we've discussed. Not a great first radio single relative to, you know, six other possible songs on this record. And the botched album rollout is on.

Run Baby Run doesn't do so hot as a first single. So the label tries again. The label asks itself. What's the second best? song on Tuesday Night Music Club. And here's what they came up with. The label goes with a slinky and confrontational

tune called What I Can Do For You, which sounds like Maximum Don Henley to me actually, the insinuatingly sleazy character study. And Cheryl Crowe sings the hell out of it, the way she sings the hell out of everything, and she is singing

about sexual harassment and predatory assholes in positions of power. Predatory assesles and positions of power in the music industry, for example. And it is impressive how little ambiguity there is about what or really who Cheryl is singing about and how sleazy this guy is who she's portraying, but also how dopey this guy is, too. How inarticulate, how limp, how weak. Dig the line delivery here.

Makes me feel like, I don't know. I love, gosh, that's nice. Just the luminous trail of slime left behind by gosh, that's nice. It is a monumental achievement. How deliberately squirmy and unbearable what I can do for you is. And actually, I'm getting into the monumental, omnidirectional fuck you of making this the second single.

They should have given this on the Grammy for Fuck You of the Year. When you put on Tuesday Night Music Club now, it's divided almost exactly in half, right? Between songs you've heard 10 billion times and songs you haven't heard 10 billion times unless you've listened to the whole record 10 billion times. I still believe is the last song. It's not a huge hit song, but it's a hit song to me. So it counts. And it's a little funny to me that the first few attempted singles off this record do not come from the super famous and ubiquitous half of this record. But the more important takeaway here is how hard, how lyrically hard the unfamous half of this record goes. You get to a song called the Nana song, which is a full song, but feels like a skit, like a goof,

because it's basically just Cheryl Crow rapping for three minutes. And maybe your tendency, listening to the whole album, is to view the Nana song as a throwaway, as a breather, as a respite, as an odd and modest and merely functional bridge to the various super famous songs that surround it. But then you focus on what Cheryl's rapping, and you suddenly realize that she's rapping, Eat Sleep, Live, Die, Fucking Record Label, and then calling out three prominent men all in like 10 seconds. The three prominent men being G. Gordon, Liddy, Clarence Thomas, and Frank DeLeo.

Frank DeLeo's dong. if I'm not mistaken, Frank DeLeo is Michael Jackson's manager. Cheryl has spoken at length and quite recently about being sexually harassed by Frank DeLeo while she was on tour with Michael Jackson. She says Frank promised to make her a star. Maybe if I'd Letta might have had a hit song.

After this record came out, Frank threatened to sue, but did not. And what you really got to worry about on Tuesday night music club, if you're a clueless, predatory, gosh, that's nice type, is what might happen if Cheryl Crow ever goes that hard on an actual hit song.

Meanwhile, the record's third single is leaving Las Vegas. Here we go. And here at last is Cheryl Crow's first hit song. And here also is the song where the Tuesday Night Music Club, as a club, as a group of friends and collaborators, will collapse. Or it's a song that hastens, or at least epitomizes, that collapse. chronologically, leaving Las Vegas is a novel first, then a hit song, then an Oscar-winning movie. A guy named John O'Brien publishes his novel, Leaving Las Vegas in 1990.

John gets to be good friends. Drinking buddies, Rolling Stone specifies, with David Barewald of the Tuesday Night Music Club. David starts writing a song on acid, Rolling Stone specifies, called Leaving Las Vegas. And he brings it to the whole gang. Like pretty much every song on Tuesday Night Music Club, the album, Leaving Las Vegas, the song is officially credited to the whole gang, David, the other David, Kevin, Bill, Brian, and Cheryl. But it's Cheryl who sings the hell out of it.

And Cheryl, who finally has a big hit with it. And Cheryl, who sings the hell out of her hit song on what is now finally her hit debut album on David Letterman. And then Letterman calls her over to the couch and they chat. And Litterman asks Cheryl if leaving Las Vegas, the song is autobiographical and she says yes and everyone else who helped write the song is mega pissed and that's understandable they're being pissed what i dig about this record is that it's so collaborative and combative and combustible and fueled by a doomed sense of camaraderie

but there's no denying who the star of this record is for reasons to go far beyond the fact that Cheryl crow's name and her face is on the album cover there's no denying that what may leaving Las Vegas, a hit song, is the fact that Cheryl Crow sings the hell out of it. And singing the hell out of it doesn't necessarily mean belting, wailing, showing off. Cheryl Crow sings conversationally. She conveys personality. She conveys a sense of character. She makes this song sound autobiographical, even though it isn't, because that's what great singers do.

