Bandsplain - Sheryl Crow with Bethany Cosentino

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

We’re back! At Bandsplain, all we wanna do is have some fun, and Yasi had the feeling she wasn’t the only one. So this week, friend of the show Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast joins us to make the case for Sheryl Crow. In 1986, Sheryl’s winding road began when she left small town Missouri for Hollywood, where she toured with Michael Jackson, scrapped her own debut album, and survived off trail mix until her breakthrough Tuesday Night Music Club put her on the map. Bethany and Yasi uncover the tragedies and successes of Sheryl’s story as she spent the next few decades navigating the underbelly of celebrity and the mess of music media while becoming one of the quintessential songwriters of her time. Follow Bethany Cosentino on Twitter at @bestcoast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, and welcome. I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplaine? Hello and welcome to Bandsplane. I am your host, Yassi Salick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to explain a cult band or iconic artist to me and to you. Today's episode is about Cheryl Crow. If you've never heard Cheryl Crow, all I want to do is play you some.

This is what Cheryl Crow sounds like. My guest today, you guys, my guest today is singer-songwriter, all-around rocker, bitmoji aficionado, and a pener, writer, co-writer, and singer of the should-be Grammy Award nominated if the Grammy's had a podcast theme song category. Bansplain theme song, Bethany Kosentino. Welcome to the show. Hi. What's up?

Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Listen, let's just start right off the bat. Why are you the person to talk about Cheryl Crow? I feel that I am the person to talk about Cheryl Crow because I am probably the biggest Cheryl Crow fan in the world. I feel that that is true. I have loved Cheryl Crow since I was like a young girl.

I discovered her when, if it makes you happy, was like the only song that you ever heard on the radio and every grocery store that you went into. And I've just really always loved her so much to the point where I feel like my love for her is like slightly, maybe I should go to jail for being like a stalker because I love her so much. and you as my friend, like, maybe could attest to this.

It's true. Although for the law enforcement listening at home, Bethany has never actually stalked Shale Crow. That's true. Just like some FBI online investigation, Scorpio style. Sure, sure. Shail Crow, of course, famously, an Aquarius. Yes.

Born February 11, 1962 in Kennet, Missouri. We love that about her. You know, many of my closest friends, are Aquarians. So I think Cheryl and I were destined for greatness from the very start. We love an Aquarian marches to the beat of their own drum

amongst other things. Again, for those of the don't know, Cheryl Crow is a singer-songwriter who rose to prominence with her first album Tuesday Night Music Club. She has

won multiple Grammys. She has toured the world. She has starred in films. She is extremely famous. So, I mean, again, for the four people who are listening to this who do not know who Shell Crow is. But let's start from the beginning, Bethany. Like I said, born in Kennet, Missouri, I believe a population hovers somewhere around 10,000 people. Yeah, she comes from like a small town. Her parents are musicians. She grows up around music. She sees her parents. playing music in her house.

She has said that she literally thought every child's life was like that, that she thought every kid grows up in a household where their parents are just like drinking whiskey with their friends and playing and songs around the piano. So that's something that I really love about her that she like truly believed, she comes from such a small town mentality

that she believed that like her experience was just like a universal experience. Totally. You know what I'm saying? Her dad was a lawyer, but he played trumpet. And her mother was, she taught piano, is that I? Piano teacher. Yeah, and she also sang the local amateur big band.

By the way, this sounds like a very idyllic childhood. They were like really into books, like reading, music, just like an art supporting family. And Cheryl was the youngest of three. No, the youngest sister of three, but she has a younger brother. and she was a cheerleader and, you know, somewhat of a beauty queen in high school? Yeah, to me it seems like Cheryl Crow had a really kind of all-American small-town life,

like the kind of, like a Norman Rockwell-style life. She grows up in a house where music is supported. They started me in piano about the age of five, and they were the kind of parents that said, oh, play that little thing for all of our friends. So it feels like she grows up in a household where there's a lot of love, a lot of support. And I feel like that's kind of the vibe that Cheryl Crow gives off is a little bit of like a hometown, small town, sweet lady, live, laugh, love. And I mean that in like the best way possible.

Totally. I did read that she suffered and maybe still suffers from sleep paralysis, though. Like that was like the one thing that was. sort of like not picture perfect of her growing up is that she had this like horrible sleep paralysis that apparently also her mother has. Maybe it's like hereditary. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But that was a thing that sort of, you know, sort of affected her like mentally in, you know, in different ways. I also read somewhere her saying something to the effect of most people become performers because they want more attention. And I was, you know, I didn't get a lot of attention.

since I was like a middle younger child, which, you know, checks out. Me, on the other hand, I got nothing but attention. And then you only wanted more. Because I'm an only child, so there was nowhere else to put the attention. There's nothing wrong with wanting attention, as I say while I talk about myself every week on this podcast. So basically, we'll fast forward. There's just a couple of things that I thought were interesting here. you know, she goes to college to major in music education at the University of Missouri,

at Columbia. And she starts playing on the weekends with this local band called Kashmir, big Led Zeppelin fans. So she becomes a teacher. I very much enjoyed this because I feel like this starts to be, and we'll get into it. Nothing has talked about more than Cheryl Crow's music. besides her love life. This is a theme throughout. Her first, or whatever,

this meaningful relationship in her youth, she had a fiancé who was a Christian singer and musician. And while she was, like, teaching during the day and, like, singing in bands on the weekends, he was like, if you're not going to sing for the Lord, you should not be singing. Yeah. And she was like, oh, okay, yeah, I'm not going to marry you.

Yeah, smart. smart choice by Mrs. Crow for sure. Yeah. Ms. Crow, if you're nasty. And then I liked this. So she's singing around town and she starts getting some breaks, including singing a jingle from McDonald's commercial, which she said, I went in, sang a jingle one afternoon and made $42,000 in about 30 minutes. We stand. That's probably more than a teacher's salary was that whole year or still is to this day in a whole year. Yeah. I've heard multiple accounts.

So you tell me what you've heard. But I heard that like it was all kind of one narrative of like the breakup happens. She makes money. And then she's like, I'm going to go to L.A. to make it. And she drives all the way through, right? Like it's like 28 hour drive straight from Missouri to Los Angeles in 1986. Yeah. She basically decides like this is the thing that I really love about her.

there's a passion in her from, I feel like, the very beginning where she's destined and, like, dedicated to becoming successful. But I've heard her say in many interviews that her thing was never to become the biggest star on the planet. Her thing was literally to just follow the next indicated step. And in her mind, the next indicated step after doing a McDonald's jingle and making more money than she had ever made in her life as a school teacher is to pack up her car and drive across the country and like, okay, what do we do next? She didn't say to herself, like, okay, I'm now going to come the biggest star on the planet. She's just like, why don't I just take the next step and the next step is to leave my life behind, go there and just truly see

what happens. It's the biggest surrender moment of just like, let me just see where this takes me. To me, a person from a small town who makes that much money off of McDonald's jingle, you would think that maybe they would be like, I'm destined to be the biggest star on the earth. earth, right? Because what else is really happening? Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think it takes like a specific kind of mental illness to think that you're destined to be the biggest star on earth given the like a lot of people think it. The likelihood. No, it's true. And Cheryl Crow did not have that particular mental illness. I mean, yes, this will probably become a through line. But like, and you know, we don't know.

We're not personal friends with this person. But like, it does feel. very salt of the earth from the beginning and it's not very salt of the earth to like be like, well, I know I'm going to be Madonna, you know? Yeah. She hits reality pretty fast. Life comes at you fast. Because apparently she comes to L.A., drives around, takes her demo to like all these labels. Nobody wants it. And in four months, she has literally no money. She said, you know, everyday lunch and dinner, I'd walk across the street from my apartment to Ralph's and buy an 80 cent bag of trail mix because I was too fucking proud to call my parents and say, can you lend me some money? But then, A series of fortunate events happens.

The first one being, Bethany, as you know. Michael Jackson. She famously goes on tour with Michael Jackson on the bad tour in 1987. This is like kind of goes to your point of like the like tenaciousness, you know? Like she apparently I read a couple different stories, but like that she she's done a couple of things in L.A. And she overhears, she's like doing a recording session for who knows. knows what. And she overhears some singers talking about this closed audition that like it wasn't open to the public. It was like supposed to be on recommendation. And she was literally like living on

someone's floor, but she somehow like you did some FBI research, found out where it was, showed up. Yeah. And she says like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? They can't kill me. And they thought she was there. She must have been recommended. And she got the gig. I simply love that story so much because, again, it's just like she truly, to me, like, Cheryl Crowe to me just feels like the ultimate person who's just like willing to take a risk. And it's just kind of like, who cares what happens? At the end of the day, she's like living in L.A. She's made her McDonald's money.

She doesn't really have any money left at this point. She's waitressing like two jobs. She lives in the valley. She hates it. And she's just like, what, like, what is the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing that could happen is they tell me no. And to me, like from the beginning, it just feels like that has always been her M.O.

And it still is to this day. And that's like what makes me as an artist, especially look to her and be like, this is the ultimate test of like, let go, like God. She doesn't really give a fuck. She's just like, I love music so much that I'm just gonna sneak into the Michael Jackson audition and see what happens.

And then it just so happens, she gets the part. Totally. And that's like, truly like, God is just like, Cheryl, I have you. I have your back. I have to imagine she was also probably dizzy from being hungry from the trail mix. She was like, this seems like a great idea. Yeah, she was like, I don't know, fine.