That's what rock stars, pop stars, country stars do. That part ain't her fault. It ain't her fault she can wail like this. I don't think I'd ever fully registered. What a fantastic line that is. I'm standing in the middle of the desert waiting for my ship to come in. That's a fantastic line. I don't know which one of the six credited songwriters wrote that line,

but I sure as hell know which one of them sang it. John O'Brien, the author, of leaving Las Vegas, the novel, died by suicide in April of 1994, just a few weeks after the Letterman fiasco. And also just a few weeks after signing away the rights to have his novel turn into a movie that would win Nicholas Cage and Oscar a couple years later. And after John's death, in the press, among some members of the Tuesday Night Music Club, there was a great deal of bitchiness and insinuation and recrimination. And Cheryl found herself never quite explicitly blamed for what happened. But nonetheless, in that 1996 Rolling Stone cover story,

John O'Brien's family, his father, feels compelled to absolve her. That is the word the magazine uses. Quote, O'Brien's family, however, absolves her, end quote. And that's an inconceivably awful thing, that the family felt the need to absolve her, and that it makes sense that the family would feel the need to absolve her. her. Kevin Gilbert, her ex-boyfriend and ex-collaborator, also died in an accident in 1996. Cheryl Crow's a rock star now at a terrible, at an infuriating cost. And throughout her debut album, you hear every phase. The singer who's not famous yet, and the singer who is, and the singer who's thrilled about it all, and the singer who's increasingly furious about it all. Can't Cry anymore.

That line on Can't Cry anymore is my favorite line delivery on the whole album, The Exasperation. Well, trying to make another album. Uh-oh. There sure as hell ain't no club no more, but Cheryl co-writes a few new songs with Bill Betrell, and they head down to New Orleans to record Cheryl Crow album number two with Bill slated to produce.

But then, in Rolling Stone, Bill says, the second day we had a fight out on the side street with great hollering going on. It was a fabulous scene. Then I left, end quote. Adios to Bill. Turns out Cheryl Crow will be producing the second Cheryl Crow record, and Cheryl will be playing the vast majority of the instruments on the second Cheryl Crow record, which will be called Cheryl Crow and will radiate a glorious exasperation

even on the super catchy hit songs. That super catchy hit song is called A Change Would Do You Good. We got fewer collaborators on this record and way less grumpy collaborators, I think. We got a guitar player and songwriter named Jeff Trott, just a delightfully mustached and fancy-hatted gentleman who will be a trusted Cheryl Crow collaborator for the next few decades. We got an engineer named Trina Shoemaker. Yo, there's a Cheryl Crowe documentary on Showtime just called Cheryl, directed by Amy Scott. It came out in 2022.

It's a lovely documentary. And that'll give you the whole career span, the full Cheryl Crow experience, as both an artist and a celebrity, the Lance Armstrong of it all, a little further down the line. But you need to watch this movie, Cheryl, if for no other reason than to meet Trina Shoemaker, the engineer. For me, I have an unusual love of the equipment, almost indecent. It's the constant in my life. I go to the gear for comfort. It replaced, in many cases, personal relationships. I would like to watch a full showtime documentary about Trina now. That's what I want.

Trina wins a Grammy for engineering Cheryl Crow's third record, The Globe Sessions, in 1998. Trina talks about wanting to punch people in the face to protect Cheryl. I like Trina very much. I would pay like $500 to recreate the moment when this song Trina engineered first punched me in the face. Have we talked about the album cover yet? The self-titled Cheryl Crow album cover features her face, but not her name. She is glowering. She is exasperated.

She is shrouded in physical and emotional darkness. She's had it with your shit. I don't want to oversell this and badassify it, but it is a genuinely striking album cover that still somehow did not prepare me for the furious grandeur of this genuinely striking hit song. There's me watching MTV, and if it makes you happy, video comes on,

and I'm like, all right, and I got no idea what's coming. They've on Missis. Thirstie again. Cheryl Crowe talking to Rolling Stone about this record in 1996. She says, We had a day of press in Europe, and I had two guys come in and say,

Your cover, you look so sad. Are you sad? Well, doctor, it's actually a photo. I don't feel like the same person. I don't feel like that accessible girl in the jeans shirt with a dog. And, hey, come sit down. I'll tell you everything. I don't feel like that person anymore.

I do feel like having a certain amount of space between me and the world around me. I had given it all away, and now I'm trying to get some of it back. End quote. I got no idea it's coming. She goes thrift shopping. She finds Geronimo's rifle, Maryland shampoo, and Benny Goodman's corset and pen. On first contact, I got no idea what sentiment is being conveyed to me here. And I kind of still don't, other than she's finding pieces of famous people at a time when she's famous herself and she's trying to regather the pieces of her that she's already lost.