I'm so hungry. I think this tour was like eight months long. It probably was really grueling. But it really like yielded great things because she basically is seen by this guitarist and producer Danny Kortchmar, who was really good friends with Don Hennell. And then Don Henley, like, takes a shine to her and, you know, is really supportive of her and asks her to sing back up on his The End of the Innocence album. And to join him on tour. She says that the Michael Jackson tour felt a lot like she was a hired gun.

She goes out on the road. My parents went to that tour, just throwing that out there. It's an important fact for this podcast. And she says that when she was on that tour, she very much just kind of felt like she had a job to show up to. She showed up to the job. She sang her parts. It is what it is.

And then she says that on the Don Henley tour, that that tour made it feel a bit more like family. They would eat dinners together. They would kind of hang out backstage. And that that tour kind of taught her how to tour and what a tour family actually looks like. So I feel like, again, I'm not her, so I can't read her mind.

but I feel like if I could read her mind, I would imagine that doing the Don Henley tour kind of gave her a little bit more of the bug to like do it herself. Do you know what I'm saying? Like she wanted to go out and sort of like create that own family, musical family for herself. Totally.

Also, she didn't talk about it until a lot later in her career, but she was being sexually harassed on the Michael Jackson tour by Michael Jackson's manager. Well, you know what? She actually talks about it quite soon. because it shows, well, it shows up in lyrics, but I know what you're talking about. This is true. Yeah.

So we will, we're going to go to that because I find it. There's a lot of, there's a lot of like moments of insane strength and overcoming things that I'm very fascinated by. So, you know, one might think that, you know, an eagle takes you on tour and supports you and everything takes off. But it wasn't quite that smooth. He introduced her to Irving Azoff, famed record executive. Irving Azov, who had a new label called Giant at Warner Music Group, nothing comes of it. She gets a check for an advance, and she doesn't, she sends it back.

Apparently, coming back from that tour, and especially within the context of what we'll talk about later, which is experiencing the sexual harassment. Also, it just sounds crazy. I mean, she's talked about in interviews how, like, Michael Jackson would not make eye contact. It was, like, one of those, like, doesn't talk to you, doesn't know your name. It was very impersonal.

It must have just felt, it must have felt really crazy. And she's like 25 or something. Yeah. Especially like as a small town girl who comes to the big city and then gets this crazy job. And then is like experiencing this coldness that comes from, you know, not being, again, not being like her own artist yet at the time. She's just basically like a chess piece in the game. Absolutely. And then she's dealing with this like sexual harassment from, allegedly from Michael.

Jackson's manager. So she says, she told Q Magazine in 95, like, when I got back, I hit fucking rock bottom. I spent five or six months in bed and never got up at all until finally got myself a little help, which jump started me out of it. She says this really interesting thing, which I'm going to read this and then I want to just talk about how, like, it's crazy how like, and I think you'll probably relate to this more than anyone. Like, when the media decides who you are, that's just it.

but obviously, like, no one is just one thing. And so she says this thing where it's like, what I realized was some people go through their whole lives and never think about suicide. And some people think about it every day. I think about it every fucking day of my life. And I don't know why that is. But it took getting help for me to realize that I'll never do it, whereas I had always been afraid that I would.

Like, I don't think people look at Cheryl Crow and, you know, this Midwestern, you know, corn-fed, like, perfect upbringing, whatever thing, and think, oh, that woman thinks about suicide every day. Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely not. The thing that I really, like, love about her and her conversation around depression, she talks so much about therapy. She's a huge therapy thing, which we love, obviously, is that, yes, she's not, like,

the world doesn't exist in such black and weight. And I think that people also assume that when you've reached, granted at this point she hasn't reached the fame that she comes to reach at a point in her life. Yeah, but if you're from a 10,000 person town in Missouri, touring with Michael Jackson, you've made it. You've made it.

Exactly. And this basically, this whole thing brings her to her knees essentially and makes her be like, wait, I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea what I'm doing. And I think that the way in which she talks about depression, she talks about these horrible feelings. It's really relatable because I think that like a lot of us struggle with the same thing. You know, it's like mental health at this point is such a openly talked about thing.

And I really commend her for doing it because back in the 90s, it was a little bit more taboo to talk about this kind of stuff. Totally. And I think it's like it's even harder when people are like, but what do you have to be depressed about? Like you're beautiful and talented and you did this Michael Jackson tour. Like she even said something in an interview where she said that when she was, was in this depression, her mom would call, like, you know, every day and they were very close. And she would be like, but you're a cute girl, you're smart. You've got everything in the world going for you. And Cheryl Groh was like, well, that would make it worse because then it makes you even

loathe yourself more for being sick. Yeah. She's saying, she said in an interview that I could be wrong, but I think it's Johnny Mathis. Like, she's saying on a Johnny Mathis, like, Christmas record or did some like backup vocals. And her mom literally at that point was like, you don't need to do anything else in your life. Like, you've made it. You have no reason to be sad. You have no reason to be depressed. Like, you can come home now. And she was like, no, that's not how this thing works for you. Yeah, totally. After she gets help and gets out of bed, she gets, you know, another chance or like a new chance, rather. In 92, she does, there's a couple of different stories. And we talked about this a little bit, you know, on text before. but like she sings a session for Stings label called Pindia.

This artist called Vinks. And this producer, Hugh Paddam, who is also Sting's producer, produced this session. Now, she said recently on the Dach Shepherd podcast that she was at a party and like slipped Hugh Patum her demo. So I feel like it's probably some combination of the two. Like she was at the party because she sang on the thing. Like whatever, it doesn't really matter. The point is like she got ballsy and she was like, here's my take. and then he took it to A&M and they signed her.

So she basically got signed to A&M because of him. And they record this entire album. It doesn't all come out. Never sees the light of day. Yeah. She really never does. I'm already so interested because it's not the classic, you know, label story of like they just shelved it.

Actually, she shelved it. Like we're going to hear a clip right now. It's like because the album is available online as everything is now. so we can hear a clip of it. Okay, so you can hear that is not the Cheryl Crowe we know in love. No. It's basically a sting album. It sounds like sting.

It also to me like feels like it has like a little bit of like a shoday vibe. Like she's trying a little bit to have like also just want to point out that the lyrics, it's the time for love and the time for healing. Gorgeous. Listen, 1992, this is like big Buddha bar energy. is like the vibe, you know, like, um, this is what we're dealing with. All that to say, like, you have to hand it to her. Like, it's an incredible amount of strength and knowing yourself again at, you know, the age of, I guess at this point, she's, she's already 30. So

that makes sense. But she, you know, this was her first big break. And she had the balls to like, she didn't get along with Hugh Padham apparently. Not. like any, like, arguing way, but they didn't have a creative, like, cohesion. She said there wasn't chemistry, but she was able to go to her A&R, this man, David Anderly, and just be like, listen, I don't, this is a really mature sounding record. It's really lush and beautiful, but it's not the record that represents me. I'm not a lush and beautiful person, and my life is not smooth and without jagged edges. My life is frenetic and up and down. And A&M, again, to their credit, which is incredible, they were just like, well, what do you want to do you want to

do. Yeah. It wasn't a cheap record either. Like, that's the other thing. It's like, it wasn't... Stings producer, babe. Like, it, and that to me, again, is part of why I love her so much is that it's like, to be an artist and to understand like your own authenticity and like what you are willing to do and what you are willing and what you're not willing to do. Like that comes with so much trial and error. You have to work. I mean, to like speak about my own experience for a second, it's like, I'm, 35 now and I've been doing Best Coast since I was 22. And I would say that it took me until probably like two years ago to realize certain things about myself as an artist where I'm like, why did I do that? Or why didn't I say no to that? Or why did I like put this thing out without thinking it through?

You know, that's like a huge amount of, for lack of better wording, like knowing yourself. Totally. You know? And I think again. Again, yes, exactly. I think again, like, this just speaks to who Cheryl is as a person and kind of going back to what I said earlier about like she just followed the next indicated step all the time she didn't, she herself says she didn't even know what kind of record she wanted to make after she went to them

and was like, I don't want to put this out. She just knew she didn't want to do it and then was like the rest is going to reveal itself. Totally. I mean, sometimes you don't know what you want, but you know what you don't want. Exactly. I think, you know, and I can't speak for her. I obviously don't want to put words in her mouth, but I have to imagine there's a lot to be said

for the fact that she was 30. If she was 22, who can say, like being 22 is really hard. Being a 23-year-old woman in 1992 with Sting's producer telling you this is good. Like, you know, it's even admirable at 30, but like the, you know, I think there was like a fortuitous series of events

that led to her kind of like not being able to make her first album until she was 30 and thus having the like presence of mind. and the self-awareness to be like, this isn't me. I mean, to your point about the money, it is interesting because that's also like she really took a risk on herself because that's her debt, babe. The label's like, yeah, go ahead, but you owe us whatever. Yeah, I'm speculating, you know, $80,000.

I don't know how much it was. But she went into album one, like in the red, basically, or the real album one. And also just to say that, like, as a new artist, it's scary to walk into a record executive's office and say, no. In the 90s, I can only imagine it was, scarier than it is now. She was truly just like, I'm not putting this out. I don't want to do it.

And they could have very well said like, okay, well, we're not interested then. You know, like, because again, she didn't have this like huge success follow up for them to be like, you can do whatever you want. We're going to sign off on you like exactly how you want to be. She truly was taking like a huge risk and a huge chance. And I agree with what you're saying about her being 30. I watched an interview with her where she talked about how her first record like being made at the age of 30, like in the eyes of Hollywood, in the eyes of the music industry,

she was old. You're a hundred. Yeah, you're literally 300 years old. So for her to even then take that risk at the age that she was at and just be like, I don't know what it is yet, but it's not this. It's a truly admirable thing. Totally.

So apparently in the meantime, she is writing songs for other people, like Celine Dion, Tina Turner, Winona. I thought this was interesting to you. And this kind of like foreshadows some stuff about like the entire 90s and probably extends to today and before. But she, you know, she says that like A&M could have dropped me, you know, then and signed Liz Fair or Amy Mann.

They were heavily considering signing her at the time, talking about Amy Mann. But they didn't because they had me. Again, classic thing of like, we have one woman. Exactly. We already have a woman. Oh, we have to swap you for a different woman. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Scarcity mindset.

Exactly. and also just like sexism. Before we get into Tuesday Night Music Club, I want to just a little foreshadowing. Bill Betrell, who was the man, one of the Tuesday Night Music Club members who owned the studio, gave an interview in 1996,

and he said this about her first scrapped album. I know now why Patom, the most successful producer of the 80s, missed the main point of this chick whom he was working with. Well, she's fucking hoping. She's obnoxious. I mean, she was probably needling him to death, you know, nagging him to death.

Just getting ahead of the messy drama that's about to unfold. Wow, wow, wow. Wow, wow. Also, like, love that, again, the feminism long ago has left my body. But every once in a while, it pops right back in when I read stuff like she was needling him to death, nagging him to death. Like, you just would never fucking hear anyone describe a male musician who's saying, I want it this way as nagging him. or needling. Just those words would never even be used.

No. Like, I don't know you, babe, but like, not, that's not the business. So it's 1993. The top albums of 1993 are as follows. The Bodyguard soundtrack, basically half the year, you know, on the back of I will always love you. Janet Jackson's Janet. Pearl Jam versus Nirvana in utero. Tons of Garth Brooks.

A little bit of U-2. A bit of Snoop Doggy style. And a bit of Eric Clapton unplugged. More on that later. More on him later. More on him later. So as many stories begin, this begins with a boyfriend. Mm-hmm.

Mr. Kevin Gilbert. A Scorpio. A Scorpio. He does. He did sound like a Scorpio. Apparently, Cheryl was set up with Kevin through her publisher to just work on music together and then they sort of fell for each other and were dating and she had played keys for him in his band called Toy Matinee.

By all accounts, he was like some like virtuoso musician. And then he brings her into this like Tuesday night music club into the studio owned by Bull Betrell, the aforementioned Toad Hall. and then there was a few other men, David Bearwold, who was in a band called David and David. They had a huge hit with the song, Welcome to the Boomtown in 1986. And a guy named Dan Schwartz, men.

Men. Some men. A lot of men with like really generic names, just want to point that out. Oh, yeah, Dan, Dave, Kevin, and Bill. Is that what you mean? Two daves, actually. I just, we're probably going to spend a lot.

lot of time on this album because... It's important. And it's full of fucking juicy drama. Yeah, for sure. Juiciest drama. But it's an incredibly important album. Even outside of Cheryl Crow's career, it's like an important album,

the canon of like music. Yeah. Since we haven't played a song for a while, let's just play, let's play a song off of it. I saw that you have Run Baby Run on your playlist. Let's play that because that was actually the first single that came out.

And then after we play it, we'll talk more about the making of the album. This is Run, Baby Run. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show for free

with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm slash music and talk. That was Run, Baby Run. You know, slightly political song. Something that she's like really known as a songwriter, especially in her earlier records, she's like, she truly like created these narrative stories.

And she created characters. And she would like tell these stories and these lyrics that you would like hear and you'd be like, what is she talking about? Like who is she talking about? And I think again, at the time, a lot of songs, I feel like there was like a lot of songs coming out

that felt like they were like, they were autobiographical, they were about a person, which, you know, later we can get to when we talk about leaving Las Vegas. But it's like, she created these songs that were not necessarily about herself and her own experiences, but they were truly like stories about characters. And I feel like that is something that I have always really respected about her as a lyricist is like, you're tuning in and you're truly like, tell me more. Like you want an anecdote, you want an experience, you want to know who these characters are. That song to me as being her like first, single at Cheryl Crowe, it feels very special to me because it really sets us up for sort of

storytelling through song. Totally. I mean, she's like coming in an interesting lineage, right? Of like, I mean, before this, they're in just terms of female singer songwriters, you know, Tracy Chapman had come out in 1988 and like that was her whole thing too, right? Like, she was very much a storytelling songwriter and she would get very like, like, what this isn't about me. Like stop saying it's like about me. Same with PJ Harvey. Like PJ Harvey spent her whole career writing songs that are about characters. And, you know, her first album was like 91 or 92.

So Cheryl Crow has talked a billion times about her influences. And like one super major one is obviously Bob Dylan, right? That's Bob Dylan's thing, right? He was a storytelling songwriter. So and, you know, slightly political, right? Or you could even say overtly political. Yeah. I'm very interested in the dance that Cheryl Crow has done with being political throughout her career

because it's clearly like that Bob Dylan homage and like wanting to be that way and like that belief is there. But it's never super pushed forward. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think like not to skip ahead way too far into her career, but it's like way later on she becomes very, very political. political. I told you this. I saw her perform in 2007 at a stop climate change college tour that she was doing with Larry David's ex-wife. And she became friends with Hillary Clinton. Like she becomes sort of like she performs for the troops. Like she becomes sort of this like big

political artist. She endorses Obama. It's like it makes me wonder if maybe like earlier in her career, if she felt like she couldn't be as direct about it because in some way maybe it was going to like hinder her career and it would be like shut up and sing as people love to say to artists even today. They love a shut up and sing. People don't want to hear your politics if you're a musician at all.

I couldn't help but wonder. Did Cheryl Crow kind of keep it a little bit more obscure in the beginning because she was concerned that, you know, she'd get the chop, like she'd be on the, chopping block of like, we don't do that around here. You're not Bob Dylan. Yeah, I mean, who knows? I mean, she did make the decision to lead with this as the lead single and it is one of the more political songs on the record, you know? So who knows? The song came out of the Tuesday night Clinton was elected as in they wrote it that night. So like that sort of optimism that was like engendered by like

coming out of the Bush era and having Bill Clinton become president was like behind the inspiration for writing that song. And the song is like about a character. whose parents are like hippies and who basically teach her to avoid her feelings and run from them. Run, baby, run. Yeah. Pass the arms of the familiar. Just take some acid and everything's going to be good. Show up at the protests.

Bring your sign. You got this. They did take a lot of acid during the Tuesday Night Music Club, which is, to me, fascinating. Fascinating. So apparently this whole thing begins, like we were saying before we played the song, her boyfriend Kevin Gilbert, brings her to, Toad Hall and there's this group of musicians and, you know, it didn't start out as let's make a Cheryl Crow album. It started out as like, let's just get fucked up and jam, basically. It ended up

sort of taking the shape of a Cheryl Crow album. Everyone was all wasted from what I've read different accounts. It's almost like she was invited into this boys club to like become one of the guys, right? It's like we're going to do a lot of acid. Cheryl Crowe's favorite drink is Guinness on tap. Love it. That shows in the eyes of these men, she's welcome here. I don't have the quote, but one of them said something like they were sort of sick of having 100% macho energy vibe

and they wanted to bring a woman into it because they were like, we need to break this up. I don't know if they were prepared and we'll get into it. She's an incredibly talented musician. She can play every single instrument they can play. and I don't know if they were ready for that per se. And she had a lot of vision and knew what she wanted to do. The very first night of this Tuesday night music club,

so before they're even like thinking about a show of crow album, David Barrowald shows up with David and David, David Ricketts, both on acid. And they had already had this first, first written to leaving Las Vegas. So the very first night sort of yields the beginning of leaving Las Vegas. Cheryl Crow says, like, you know, by the end of the evening, we're all smashed, we had written leaving Las Vegas. The rules were that if you played an instrument really well, you didn't get to play it. If you'd been playing something longer than a few hours, you had to pass it on because things would become stagnant.

And if something wasn't working, then the mic got handed to somebody else. Which sounds, I mean, I want to ask you, since obviously, like, this is something you do often. Like, it sounds so freeing. Like, after, like, maybe, and I don't know what the recording process with Hugh Paddam was on the other album, but like after maybe like spending time being really rigid having this like let's just fucking take acid drink beer and like I'll figure out how to you know play the bass or whatever sounds super just open and creative like so things could flow yeah absolutely and it's also like I mean the music says this obviously but it's the opposite of what she had originally created like

what she had originally created is like kind of a little bit spa elevator-esque music you And then suddenly she's in this place in Pasadena, this studio in Pasadena with all these dudes on acid, drinking lots of Guinness, I'm sure, like writing these sort of like political songs that had grit and meaning to them. And I feel like, again, this is a small town girl from Missouri who was a pageant queen and like learned how to like twirl batons when she was a child. So like this for her must have been such a cool experience. I mean, just to even like to think about it. Like I think about what that would be like for me to be in like some sort of cool like book club-esque music club where we just like go in and fuck around and like get fucked up like that sounds like a dream come true

it sounds so fun things are going to get messy yeah it sounds fun but then then things get messy yeah she says this thing which i really liked where she was like i went to this i've written songs my whole life and i know what schlock is and i know when i'm getting better and i know when something's full of soul. I'm at the point in my life where I don't care if people look at the credits and say, wow, seven writers. I needed a musical experience. Because the truth is, like, everyone on this got publishing. All those people got equal publishing. She goes, whether they contributed one line or a joint or whatever, which is kind of funny. So it sounds like it was like, honestly, pretty fair, you know? Yeah. A couple of things happen, right? So Cheryl Crow finishes the album. She goes pretty quickly on tour.