Pre-chorus. I'm 18 in 1996. I'm in college. I'm sophisticated. I'm on the cusp of my open mic night era, if you want the truth. And I've heard like 200,000 alternative rock songs at this point with real quiet verses that unsurprisingly, that unsurprisingly, you know, explode into super loud choruses. And the spiritual arrangement I've made with all these alternative rock bands is that I've agreed to act surprised when the real quiet verse explodes into a super loud chorus. And I act surprised so effectively that every so often I am actually surprised when the super loud chorus arrives. Lie to me. I promise I'll believe, but that ain't what happens here. There is no acting surprised that leads to you. That to real surprise here.

At the risk of badassifying this moment, no, this shit is me just getting straight up punched in the face. This is me getting punched in the face specifically by the way Cheryl Crow's voice breaks, just a little on the word happy. Every clever and snarky thing I'm tempted to say or even think about this chorus as a clever 18-year-old, I decide not to even think it. when her voice breaks on the word happy. It does not matter to me at that point,

that the chorus rhymes bad with sad. It does not matter to me that, if I've counted right, this now makes it 200,0001 songs that I've heard that go from real quiet to super loud. This isn't a math issue, or an expectation issue, or a clever rhyming issue. This is the thrill returning long after the thrill of living was gone. And the connection I'm only now making is to zombie by the cranberries, right, from 1994,

when I'm 16 and even less enlightened and I'm listening to the radio. And the radio is like, here's a new one from the cranberries. And I go, oh, this will be nice. And then zombie goes, and I do the back to the future, giant guitar amp opening scene thing, where I get physically blown into the back wall. In my experience, you reach a point. As a wizened to the point of jaded alt-rock and teenager, where the only way you can be truly surprised,

truly overwhelmed, truly delighted is when you're betrayed by your own dipshit teenage biases and you severely underestimate whoever you're listening to, often, regrettably, along women-in-rock-type lines. How hard can Cheryl Crow rock really? How super-loud can the chorus of a Cheryl Crow song get, really? even Cheryl in that Showtime documentary introducing my new best friend Trina the engineer. Cheryl says she wasn't just good for a girl. She was just good. End quote. You are not strong enough for Trina to be your engineer. And therein lies the paradox of if it makes you happy. If I'd been a little more open minded back then, I probably wouldn't remember now how electrified I was the first time I heard this song back then. Finally, being a team. age blockhead pays off. Can I give you one more killer Cheryl Crow opening line?

Just a song opener, not an album opener, and technically it's half a line. But this is the shit right here. This is the second to last song on the self-titled Cheryl Crow record, and it's called The Book. And she starts it like this. And this is one of these deals for the rest of the song, the remaining four minutes of the song. The book is a phenomenal song, stern and smoldering and exasperated. And to my ears, she's playing the ghostly menacing keyboard

that radiohead will steal from her to make OK computer a year later. This is a great song, and yet I almost wish the rest of the song didn't exist because I love, I read your book, and I find it strange so much. The hard K of book,

the somehow equally hard G of strange. This song is a little too gothy and chilly for it to be a quiet verse, loud chorus situation, but it's electrifying nonetheless, and it's so lyrically and musically and emotionally hard. This song also should have won the Grammy for Fuck You of the Year. My solemn promised to you is that I will love this song, the book, forever. And out of my love for and respect for, and also quite frankly fear of it, my other solemn promise. is that I will never even think about trying to sing it myself. Oh, thank goodness.

Today, once again, we're joined by our friend Leslie Gray Streeter, columnist for the Baltimore banner and the author of the memoir Black Widow. Leslie, it's great to talk to you again. It is always great to talk to you. I'm very excited about this particular topic. Finally, you get excited about something. We've been waiting. We're tired.

We need more energy from you, Leslie. So I'm very thrilled to hear that. Tell me about your own personal Cheryl Crow journey, Leslie. Where does it start for you? When does Cheryl first speak to you? And like, what is she saying to you? Well, it's interesting. I've realized that my journey started earlier than I thought because I recognized her later

when she was famous as the big-haired lady from the Michael Jackson tour video videos. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's her. Big old 80s hair. But very large hair, yes. Very large hair. I first heard her when around 1994, when Tuesday night. Music Club came out and I was living in Miami. It was right before I moved to Pennsylvania.

And I just, my basic memories are of listening to the album either over the Bally Total Fitness speakers in the locker room or in my, I think that would have been like a disc man at that point. God who knows. Or, and I know I was reading a Rolling Stone story about it, but I feel like that very young adult, you know, first job. So living with my parents, the first newspaper job, kind of figuring out who I wanted to be and what was going on. And her voice literally spoke to me because I was a pretty well-adjusted kid.