She does not take these men on tour. She goes to Missouri, gets a band and goes on tour. I think it was because of money, like to save money, her musicians in Missouri were cheaper. I don't really know. She also says, though,

that these were, like, actual musicians who were, like, had their own projects and that these weren't the kind of guys that you could just, like, make a band out of. These were the kind of guys who, like, lived and breathed

their own musical experiences, and therefore she was going to let them do that and go and make a new band. Totally. And so she went on the, this really grueling like seven-month tour. In the meantime, Runnady Run comes out, doesn't land. What Can I Do for You, which is the second single comes out in November of 1993. The album has come out in August. November still doesn't land. A couple of things happen to lead up to like the

album breaking, which again, this is like a thing I'm really interested in where this is such a 90s thing where like an album wouldn't land when it came out. But they would still kind of keep giving it life support and then sometimes it would take off a year later. So the movie California, if you'll remember, with a K. It's like a road thriller of killers. It was very controversial, very violent. David Dukhavnia is in it. Anyways, the point is, this movie has the songs strong enough. And no one said it would be easy in it. So some more traction picks up around Chilcrow. Then she tours opening for the Eagles, which is a huge, huge deal. And then during or maybe after this Eagles tour, I'm not totally sure, the next year in 1994, April. So we're like nearly a year away from

the release date of this album. They release all I want to do. Which is so funny to me because when you listen to that record and you want to know what the hit is, it's clearly that song. I know. It's, you know, who knows? But it's also like retrospect, right? It's like, again, like I said, remember the biggest albums of 93 were like Nirvana Pearl Jam and then you know Garth Brooks and the you know Whitney Houston so it's like

there wasn't much precedent for this besides maybe Tracy Chapman but she hadn't had a hit for five years you know so it was a very strange musical climate Alanis Morrza had it come out yet like who was to know we're not going to play all I want to do right because everyone knows that song

everyone's heard it you can't be a human in the earth and not have heard that song. Yeah. So we'll just hear a clip quickly of all I want to do because you all know it. I found it very interesting that this song, the lyrics are straight up lifted, not lifted, because they weren't stolen. So just, but whole hog, they're a poem that she found called fun by this poet Win Cooper. And those are the exact lyrics. I didn't know that. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. I mean, he's credit and paid. Like, she didn't steal it. But, But it's like she's a very voracious reader, like all her life.

And she talks about it a lot. But she had like found this book of poems. And she really liked this, you know, me and Mac and Mickey and Buddy and whatever story. Interesting. And the song fucking blew up. It hit number two on the Billboard chart and made the album hit number three on the Billboard 200. Like that's a very powerful single. Powerful single.

This song, like I remember hearing this song as a kid. And like I literally. having grown up in Los Angeles, but I grew up in the suburbs of Glendale, so I didn't venture West much. I learned what Santa Monica Boulevard was because of this song. And I truly feel like she put Santa Monica Boulevard on the map with this song. Truly, when I was a kid, I remember, like, it was like a thing

because the song was like the biggest song and everyone was like, let's head on down to Santa Monica Boulevard, baby. What did they do there? I don't know. Probably drink Guinness. From what I remember of Santa Monica Boulevard when I was a kid in the 90s, there was a porn theater on there. Some other stuff. Anyways, that's really neither here nor there.

Let's play the fourth single off this album, which is Leaving Las Vegas, because there's a lot to talk about here. This is Leaving Las Vegas. That was Leaving Las Vegas. Well, well, well. We've made it. Let's open up this Horn and Snows, but. There's a lot to unpack. This is producer Dylan's favorite

Cheryl Crowe song she would like everyone to know. It is fantastic. This song, it's impossible to know that the fact that this song's title was taken from this semi-autobiographical

1990 novel that later became the film starting Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth's shoe, which I had planned on rewatching for this record, but then I remember that I never want to see that movie again. I watched it.

I went to Nashville earlier this year to write some music and I decided to watch this film and weird choice babe it was alone in an Airbnb eating spaghetti and it was quite depressing It's a great film It's fantastic

Extremely dark and harrowing film And an extremely dark and harrowing book So the title takes its name from the book But that's not where it ends or begins But John O'Brien who wrote the book Again keep in mind It's semi-autobiographical so some darkness there, was a really good friend of David Barrowald, who was a writer on the song,

one of the Tuesday Night Music Club. A couple of things happened. Cheryl Crow goes on the late show with David Leverman. She is asked, is this song autobiographical? She says yes. She later said, like, I was just nervous and, you know, whatever. It's like she's... She literally says, yeah, and like, that's it.

Like, you can tell she's just her first time. And basically, like, it's her first appearance on late-night TV, right? Of course. Well, I don't know, actually. I'd have to check that. But it's still, it's a huge deal. She says, yeah, and I think she even, right after, we'd have to find the clip, but I think right after she says, I've actually never been to Las Vegas.

Like, I don't know. She says she's never lived in Las Vegas, but that the, she's gone there and she's lost a lot of money there. They start kind of having a banter about the song. And why didn't you make it about leaving Missouri? And she's like, well, because nobody would like the song then. And why couldn't you make it leaving L.A. then? And she was like, well,

because I have too many friends there and I'm not leaving there. So it's like also keep in mind that like it's pretty rare. Like I don't, I can't speak for the 90s, but because I wasn't there. Like I wasn't living on the behalf of the 90s on the day. I know you do. But I, it's pretty rare to be the level of success, like a successful enough artist that you go on a late night show. You do a performance and then you also get to sit in the chair. Like you have to be massively successful and big for that.

So keep in mind, this is like, Shell Crow goes on David Letterman. She performs the song without the Tuesday Night Music Club, without these people that she has come to know as sort of like her musical family. Without her own band even, she uses Letterman's band. Then she has to go sit in the chair

and like just right off top, Letterman's like, is this song about you? And she just kind of, yeah. I mean, I get why she would do that. It was pretty obviously not like lying or malicious or like manipulation, you know? Okay, but things are tender with the Tuesday Night Music Club. Like, it was a little tender when they didn't tour.

It became very tender when all I wanted to do becomes the biggest song in America. And it's huge and they're hearing it all over the place. And then it's extremely tender because tale is old as fucking time. So Kevin Gilbert hears this. And apparently I read this in a piece that he watches that thing and gets really mad. and calls her and is like angry. I'm not sure if they had already broken up or this sort of like starts the rift that breaks them up.

I don't really know. Gilbert was maybe of all of them, although they all in different, definitely him and Bearwald have said really shitty things about her. It should be noted. Kevin Gilbert passed away and we'll get there. He passed away in 1996. But he wrote in his journal,

like, I think I'm a tinge jealous over her upcoming release. This is before the album came out. It's probably going to be huge. So I have to prepare myself mentally for that. If she gets what she wants after behaving this way, she'll be absolutely intolerable. It just really feels like this like the classic, you're just this like girl from Missouri and like, I'll help you. But isn't totally maybe prepared for like the girlfriend to A, have direction and opinions, B actually become very successful. And then it's like, it seems like there's nothing you can do enough to repay that kindness.

And again, this is a full outsider perspective of just like, but it feels like that's like often the dynamic, right? And it's like this person wants to use you as a conduit for their music. And it's like, this is her music, you know? And there's a reason she was really successful. And like, you know, for whatever the reasons were, like Kevin Gilbert, again, by all accounts, an extremely talented musician just didn't land. He put out a solo album after this. It didn't land. Like he had to watch his ex-girlfriend become, extremely famous on songs that he co-wrote. I imagine that it must have been really hard. Like, I'm not above being bitter over that myself. Sure.

You know, like. But at the same time, as I said to you in text earlier, she called the record Tuesday night music club. Like, she wasn't trying to like pretend like these guys didn't exist. She gave them 50-50 split. So that's always been the beef for me with them as I'm like, what more do you want? drama around leaving Las Vegas, as far as I can tell, is this.

So apparently John O'Brien did not want writing credit on the song. He didn't want it. I don't even think he wanted the film to come out. He was not particularly proud of this story. Tragically after this song came out, he died by suicide. You can imagine, especially in the tabloid-y music media culture of the late 90s, there was such a rush to link Cheryl in this song to the reason that he passed away. But his family totally came out and said explicitly that his death and the song's success were not related,

that he had suffered depression, and of course his struggles ran much, much deeper than this conflict. So, yeah, that's where it landed. They, like, absolve her in Rolling Stone magazine. Like, they want the world to know this is not because of Cheryl Crow. So I guess, from what I can tell, there's, like, all this drama kind of ensues. Like, David Barrowald writes, like, an open letter to the L.A. weekly saying that like

when this is Crow telling Mojo magazine in 96 saying that like that she had promised to give John O'Brien credit and she was like I didn't even know that like they didn't tell me

and then someone else says that like all he actually wanted was a thank you and the liner notes and Cheryl Crowe did know that and she just didn't do it and it's just all this like he said she said sort of like a bit missing the point. And like in my, again, not part of it, but just like from an outside perspective, it's like using the tragic suicide of this person who is their friend as like a way to like

snip at each other, you know? Yeah. And she like says that this experience changes her. She literally says in her VH1 behind the music that she, it was a baptism by fire, this experience. That was a total baptism by fire. I was changed after that. I was really, really changed.

She loses her sense of, like, innocence. And she truly is, like, how will I come back from this? I mean, to be blamed for someone's suicide, that's like a horrendous, horrendous thing. Especially, like, in the public eye, because thank God there was no social media back then because could you even imagine? No.

Again, the strength it must have taken to, like, go from, like, hey, these people are my family and they write this album, with me to these people hate me and all they do is publicly talk shit on me and call me a bad person and one of them is my ex-boyfriend. You know, it just like, poof, sounds rough.

There's like a really sad detail I just wanted to say it because it just really struck me and touched me. But apparently, Dan Schwartz, who was again one of the Tuesday Night Music Club, told Mojo magazine that like there was a copy of the book in the studio

and after the suicide, he showed Dan Schwartz the book and the inscription was, Dear David, here's the text for your song. Never abandoned me as your friend. Oh, that's so sad. So that was like a huge tragedy and it was really awful

and just, you know, one of what's soon to be a double tragedy with the death of Kevin Gilbert but we're not there yet. So despite, you know, sort of the drama around a lot of drama, you know, around this album and the sort of public

feuding in magazines and all this stuff. You know, they all go to the Grammys. It gets good reviews, you know, like the Sunday Times, that's the London, I think Sunday Times, calls it like a stunning debut. People like really lose their mind over this album, you know. I want to play strong enough just as like a precursor to what we're going to talk about, especially since we talk about so much of her strength and also you and I both fucking love this song. It's the best song. So let's hear Strong Enough. So that was. was a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song called Strong Enough. I love it so much. My former Raya song. I talked about it in therapy today. I bet you did, babe. How many people do you think have talked about Strong Enough in therapy? Off the charts. Probably so many. You know, it's funny, speaking of therapy and all the ways it's taught me to analyze everything on the earth. I was just thinking about like the parallel of like how interesting it is that this song exists on a record where she had like this insane relationship with all the these men who clearly were not strong enough to, like, be around her.

Because I think this song is, this song is like ultimately asking, like, can you be there for me? Can you support me in like everything that I stand for? All of my issues that I'm going through. And I think that's a question that like, as strong women, like a lot of us think that. Like, are you strong enough to deal with me? And the question, not deal with me because I don't want to make it seem like she's a, exactly. I don't want to make it seem like she's a problem to be dealt with. But you get what I'm saying. It's like so interesting that this song would appear on a record where literally she has drama coming from every angle with like every man that's involved in the production of this record with her. A hundred percent. And also that's a nice way for us,

no nice way to segue to sexual harassment, but a way to segue into these two songs that we kind of referenced earlier. So there's two songs that she honestly really explicitly discusses sexual harassment that she's experienced. One, is the what can I do for you, which was a single, but again, didn't land. But the lyrics are, you're never going to make it all by yourself. You're going to need a friend. You're going to need my help. I have so much to offer if you just be nice.

If you do what I say, don't make me say it twice. Do you mind if I just run my hand up this? Come on, just my hand. Ooh, triggering. True warning. So that one, but then the Nana song is just straight up. Clarence Thomas organ grinder, Frank DeLeo's Dong. Maybe if I'd led him, I'd have had a hit song.

It's helpful for you guys to know that during the bad tour, Frank DeLeo was Michael Jackson's manager. There it is. There was never a trial. There's never been any charges pressed. There's no, this is just alleged, but these are in her lyrics. So she talked about it in 1994 to Musician Magazine. She was actually very open about it. She said, I had been on the Jackson tour and had got lots of exposure because I was doing the I just can't stop loving you do out with Michael.

I was on the front of the globe for having his baby and just like all this outlandish bullshit. For a while, there was front page stuff coming out about me every few weeks. And then towards the end, Frank decided he should manage me. He was signed exclusively with Michael, so he signed me to sort of a silent dude manager kind of situation. He'd call me all the time and threaten me and scare me. I got a big, powerful lawyer in L.A. and spent lots of money and got out of my deal. And finally called Frank at the very end of the tour and said, look, I'm out of here. I can't work with you.

And he said, well, I'll see you at the top. The next day it came out in the star that she said, Cheryl Crow, Michael Jackson's background singer, gets Michael's manager fired. Now, I just have to say, Frank Delio did respond to this and say, I don't know what she's talking about. At the time, I was an exclusive manager to Michael Jackson.

It is not true that I wanted to manage Cheryl Crow, and never approached her sexually. At the time, she was going out with one of the guys in the band. DeLeo claims that Crow did not get him fired as Jackson's manager, but that he simply moved on to other things. I didn't bring this up to, like, get into, like, what actually happened, he said. She said, I brought it up to be like,

I think it's incredibly interesting and incredibly like kind of unprecedented to be so specific about, like, it's so interesting to me that on one hand, 80% of this album is about fake people and stories and characters. And then you get to these two and they're like so specifically about her own experience. Yeah. With names and all, you know? Totally. And then the other cool thing that she does as just, you know, from an artist's perspective, like you wouldn't necessarily. know that that experience is referencing her exact experience unless you knew that that experience had happened, right? It's like you don't listen to these songs and then think, you know, like,

me as a lyricist, like my, my stories are pretty like explicitly like this happened to me. And I just think that that is something that is really special about her as a writer is that it's kind of hidden behind a lot of stuff to the point where you have to do a little bit of a head scratch and be like, is this about her? Is this not about her? You know what I'm saying? Right. Totally. And sadly, those lyrics are about her and are about the experiences that she had. Also, don't you love that he's like, she was dating a guy in the band. As if that means he couldn't have harassed her. She was a ho, is what do you say? No, that girl, she was a ho. I just want to give a quick shout out to Can't Cry anymore because it's a goddamn jam. It's a good one. Cheryl Crow wins three Grammy Awards for

this album, and they are two really important ones. One, it's a good one. It's a good one. It's a good one. It's a good one. It's, is record of the year for all I want to do. She beats out, I'll Make Love to You by Boys to Men. Love Snaking Up on You, Bonnie Raite. He thinks he'll keep her, Mary Chapin' Carpenter. And a little song called The Theme from the Streets of Philadelphia by Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Kind of a big deal. Big deal.

Big deal. I'm kind of curious who she beat out for Best New Artist do. Best New Artist is a huge deal. And this is back when you really actually were a new artist when you won best new artist. You weren't on like your fourth album. Yeah. Wow.

Okay, let's see. Best New Artist, 1994. You want to hear who she beat out? Yes. Counting Crows. Difficult for me to reconcile this information. Ace of bass. Crash test dummies.

You remember? Hmm. And Green Day. Wow. Because remember that Green Day album came out in 94, Duky, and it was messy. seeve. Yeah.

So anyways, she's extremely famous now and really big. 1994. Tell me what you know about Woodstock, 1994, Bibb. Woodstock, 19994 is the good one, the one that wasn't horrible. The less bad one. The less horrible one. Yeah. I think two people died.

Oh, okay. Which is a small amount compared to the unmitigated disaster that was 99. I love the idea of Cheryl Crowe potentially interacting. with Apex Twin. Oh, love that. Also played this. I have no proof or evidence. It's just more a fanfic in my brain.

Or maybe like a Henry Rollins, because Rollins band played. I like to think that they were like having a little chit-chat, maybe backstage. She has said that this experience for her was kind of like the big thing. This was the big deal. When she was doing Woodstock 94

and performing all I want to do, I think, and people were singing it back to her. She sort of was like, okay, happen. Yeah, I mean, that's a huge, because this is like writing kind of in line with when the song breaks, you know, that same year. 1996, January,

this woman is on the cover of Rolling Stone and she looks hot as fuck. Great cover. So, you know, her second album hasn't even come out yet. She's just still famous. She's still writing the press tale of an album that came out in 93, which is

a really long time. Really long time. Two and a half years. Because also keep in mind we have to remember that like before the record even became a success, it existed and she's like touring in a van and like growing a bigger and bigger following. So it's like the Cheryl Crowe, as we know her sort of in the pop culture stratosphere, is like already a legend by this time. But then when you really think about it, it's like she had to work so hard to even get to the point where anyone even cared about that record. Totally. So at this time, she is like almost 34, 33 and a half or something.

Important age. Important age, the Jesus year. I wanted to point out that she did give an interview about partying because we talked about Guinness and being one of the boys and stuff. She talked about how she was influenced by women like Bessie Smith, Billy Holiday, and Janice Joplin. And I sort of started living Janice's lifestyle before I made my album. I was throwing up after every gig because I was so super. smashed. I got so sick I had to stop smoking and drinking. Everything was a blur. I was anemic.

I had bronchitis. I was canceling shows. I had the beginning of nodes, which as a singer, you know, very scary. Horrify. So I guess like after that, even though this is like the high of her fame, she wasn't like that parting part of her was like completely in the past because she was like, well, I can't be fun. I can't do this anymore. If you listen to like interviews of her from around this time, her voice is so raspy. It's like, When she's talking, she's truly, like she sounds like a smoking grandmother from the Bronx. And it's like, all she wanted to do is have some pet. It's true.

And she did. It seemed that she had like went out and had a lot of fun. My favorite thing about her now when she talks about drinking is that her thing now is she has like her one Guinness, maybe two. I love that it's still a Guinness. She loves Guinness. The woman loves Guinness on top. I can't simply can't relate. That shit is disgusting.

It takes like drinking brown phlegm to me. I like it. I like it. I think it's good. I like a snake bite. You know, you mix it with cider delicious, but like just straight, like thick milkshake beer. Yeah.

Okay. So in 1996, she was resplendent, gorgeous on the cover of Rolling Stone in January. In May of 1996 is when her ex-boyfriend, Kevin Gilbert, is found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation in Eagle Rock. In Eagle Rock, I didn't know this. Yes, in Eagle Rock.