I liked my parents. I had a fairly okay job right out of school. Everyone has angstiness. And mine was mostly about relationships and not being as cute as being cuter than I knew I was. All that breeds a lot of self-doubt in stupidity. But so I loved people like Shell Crow or Alana's Marcette or Lauren Hill people who, young women specifically who were speaking about things about being a young woman. I liked Nirvana. I loved counting crows. I loved the gym blossoms. But their stories did not speak to me because they were like knucklehead boy stories or really sad boy stories. And I was not a sad boy. And I loved them.

really a sad girl either. I just, I was mostly sad when I got rejected by an idiot and I would look back and go, that was a good one, you dodged a bullet. But Cheryl Crow's voice, her physical voice and her voice as a singer and as a songwriter spoke to me because it was, it was earnest. So many of the, like Crowded House, which is my favorite band and Neil Finn is my favorite songwriter, a lot of Cheryl's stuff that both she wrote and co-wrote and covered even was about vulnerability. It was about, you know, not sort of trying to figure out where it is you're supposed to be and knowing you're not there yet and trying to kind of figure out, do you get there, are you ever going to get there? And how do you feel about that? And that just, that's exactly

where I was in my early 20s. So in some ways, at 52 occasionally I get that way, not mostly, but that speaks to me. I think you've written before that what drew you to Cheryl and Lauren and Sean Colvin and Alanis was they were vulnerable women with guitars. Like did you hear a vulnerability in Cheryl or did you hear like a strength through the vulnerability? You know what I mean? I kind of think vulnerability is strength. I think that being honest, I think there's a certain kind of bravado, which is sometimes like the fake it until you make it that I hear in songs like leaving Las Vegas where she's super weary and super tired, but she's at least resolved to do this one thing or in the

the Cheryl Crow album a lot more of the songs I think were kind of like she was writing to a formula and I think that all of those songs that not necessarily feel authentic to me. They're like, here I go again being this like the line from if it makes you happy, the scrape the toast, the mold off the bread. It's like, okay, here we go. It seems to like and here I am again being this tough crazy girl

in a weird trailer park. It's like you're rich now. You're not doing that. You know, I mean, although I understand that she's singing characters, like leaving Las Vegas, she's singing a character. But for some reason, if it makes you happy, I think she was doing this like deliberate atonality and her voice. And I just never super loved that song, which is funny because I love her. But that song, it was kind of like, I don't know. It just seemed like she was like saying, remember this person I was.

that, you know, you bought all this records. Let me try to do this again in this record. I did understand that why, if it makes you happy, well, you're so sad part, because once again, it's relationship stuff. But there were so many other songs that I love, like, my favorite mistake. Oh, yeah.

Is my absolute favorite Cheryl Crow song. Once again, because, well, there's a couple of them, but I loved the kind of almost winking acknowledgement because it's not like, you're such a terrible person. It's like, you're terrible, but I keep putting up with you. Right. You're terrible. And here comes your, you know, here comes your secret lover, you know, and your friends.

The line, your friends are sorry for me. They watch you pretend to adore me. I'm like, why are you attacking me, Cheryl? It's tough. That's an attack on all of us, yes. On all of us. And I think that, like, there, I read something once and said, you shouldn't have a favorite mistake. It's like, but you do, you know, not like favorite, like I like it, but like, you know,

the thing that you think about. And sometimes it's a, it's a challenge to yourself to not do that. It's a learning experience to have made that mistake. Also, it's just really fun to sing. Sure, it is. I think you're the first person who's ever said they don't like if it makes you happy. And I'm trying to unpack this because like that record, the Cheryl Crow, the second record is her dealing with fame record. And I can see if it makes you happy is like she's, as you say, she's trying to project herself back to who she used to be, you know, and how broke. she used to be, and it just doesn't come off for you because she is very obviously, well, maybe she's broke. I mean, the way record company payments work, like she said, it took her forever to get the money,

obviously. But I see that not working for you, that guy is now. Yeah. It just always felt like every single line was about how cool and funky and the thrift store thing. All of it was just so, like, ever, it's like, okay, we get it. you're the cool, wacky chick who's got weird eyeline or you're the, you know, the crazy pixie girl. I just, I don't know.