I believe that's where he lived. She said in an interview, in the weirdest way my reaction was that of not being surprised. As long as I've known him, he struggled with life as if every single event in life was out to bring him down or trip him up. His perception of the world from a narcissistic standpoint was one of darkness, unhappiness. Because his death was an accident, just to be clear, like, he didn't die by suicide. He, you know, was an accident. At the time, he was working on, like, industrial gothic music.

Like, he had become very goth, basically. You know, that I just can't imagine. how hard that was. There's actually a song on the self-titled Shale Crow album that, you know, comes out in 96 in September called Sad, Sad World, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

And some lyrics in that seem to be referring to him where they say, I know you hate me, I see that now. I'm a bad, bad girl for letting you down. I remember every fucked up minute. It's a sad, sad world without you around. Which is very sad. The drama doesn't stop here.

David Barrowald There's like a pretty interesting piece about Kevin Gilbert after his death in the San Francisco Chronicle by Joel Selvin because he was from the South Bay of you know up north and David Barrowald says

I saw something in entertainment magazine that said Kevin Gilbert comma the piano player on Shale Crow's record comma has died he hated that Shale Crow record and that's all he's going to be known for the piano player roll over Kevin Gilbert

it's not nice words but they all went to the funeral Cheryl Crow of course went and she said it was really awkward I'm bringing all this up not to gossip although you know I'm a messy bitch who loves for gossip but I'm bringing it up to say like this is the energy

we're bringing into album number two you know like I think it's really important like there's a lot of fucking shit that is swirling I imagine around in Cheryl Crow's mind and heart and just, you know, fuck, that's a lot. Like, you became famous overnight. A bunch of people you were really close with hate you.

You know, your ex-boyfriend has died. It's nuts. Yeah. It's nuts. Yeah. So let's talk about this self-title album. Again, I love doing this show because I learned so much about ours that I don't know anything about. A, I didn't know that Cheryl played like every instrument.

But I love that she comes in. into this one and she's like, I'm going to play a lot of the instruments on this album. Yeah. It feels like to me, and if you agree, like, it was like, okay, that last album, while like, you know, we read that coat before she went in being like, I don't care if there's eight writers on the song, blah, blah, blah. It's like, but now that she's gone through the fucking mire and shit of these people shitting on her and the back and forth, like, she's like, okay, let me remind y'all

that I can do all of this. I didn't need them. Exactly. You even look at like the album cover of this record. It's like she has like one string of hair like in front of her face. It's black and white. Like she's this record to me is like the biggest fuck you to anybody who doubted her. I mean even like in my own experience like having a male collaborator like I had to deal with so much. Oh she doesn't write the music. He writes everything. She only, you know, lends this amount to it. And it's like it's fucked up. We live in a society and in a world. We do live in a society. As George Costanza once famously said, we live in a society in a place where people want to just say, if there's a man attached to it, then the man did it.

And this to me is Cheryl Crowe saying, fuck all y'all. I'm not only going to make this record myself, I'm going to play pretty much every instrument and I'm going to produce it myself, which when she told A&M that she was going to produce this record, they were a little bit like, hmm?

But they were also probably like, whatever you want, baby, you sold seven million records. She had, she had reached the point in her career where basically I think the label was like, go off and, you know, you've earned it. Yeah, you sell seven million records. Do what you want. Have a frog produce it. Yeah. Like, who cares?

You want to bring a deer in here? Like, that's fine. But I definitely think that this record is sort of her, you know, it's a gracious attempt at like middle fingers to the world. Like she's just like, no. Pause this everyone and go look at the album cover because it is, she's literally pissed. She's literally like giving you the most bitch face of the universe and I live for it. That's the background of my phone, by the way. I love it.

I just have to say something Cunty, which is like, listen, men of the Tuesday Night Music Club, I've scoured. I didn't see you make anything. So it's like if it was so much of a thing where like, oh, she didn't do this on her own, really? because she's made 500 other huge massive hits and records and like... She had a QVC clothing line. Okay, I'm not sure that's either here nor there, but I... That's just to speak to the level of success this woman has achieved. You know, it's like...

The sad fucking truth of the matter is that like, if it was just talent that made people stars, there'd be a lot more stars, babe. But it's not... It's a magical, mystical, you know, god-loor. like confluence of traits and events. And Cheryl Crow had it. And you know, you can be bitter about it, babe, but these people didn't. And that sucks, but it's, it's life, you know.

Fucking build a bridge and get over it. Let's hear if it makes you happy. You have it on your playlist. It was the first single. It's a goddamn fucking bop. Shall we, shall we just play it? Let's do it. This is if it makes you happy.

That was if it makes you happy. a goddamn gorgeous slapper of a goddamn bop. I'll put on a poncho. I'll fucking put on a poncho. Play for a mosquito. Play for mosquitoes. Producer Dylan has raised an interesting question. She says,

when these songs came out, did you guys think this was, in capital letters, cool music? When it came out, she perceived it as mom music. But then when she grew up, she thought this was perfect.

You know what? I frankly don't have a strong memory of these albums. I mean, of course I remember if it, you know, all I want to do is have some fun every goddamn day of my life on the radio. And I remember hearing if it makes you happy.

I'm not going to like lie and revisionist history and pretend like I had Tuesday night music club CD because everybody had the Tuesday night music club CD. Like that's a CD everyone bought, which is why it sold like 8 million copies within like whatever. And I liked it.

But I don't think I was, you know, again, this is 93. I was like deep in my like listening to hole. No, I didn't think it was cool. I didn't think it was uncool. I honestly didn't really think about it. I have to say that like I felt similarly to the like I didn't think it was uncool. I will say that like this song to me like I remember hearing it and as a singer like growing up as a singer like I really always like took to any song that had like a belt in it.

Like anything that like was like belting. I definitely sang this song like in a talent show which is really funny to think. about because I was like very young and like to think of a small child like singing this song is a little interesting. But I've never been one of those people, even when I was in my like deepest of like punk phases. I've never been one of those people that's like, is it cool or uncool? It's just do I like it? And I always liked it. Like I just always felt like she was a fantastic and incredible songwriter, an incredible singer, an incredible musician. To this day when people are like, who's your favorite artist of all time? And I say Cheryl Crow, they're like, ha ha.

I'm like, no, it's not a joke. Like, I'm not trying to be ironic. Sorry that my, like, favorite artist isn't, you know, whatever hip-cool thing you thought I was going to be. But, like, I just, to me, a song, like a good song is a good song. And I feel like these songs are fantastic songs. I will say that, like, this song was literally in, like, the Britney Spears movie. Crossroads.

So clearly, like, young girls felt connected to this song. It felt like anthemic girl power kind of song. First of all, I remember that while I was like publicly listening to punk music, I was privately listening to David Matthews band in The Counting Crows. That's A of all. But B of all, like as a girl, you know, I'm just a girl. I was at this time, by 96 anyways, keep in mind, Alanis Morris had dropped her goddamn gorgeous, beautiful,

fucking masterpiece, Jagged Little Pill at this point. So I was rocking that every day of my life. Well, I understand Elena. Dennis Morris said it was positioned as more cool than Shail Crow for whatever reason. It was just like a marketing thing and personality, I guess. But I was also listening to fucking Jewel all the time. You know what I mean? Like, did I cry in my room to these hands are small I know?

Bet your fucking bottom dollar I did. Same. The answer, producer Dylan, is maybe the question is moot. The question is, if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. It's true. And that's like what I genuinely like feel about my own fandom. of her is that it's like, I'm not a guilty pleasures person. I don't believe in it. You know that my favorite shit on planet Earth is Bravo, trash reality TV. I like the cheesecake factory. I don't

give a fuck. Like, I like what I like. And to me, like this song, it speaks to like, I don't care. If I like it, then I like it. Also, this song, as a person who has experienced my own rise to fame, not at all compared to, you know, like the way that Cheryl Crow did. It's like this song, she, you know, kind of vaguely says that it was a commentary on like, if all you ever wanted was to be famous and all you ever wanted was to be a successful singer, then like, why is it making you so sad? And like, I really, really personally on a personal level relate to that so hard. Yeah, because as we all know now through our years of research into the self-help world, if your happiness comes from outside of yourself, it's a black hole and it's endless and you'll never be happy.

So, yeah. Not enough fame in the goddamn world. Yeah, that song is a banger. I want to paint a quick picture as I like to do of the musical landscape of 1996. Like I said, Alanis Morissette has come out. The top songs of the year included, Give Me One Reason to Love You, Tracy Chapman. She's back.

I love you always forever, Donna Black-Lews. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey. Because you loved me. Celine Dion. And a little ditty called the Macarena. Number one song of 1996. Hands down, beat out every other song. Insane.

It was a different time. Do you still remember the dance? I do. Of course I do. Like, I'll ever forget that dance. I'll be like on my death bed with Alzheimer's and I'll still know how to do the macarena. Like the muscle memory of the macarena is so real.

It's true. Okay, so Tuesday Night Music Club came into a landscape that was very heavily grunge still. It was still like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, in terms of guitar music anyways, that was the dominant force. Tracy Chapman was the first and she was like way, way, way early. But Cheryl Crow starts to usher in this age of extremely successful female singer-songwriters. And we're talking Alanis, we're talking Sarah McLaughlin. We're talking, you know. Paula Cole.

Paula Cole. Donna Lewis. Dixie Chicks. I love you always forever. Yeah, whatever. I can go on. I can fucking, again, the aforementioned small hands, Jewel. Suzanne Vega, who was from the 80s but got really big in the 90s with Tom's Diner.