It never rang true to me. And maybe it's because I was, I was never the, you know, scrape the mold of the bread person except for my grandmother who was raised in the Depression. If there was like a block of cheese and there was mold at the end, she would go, the other side of the cheese doesn't know that's mold. It cut it off. So, but that was more of a necessity thing being, you know, being raised by a person. And not because it seemed like.

all these things make me cool. I drop in a thrift door and I'm scraping the mold off the way. It's just like, ugh. It's so funny. I saw the look on your face where you were like, what? But yeah, I love every other song ever. Just not that one. Sure, sure.

You wrote a great piece just recently about Tina Turner, about how after her death, that shitty old 60 Minutes clip went viral of Mike Wallace interviewing Tina in her French mansion and Mike goes, do you think you deserve all this? Like, there's a lot about that moment very specific to Tina Turner, of course.

But I do think that the female pop star disrespected by the bonehead male journalist is like a universal condition. Like, what's your sense of Cheryl Crow's relationship with, you know, the media? Well, the media, it's interesting because when Tuesday Night Music Club comes out, there is immediately a backlash against her from some corners. And once again, who knows the real story? She's had some explanations. but whether or not she was really kind of the designer of her fame, whether she wrote things. I guess there was an incident.

You know, she was on Letterman, and they said, is leaving Las Vegas autobiographical. Obviously it is not. And she said it was, and then she corrected course. And people go, see that she's trying to steal credit. Like, no, she's trying to steal credit. She would have gone with the story. I don't know if it was nerves or if she was trying to say that she identified with some of it

or with the idea of, like, being stuck where you are and trying to get out. But I always assume that when men like Mike Wallace or other people try to assume that women don't deserve or they even question it, there's always a sense of, you know, people being people sphingali or people, clearly Tina Turner had Ike who believed that he made her. And when she literally left her marriage, like I said in that story with like 36 cents and a gas car in her pocket. And, you know, so literally every brick of that place she paid for. Whether or not Cheryl Crow was not super honest in 1994 about everything other people did for her. And she gave interviews about what the Tuesday Night Music Club was and who these people were. The album is called that. You know, she just said she was nervous.

She just said she was overwhelmed by Letterman and she misspoke. It was not a deliberate. attempt to steal credit, she has always said. And I believe that. That's how I feel. And I believe that. But of course, because she was new and pretty and female and famous, there is a rush to assume that she is wrong. Just like the people who go, Courtney Love, kill Kurt. It's like you have no evidence of this. You're just making stuff up because it feels like it might be true. And because you don't want to cede a woman any power or autonomy in her career. And that's how I felt about Cheryl Crow. And also, she had like four, every one of her

three albums after that was a huge hit. And she wrote most of those things. So she did a couple covers and stuff, but most of the things, she became Cheryl Crow. She became writ large. And so anyone deciding that she, just like Tina Turner, started as Tina Turner,

she was given this name, and she succeeded as Tina Turner in her wildest dreams. Cheryl Crow did the same thing and no one else gets to claim credit for that because what she did with it was astounding. Absolutely. You brought up a fantastic point to me, which is this thing going on right now at Taylor Swift and her new knucklehead boyfriend, the dude from the 1975. The way Taylor is taking shit now for stupid things that her boyfriend says and does, there's a direct parallel to Cheryl Crow back when she was with Lance Armstrong, even her brief thing with Eric Clapton. What makes female pop stars in particular responsible for every stupid thing their boyfriends or fiancés do? Because they don't, we're still, and I'm like, because we still, women still are judged as the appendage, the mistake, or the triumph of a man.

And what those men do, we are part of their personality, and we are judged by that. And so if a woman deigns to have autonomy, Danes to have her own fame, they will go the other way. Most of the time, if a woman, if a man date someone who turns out to be terrible, and they break up, they go, good for you, dude. They're not stained for it for the rest of their lives. You mean, Taylor Swift, you know, having dick, yeah. Does he seem like a great dude?

No. After you date it like four or five knuckleheads, particularly like John Mayer with my penis is racist. And like this guy, do you maybe have to wonder about her chooser, her picker? But you know what? That's not my business. That's not my business. And the big story in this is that those two dudes are bad people or have done things that would suggest that perhaps they're not the most discerning people in the world.

The same thing with Cheryl Crow. Lance Armstrong. We all thought Lance Armstrong was great too, right? We did. We all did. And maybe she had some insight. She claimed I read something that I just, he was not out as a terrible person at that moment. And I think that Clapton was not either.

Although, you know, I obviously the thing in the 60s like all black people leave England thing, you know, that had already happened. Right. Yeah. The COVID stuff had not happened yet, for example. No. So and once again, I don't know if the larger public was aware of these things. And like I said, you get to date bad people. Yes.

You get to make mistakes. Was he her favorite mistake? Perhaps he was, Eric Clapton. But I think once again, it's just all, she, like I said, those first four albums of hers had hits, just consistently hits after hit after hit. And this idea that the most important thing was who she used to sleep with is just stupid to me personally. Yes. Absolutely. You wrote specifically about Cheryl Crowe, I think for a North Carolina paper, like way back in 2003, you talked about how you'd play her songs on your guitar and imagine you were the rock star. Like, what was it about her that made her aspirational in that way for you? I think she just there, and this is going to sound dumb. And I think that that interview was probably a reprint of something that I wrote for the Palm Beach Post. But I think that she just, she just, she just, projected this

coolness within herself. Once again, she was comfortable on her own skin, even while admitting that she was not always perfect, that she was going to make mistakes, that her voice wasn't always perfect. She has a lovely, lovely voice. If you hear that always by your side record with Sting, that

duet, it's just clear and gorgeous, even like picture, which, you know, now Robert Ritchie Jr. The kid rock of it all. Yeah, the kid rock of all. But when she does duets, you can't do that stuff if you can't sing. No.

She has just, I mean, I remember learning how to play, learn how to play my favorite mistake, and it wasn't great. I sing better than I play guitar. So I would hang around with people who could play, and hopefully they would let me stop playing so they could play and I could keep singing. I had a guitar teacher named Fred, who was, I was at a bandwith briefly before me and the other backup singer who were late all the time got suddenly they stopped telling us where rehearsals were. But that's how it happens. It's how it happens. But Fred was my guitar teacher,

and he would sometimes light up the minute it was over. It's like, do you have to get high after I'm, and is that how bad I am? But he taught me that the courts to leaving lots of Vegas were the same as Meet Virginia. Yeah, you're right. I'd never thought of it, but yes, you are. That's correct. Brilliant. So like I would go like once we got dumped from the band, he would, I was still sing with them sometimes and we were playing something and he we had never made it all way through the song so we realized that no one remembered all the words living laws, it all worked out and then they started playing me bridging it was fun um but there was just something so relatable to once again the vulnerability and the fact that i first of all i sounded pretty good singing it um when i was younger

i heard strong enough and i completely love that song then but i think i misunderstood it and i think I understand it more at 52 at 24, 25, it sounded almost like, oh, I'm a weak little girl and are you strong enough to be a man? Can you handle me? But now I understand that the song is about, it starts with a disclaimer, I feel like hell tonight. So here's where we're going tonight. And can you, are you strong enough to be with me during this phase of my life as, as you are when I'm cute and funny and happy and listening to all your shit? That's what it's like to me. it reminded me of a Nikki Giovanni interview that she did with James Baldwin years ago, obviously. She was talking about how black women, women, particularly black women, are always the people who have to suck up all of this stuff and everyone else gets to be vulnerable and sad, but we got to be strong.

And she goes, sometimes you have to lie to us. And he goes, no, what do you mean? I can't lie to you. If I love you, I can't lie to you. And she says, you must. And she says, I'm not going to say the word she is, but she goes, you lie to everyone else when you're not. in a good mood. You lie to that white man on the job when he's getting on your nerves and you know you're going to lose your job. So give me some of that. You don't have to put everything on me.

Don't come home and immediately put all your shit on me. Lie to me a little bit. Talk to me. Make my feelings the thing that are precious is precious in this moment so you can take care of your shit over there. You don't have to like vomit all of your day on me. You can just lie to me about how your day was just long enough of I'm if man I feel like hell tonight just let it go it don't make me treasure me enough to guard me and to guard my feelings and so when I saw that Nikki Giovanni interview years later I went oh that's what Cheryl was talking about lie to me I promise I'll believe that's beautiful it's beautiful and then she says and please don't leave but to me it's like it's not a grasping thing it's just like stay here till this part's over

Stay here till it gets better. And I just, I love that song so much. Just love it. Once again, because it's very reflective of relationships. And I think what relationships should be is that everyone's not going to be on all the time. Sometimes people are going to suck and you're going to suck. And when you suck at the same time, it's bad. That's when it gets bad.

You got to stagger when you suck. Absolutely. I believe you called her a grown woman singing about grown-up stuff. And I think that's a super important point that Tuesday Night Music Club, she's already in her 30s. Yes. Like, what advantage does that give her over younger rock stars and certainly over like teen pop stars? Because you actually believe the words that are coming out of their mouth. My sister and I used to laugh all the time about when these young women, 15, 16, 17 would go on American Idol and sing like, first of all, they'd sing Whitney Houston songs about affairs and stuff and not understand what they were singing and we'd laugh hysterically.