Fiona Apple, Joan Osborne. Emily Lou Harris, who is eternal. Fucking Lisa Loeb, babe. There's a lot going on. Tracy Bonham. Meredith, the Brooklyn. Sean Cole then. Sunny came home with the last night.

Fantastic. We're like in peak Lilifair hours. We're about to be. 1997 is the first Lilifair. Back to this album. She make an album, she mad. And it's fucking good. Interestingly enough,

Bill Betrell, owner of Toad Hall, is at first involved in the making this album. He was meant to produce it. And he did co-write three songs, maybe angels. I love it. Do you know what that song's about, by the way? What? It's like about basically aliens. And it's kind of about her do a little reading about it. It's like something about like Kirk Cobain is involved and it's like aliens and she's like looking for like signs in the desert. It's an interesting backstory of a song. I'm sorry. You can't just. I know, I'm sorry.

I, I'm fired. It's Kurt Cobain and aliens. And like, anyways, we don't need to talk about it. Just to, as a certain group of people say on the internet, do your own research. Yeah, you know what? This is proto Tom DeLong. You know, pre-CIA clearance. She's, I see it here.

I'm headed to Roswell to wait and see. She is? Mm-hmm. Anyways, that song was co-written by Bill Betrell. It's a good song. It's maybe about aliens and Corcombein. Hard to make a stand and O'Marie. They do not get along during this initial working together.

She Mad and He Go Bye Bye. Another single off this album was A Change Would Do You Good, which is a good. You chose the song Home. Why don't we hear it and then I want you to talk about why you chose this song? Okay. Okay.

This is Home. That was Home by Cheryl Crow, a gorgeous singer, a beautiful artist. Tell me what you love about this song. What I love about this song is, first of all, this is like,

she wrote this song completely on her own. There's no other co-writer on this song. I do want to mention Jeff Trott, who is her longtime collaborator, who she still, like, to this day, works with and they're still like really, really good friends. He comes in on this record and he kind of, you know,

she like starts recording it at a studio and then she's like, never mind, the Bill Betel thing falls apart. She goes to New Orleans. She's like, never mind, Kurt Cobain, aliens. Jeff Trot comes in. He helps her. They write, if it makes you happy together, he becomes her, you know, her longtime collaborator.

This song to me is, she says that this song in an interview, I think on like Charlie Rose or something, she says that this song took her 10 minutes to write and she wrote it at the microphone. And as... For myself. As a songwriter and like as a person,

as an artist and a person who not only like just loves her but also like really looks up to her inspirationally for what I do with my own music, it's like that's insane. To just to hear a song that's crafted this well and like know that she allegedly just walked up to the mic and was like, da, da, da, da.

da da da, here it is. Like, it's so amazing to me, and especially coming off of the drama of the Tuesday Night Music Club, it's like, the chick has got it, right? She's got it. She's a star. She's born.

She's a star. Hollywood, here she comes. Also, the thing that I really love about this song is that the vocal performance is so amazing because she's like, she's essentially like whispering. It's a very quiet, just like, sparse sort of vocal take. There's a certain part of the song,

the bridge, really does it for me. like it's just all of a sudden like a shift into a completely sort of like melancholy style. She's like talking about like I watch the like I like to see the Riviera and like I want to watch the sunrise in a stranger's arms. Like she's just it's beautiful to me and it's so like I can see exactly what she's talking about. And again, it's just knowing that she walked up to a microphone and 10 minutes here it was. It's annoying to know that like a person can do that. Wouldn't you agree? I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that if anyone can write any song, whereas I can play the five chords on the guitar. But again, watch this space for my debut album. If she can do it at 30, I can do it at 40.

Agreed. Amen. Watch out world. She does kind of stick to her political guns. Sorry, that was a bad choice of words as this song is called Love is a Good Thing and it is literally about guns. it says sort of explicitly that Walmart sells guns to children which is a pretty bold statement to make the lyric is watch our children while they kill each other

with a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores it's a pretty bold lyric to put in considering at this time Walmart was maybe one of the largest retailers of CDs they literally like banned it yeah they wouldn't sell her CD and she was like I don't care

well I don't know if she was like I don't care that's fanfic. I feel like she was probably... She could have taken it. I'm sure some suit at the record label was like, hey, not a good idea. Do you want to take it off?

And she was worried, no. So I thought that was interesting. Apparently, like, some radio stations would camp out outside of Walmarts and, like, give the CDs away. Amazing. It was really cool. And there's another...

There's a protest song on here called Redemption Day. That was later covered by Johnny, Cash. No, McNeill. That's one of my favorite songs of hers. It's on the playlist, but I included the later version with Johnny Cash because the story around it and how that came to be is actually like really fascinating and amazing to me.

She started touring and like playing for the troops and she comes back from like Bosnia. And she's like, I cannot believe what is going on in the world. Because again, keep in mind she's a small town girl from Missouri. She doesn't really understand, you know, like what's going to. on outside of her own life. And so to now be this massive celebrity and to be exposed to so much of what's happening in the universe that she lives in, she said that she felt like she just couldn't not comment on what she had seen. And the cool thing about the way that she wrote that song, too, is that she sat down and basically typed it all out and it was like a long prose. And then she

put it to music, which is not typically how she would write her song. She would kind of do it, melody lyrics, that kind of vibe. But this was like she had something to say and then she put it to music. I feel like this record, as a fan, there's so many songs on this record that I feel like get overlooked. I mean, maybe we need to hear maybe angels.

Producer Dylan and I did workshop some... Did you find anything about the aliens? No, but we workshopped some like potential lyrics that are, here we are now, we are aliens, a UFO, a Kobayino, an ET though, because we're going to jail for, for being annoying in space. We're going into space jail.

To your point of the songs that are overlooked, why don't we play Maybe Angels? This is Maybe Angels. That was Maybe Angels. I've hunted down the source of the, I don't even know if it's true, information about what this song is about. It is the New Musical Express, a British publication,

October 1996. they just call it, the writer calls it, an extraterrestrial yarn that finds Kurt Cobain joining John Lennon in Heaven's Winged Choir. Okay, that's where I got that from. That's like his description of what the vibe is, got it. I'm glad we got... We cleared that up.

I'm glad we cleared that up, first of all. I'm glad we got here, though, because there's a couple of pieces that come out around this album that are fucking unhinged. Really? Yeah, that like speak a little bit to what this woman and all probably women in music were experiencing at the hands of the press and the media. Before I get there, though, let's talk about how this album was reviewed.

It seems to me like everything, when you get really big, really fast, they love to fucking try to take you down a peg on the next album. Sophomore slump, baby. Yeah, but it's like, it makes me feel like the sophomore slump is manufactured by the media. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, 1,000 percent. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't really. I forgot I was speaking to an elite member of the musical community.

I'm out here, just a little podcaster. Eric Wisebarred said in Spin in the review, she's still a little icky. You're a grown man, babe, icky. Especially making statements like Redemption Day and Love is a good thing. So they don't like her. this writer does not like her statements. And her new album is no edge walk. It just sounds gorgeous and current.

And I suspect pop musicians will be learning from it from years to come. So it's a bit of a double-edged. Don't you love? It just sounds gorgeous, like, which is ultimately a compliment. But then it has to be like, no. It's not good though. It's not edgy enough. Chicago Sun Times did call it one of the best records of 1996.

I've tried to wrap my head around this review. and producer Dylan has also made some comments on it. It is in Entertainment Weekly. They call her the Bill Clinton of music? It's very confusing. So they say every era gets the singer-songwriter it needs and deserves. When 60s counterculture types sought to chill out

in the early 70s, there was James Taylor. Just as the following decade, Tracy Chapman served as an outlet for the Reagan-era disgruntlement of righteous liberals. First of all, this man is wildly overstating. Tracy Chapman's first album came out in 1988, So it's not like the entire 80s had Tracy Chapman. There was two years at the end after she had put out this album,

which wasn't even overtly political. Anyways, excuse me for that correction. Now at a time when we want to believe in things, even if it makes little sense to do so, such as a well-intentioned president with some pesky faults, we have Cheryl Crowe, who may well be the Bill Clinton of rock and roll. Streppen. Much like the president, Crow has tailored her career to fit the times,

whether that meant singing. So, such a fucking craven view, by the way, of what she's done, which I don't agree with at all. Anyways, tailored her creative at the time, so whether that meant singing backup from Michael Jackson, 1986, or recording routine power ballad pop on an unreleased 1992 album. How are you even bringing up her fucking unreleased 1990 album that is unreleased because she didn't think it was good? On Tuesday Night Music Club, she reinvented herself yet again as a life in the downsized lanes. singer-songwriter, a more polished, mainstream, and sexy version of mannered slees-observer poets like Ricky Lee Jones. This time, the reinvention worked. I love that it's like, she's not allowed,

is they like, she can't reinvent herself? Is that like? Also, what are you even talking about? She went from being a backup singer from Michael Jackson. What even is that to reinvent from? She had a job. Yeah. And then she made an album she didn't like. And it's just like, they really were striving for some narrative. Maybe he was friends with someone in the Tuesday hit music clip. Did you ever think of that? Oh my god. I love this conspiracy theory. Perhaps he had a vendetta that we don't know. We're speculating. Despite the suspect makeover, sir, what are you even talking about? The album was sharp and quirkily produced with Crow revealing herself as the consummate shuck and jive entertainer. Bim, what? Sir, on her new album, Cheryl Crowe, she continues

the Clinton connection. She yearns to be all things to all people. I don't love it. I'm simply blown away by the reaches. This man, I'm surprised he didn't literally pull a muscle with the reaching that he did. Producer Dillon says, this reads like a high school assignment, write a music review that links the music to current events. And this guy was like, yes, this woman is just like Bill Clinton, reinvented herself many times and then tries to be everything to everyone. Literally what? Let me talk about the mean, not mean, I don't know how to say this. Like, there's just some crazy stuff. Very specifically, it seems from British press, which is, makes sense because British press, especially back in the 90s, that was

like kind of a hallmark of British music press. They said wild shit. You know, it's kind of like fun because they would say whatever. There's a piece that is, maybe it's better if I don't even say what publication is, but there's a publication that starts out talking about like her doing a photo shoot and it's like describing what she's wearing physically, which is like something sort of like sexy or whatever. Yeah. which, whatever, fine. But there's a line that he's like, the bikini line could use some work.