But they'd sing like, and I'm telling you, I'm not going. or they'd sing something and you go, you're 12. There's a, the late Bill Hicks had a joke about Debbie Gibson. He goes, they shake your love. What love are you shaking? You're 12, which is not true. And I love Debbie Gibson. I got to meet her last year.

She's really cool. But I see the point. There's a lot of information there I got to unpack, but please continue. We went to her Christmas show. That was my first question. Okay. Yes. Yes. Her Christmas show in Annapolis, Maryland, which is, I love it because she does it like it's a Christmas special.

She's really fun and cheesy and really fun that she does her hits too. But I went with a bunch of girlfriends, including my sister. And we were staying at a hotel in Annapolis, my son and I, so we come in, we're checking in. And I was saying to the person at the desk that we were coming to see Debbie Gibson, the guy behind us holding a dog. Says, oh, that's really great. Three hours later, we're leaving for the concert, and he's with Debbie Gibson. That's her husband. And they're a dog.

He's still holding the dog. Still holding the dog. Wow. And he says, see, it's the lady I told you about it. And she was so sweet. She goes to my son. Are you coming to? He goes, no.

Okay. Number two, Bill Hicks told a joke about Debbie Gibson. Yeah. Wow. That's, I would not have put those two together in any contest. I believe you. It's nuts. And I, you know, I'm going to, you know, frantically make sure that that's in my memory.

But yeah, that's what I believe. But, yeah, it was. I just, Cheryl Crowe sang about, you believed her. You believed her when she talked about how weary she was and standing in the desert waiting for her ship to come in. You believed her when she talked about the favorite mistake. You believed her when she sang strong enough. You believed that she was these things.

And once again, did I believe she was dating kid walk? No. But the song made it seem that way, that line about, you know, I was headed to church. I was off to drink you away. Good line. And that, what a great song. Also, I liked the twang ever.

I grew up listening to many things, but I loved Crystal Gale, and I loved Juice Newton. And I loved twangy country singers that, like, I would hear. I mean, the sweetest thing I ever known is loving you by Juice Newton is one of my favorite songs. And so there was, because there was this vulnerability. 90s, Reba McIntyre, forget about it. Amazing. Fancy. Yeah, totally, totally, totally. Yeah.

So I loved all that stuff. So there was this thing about Cheryl Crow once again, and maybe as she leaned, and I loved Melissa Sathridge, you know, both from the Midwest. I think, like, when they leaned into their rootiness and their grittiness and stuff, there was just something very authentic there for me. And I just, I really enjoyed it. Bonnie Ray, too, I would put. Oh, my God. Bonnie Rate is a miracle. But that episode that you did on her.

I remember where I was driving the whole time. And I remember going, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. Because every song was better, everything. And you were so obviously enjoying just the mastery of that catalog. There's just so much, there's just so much great Bonnie Raid. Yeah, it's awesome. It's amazing. The other thing you wrote that I really liked was Cheryl Crow looks like a rock star, right?

Like in 1993, she's not grungy. unwashed. She's not like apologetic about it, right? She dresses like a rock star. She got the super buff arms. Like she's hanging out with other rock stars and movie stars. Like how refreshing was that in the mid-90s that she acted like she wanted to be there? It was honestly huge because you've talked several times on your show like in the wonderful writer strong interview about the concept of selling out.

And his whole rant about nobody in reality bites having a job. and somehow feeling superior to the dude who had a job. That was the Roger Ebert interview, which is absolutely positively true. And so everyone had sort of had the stab of looking for authenticity and what it meant to be real and to sell out. And I think Cheryl Crow liked, she had been in this business for 10 years at that point. She may have been new to us, but she was not new. So I think she was like, I've done struggling and I've done this and this is better. I like this better.

And she acted like she was supposed to be there. And I think for women that authenticity, the fact that women are often asked to be awshucks about it, that women are asked to be weird and unsure about it, which I think with someone like Fiona Apple who had that anxiety, people jumped on that to tell her basically maybe you don't belong here. It's like you can't win. You can't win as a woman. Because if you don't go to the award show, they call you a snob. If you go and you're awkward or you're human, they call you weird. There's nothing that you can do about it. And I think Cheryl Crow once again seemed she was a pro at this.

She was not a pro at being famous. And once again, that ticks people off too, particularly at that time because they want you to be self-deprecating. They want to interview you for Rolling Stone where you go, oh, my skin's not that good or whatever. I'm so unsure. I don't know. And because if you're confident, I mean, I learned a long time ago because I used to play those reindeer games too. And I don't anymore. You have known me for long enough now, Rob, Harvilla, that you know that I just don't give a shit.

I do know that about you. It's true. Yes. But I used to care very much. And that robs your confidence because you're spending so much time worrying about what other people think. And that's not what she did. And I mean, she probably had her on internal monologue, particularly when people were telling her, like Tina Turner, she didn't deserve what she had. which once again is terrible.

But I think that she seemed to have gotten over it. And I enjoy that about her. The other thing you wrote that I really liked was that she looks like a rock star, but you also called her like a likable every woman. And I agree. That's absolutely true. But how do you think she manages to be both a normal, relatable, down-to-earth person who is also obviously a rock star?

Like, how does she do that? Yeah. I kind of think she just was, and that's hard, right? Right. It's like, look at someone like Lenny Kravitz, who you know, there's much moisturizer, there's much, you know, glitter and stuff. But I think if he. Also, yes. So many scars.

But I believe that if Lenny Kraviss walked out of the shower with a towel on, he'd still look like a freaking rock star. He's just genetically blessed. He works out a lot. He clearly is someone who puts a lot of care in time into how he looks. And I think that Cheryl Crow probably does too But there's something always about her that looks very natural It looks very The front of the

Like the Globe Session album It's like right up in her face Which is really cool It's that I love that And usually I have an aversion to close up things It's like, ah, why are you on my face? It's very presumptuous But there's something about that photo

Where she's like, third album Here I am Yeah, that was Tuesday Music Club. Come on, Come on, Come On. Come On, Come On was fourth. After, yeah, and then Wildflower, so that's five. And I think that there was just something so

refreshing about, once again, embracing her femininity. In the story about Tina Turner, I wrote, I talked to one of my mentors. I talked about how in the 80s, it was expected that if you were in a newsroom or in some sort of corporate situation, as a woman that you were going to, like, downplay your looks. You were going to cut her hair into what she called.

It was like a relatable bob or whatever. And, you know, that's a good phrase. We wear a suit and all that kind of stuff and just not lean into your femininity. And she was like, I was pretty. I had long blonde hair and I did what I did. And I was like, you know what? And she was told by someone that if she had, at a different chain that if she had not, if she had been in their chain, she never would have been promoted because she was too

attractive and therefore a sexual threat. And I think that, you know, there is a line that women have to tow. even though rock and roll is about sex. If Mick Jagger walked into a room and they said, no, no, no, Mick, you have to wear looser pants. You need a relatable Bob, Mick. Yes, because God forbid anyone notice your obvious tight pants and call you on it.

You can't be too sexy because God forbid anyone think about sex when you're singing satisfaction, you know. And women don't get that. women have to be very careful. You have to decide, and particularly if you're someone like Taylor Swift, who started as a very young woman, and she's been famous for 20 years.

So she gets to change who she is. She doesn't have to be the same person she was when she was 17 years old. She's not going to be, you know. She can date a chump or two. She can date. I'm going to maybe worry about her, like in an auntie way,

if there's another one. But once again, it's not my business. There's nothing to do with her. music. It's nothing to do with, you know, do I like that this dude is kind of like, oh, I'm so sorry, I said something bad about you, Ice Spice. No, whatever, that guy. I was never a fan of his anyway. But that's okay. I don't have to be. But no one, I wonder what flack he gets from his fans dating Taylor Swift. And is it about that she's not cool enough or is it that she's done something

objectionable besides being someone who might not be a person whose music they like? I think the Venn diagram of fans of him and fans of her are so overlapping that I don't know if there's enough of affection for just him. You know what I'm saying? I think she's too big for that at this point. So she's just dwarfing him outright. Oh, she's so huge. It's her and Beyonce just like, you know. There we go.

Going back and forth, man. And once again, those are also women who do that. Beyonce, everything that. J.C. does. And she's arguably the bigger star now, you know, is the, it's just, I don't know, it's never going to be, it's never going to be equal. And I think we kind of know that now. Yeah. You know, there's really nothing to, to do about it, but keep fighting against and speaking up about it and going, no, stop. Yeah. Lenny Kravitz with much moisturizer. That's very funny. I'm going to be thinking about that from a while. I'm going to be noticing that his skin,

whenever I see pictures. His skin is ridiculous. It's a shame. It's a, and I want your skincare routine. I want your skincare routine, Lenny Kravis, if you're listening to this and you might be. Drop the skincare routine. Drop it in the mentions, baby. Yes, do it.

It is always wonderful to talk to you, Leslie. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Of course. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Leslie Gray Streeter. Thanks as always to our producer. Justin Sales and Jonathan Kermah. Thanks to Chloe Clark for additional production help,

and thanks very much to you for listening. And now I implore you to go listen to If It Makes You Happy by Cheryl Crow. We'll see you next week.