I'm like, did you just, are you, did you write a line about this woman's bikini line hair into the piece about her profile? And it just like goes on to be a little more crazy. This one piece in Mojo magazine in 1996, the guy Matt Snow says this. Cheryl may need to rebuild some bridges. I want to say again,

The narrative around the second album is 100% about Tuesday Night Music Club. Yeah. That's all there is. That's what everyone talks about. So Cheryl may need to rebuild some bridges to reclaim her term. Tuesday Night Music Clubs sold off the back of an awful lot of tour mileage in PR. All at first went swimmingly, as Cheryl delighted everyone she met. And on stage, the band bonded and the music cooked.

But just as the album wouldn't stop selling, the tragedy that followed must have seemed to Cheryl like a curse. She had done nothing to deserve. As the tour wound from 1994 into 1995, stories began to circulate of tantrums and sackings and of Cheryl's increasing withdrawal from the company of her musicians and record company support system into the bolthole of an improving book and a bloody mood. British people. People would come out of meetings with her shaking with rage and frustration. So they're basically saying like, oh, she became a bitch.

Yeah, like she's difficult. Exactly. the classic fucking term. Oh, she's difficult. She's a diva. And it's like, babe, how do you expect someone to be when all the above things

that we talked about Tuesday night music club have happened? Your ex-boyfriend has died. Everyone is being mean to you publicly that you thought were your friends. Like, yeah, sorry she's not going to like smile big and fucking hang out on the tour bus because she wasn't feeling it. Also, like, not to mention the amount of insanity that comes with becoming a publicly known person.

And when it happens that quickly, it's not a normal thing. And that's like my beef that I always have with like calling women difficult. And, you know, because I used to get a lot of that shit too, like, oh, she didn't smile on stage. But the show was good. It's like, I don't have to fucking smile for you. I don't have to do. anything that I don't want to do. And also, like, keep in mind this woman, yeah, all the horrible things you just said, but also, like, she's new to this. She's not, she's not, like, been in

this industry for, like, 13 years and all of a sudden she, like, understands how to dodge this stuff. Like, she's brand new to this stuff. And it's not normal to be famous in any capacity. You don't, I don't, I don't understand the, like, you have to be nice. No. To be famous. Like, it's not like she was, like, abusing. people, you know, just because she was trying to, like, have things be the way she wanted them to. It doesn't strike me as a thing that, like, needs an article written about it. Yeah. I was really into, like, the way she's just, like, the press took off during exposure to the

Grammys. People wrote articles and got interviews from other places and created an image that wasn't necessarily true. And also people were tired of me. It backfired, particularly on me. It also backfired on a number of people in different ways. In the end, I had a lot of negative press. I was everywhere and people were sick of me. Then there were people from my record who were jealous. They were writing that they created me and I wasn't around for my record. People were making real desperate moves to bring me down. It was very interesting for these guys to find a female who could play every instrument they could play. I play bass, guitar, keyboards, and Hammond. Tell them, Cheryl Crow. I will also say just from the connections that I have with people

in the music industry who I've worked with her or know her. I have never heard anything other than she is the most delightful, sweetest, nicest, giving person on planet Earth. So any of this shit that I hear, like, I'm like, first of all, I know what it's like to be stressed out and tired and everyone hates you and is talking shit about you and is commenting on your body and your weight and all of this shit. It's hell on Earth.

But at the same time, like, I'm just like, I don't believe it. I just simply don't. believe it. I don't. Totally. She's an angel. She's one of those angels in the song with Crocodone. She is. She is. I love that she's really

honest about stuff and that she also like, she says it here. So when I went to make this new record, I wanted that emotion and to make a beautiful record. So she was channeling this like pissed offness, you know, into this. I thought it was really cool. Like she's like, oh, I was extremely raw. And I found

a really musical female engineer, Shirley Ann Schumacher, which I love that. You know, it's like the thoughtfulness, again, we've talked about feminism, left my body long ago. But like, the like kind of shift from like, okay, I did this thing with all these men. I like experience that things happened the way they did. I have some anger. She probably had some fucking trust issues. Again, I'm not one put words in her mouth, but like after that shit goes down, I would

want to make my record with a female engineer too. Like enough is enough of that fucking bullshit. Yeah. She also talked about like the experience of the leaving Las Vegas thing, how it made it really difficult for her to get close to people. Like it was really hard for her after that to trust people, which makes perfect sense. Like essentially all these people are betraying her and throwing her, you know, like into the fire. Yeah. So she says something about, because we kind of touched on this earlier about like, and it's kind of carrying into 96, but it's like, especially, I think special. in England. In America, it was a lot, like, you know, female song or songwriters were breaking through. Also, like, the hoody and the blowfishes and gin blossoms and, you know, et cetera, of the world, counting crows and stuff, had started to also, like, have a huge foothold, you know, again, we're sort of post-grunge. But the expectation in guitar music was kind of this, like, traditional and brought up, like, are you cool, you know? And she says to an ME,

the writer says, she's 34, a touch older than Jarvis, of the band pulp. Why the hell is she making foggyish music more suited to Joe Cocker? You know that man was so proud of that joke. And she goes,

and he says, it's like punk rap, Grunge House in the past 25 years of musical evolution never happened. Scary. She says,

your influences are your influences. Rock and roll surely comes from different roots. Bands like Holt came from the 80s punk scene. Bands like Pearl Jam are coming from the 70s.

I'm older than Pearl Jam. And I'm also from a different part of the world. the Midwest. I grew up close to Memphis, so I gravitated to music that was familiar to me. Those are my roots. To me, it's like insane that they're like, why can't you be more punk? When she's like, I don't write that kind of music. That's, I like Van Morrison. Because I'm not, yeah, because my favorite band is like the Rolling Stones. I don't want to be your, you know, the way that you want me to be. And that's something that I feel like, we'll get there when we get into her fantastic album 100 miles from Memphis.

when she goes full soul. She does. Cheryl is truly, I think, an artist that just does what Cheryl wants to do. And that is proven to us by the fact that she goes and makes a massive record with Stings producer and says, fuck this, I don't want to do it. Like, she doesn't care what you think. She wants to make the music that she wants to make. Amen. Well, every day is a winding road. And this winding road takes Cheryl Crow right to the inaugural Lilith Fair. The fucking inaugural Lilith Fair. I wish I had gone. Did you go Bethany? No, I wish. 1997.

I was at Warp Tour. Sorry. I think I was too. Sorry to the gods. But an incredible lineup, the first inaugural fucking Lilifar, main stage.

We're talking, we've said this again, but I'm going to say it again. Sarah McLaughlin, founder of Lilifair, Cheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, Jewel,

Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Fiona, Joan Osborne, What If God was one of us? The Cardigans, Emily Lewis, Lisa Loeb, please stay.

The Indigo Girls. Love it. This is a girl. Natalie Merchant. There's so much going on here. Plus there's like 40 other artists. So I just want to bring out a couple of things about Lilif Fair. It's really insane.

Considering that like by 97, these women that we all named were selling millions of records. You know, like they were pretty much outselling male musicians in the guitar world. anyways, you know? And still, it was difficult for them to book tours and stuff. Like Cheryl Crow, there's a fantastic, I think we've named Check this on this show before, but we'll say it again. There was like a goddamn glorious oral history of Lilif Fair and Vanity Fair by a mentor of the show, Jessica Hopper, that everyone should read. And from that, Cheryl Crow said, I remember talking to my agent about touring with another female. And the response was, you don't want to do that because it won't sell tickets.

insane. Even then, you know, in the mid-90s, it's like Sarah McLaughlin remembers that Cheryl Crow brought her yoga instructor on tour. Of course she did. Love it. Queen fucking shit.

I don't have these quotes, but I just want to bring up that it's also mentioned that Joni Mitchell apparently had spent years giving hilarious quotes about how much she hated Cheryl and Jewel.

But then she, then there's like this big sing-along for big yellow taxi with all the women. Yeah, Johnny Mitchell kind of famously... Scorpio. That's all you gotta say. It goes on record talking in a not nice way about other women performers.

So the Lilith Fair is massive. I'm sure people were like, that's not gonna whatever. And it was huge. You know, it did really well. And off the tail of that, Shale Crow does the song for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

She sure does. Should we hear that song? It's honestly a fantastic song. The music video is so good. Okay. Let's hear Tomorrow Never Dies. That was Tomorrow Never Dies. Bond.

James Bond. I just want to say something. Yes, please. The vocals on that song. You know this because you're my friend and I talk to you about Cheryl Crow. An ungodly now. But she is,

I wouldn't say that she's underrated because obviously she's insanely successful. But I think her range and her capabilities as a singer, she's a fucking fantastic singer. And that song in particular, like, I think in a song, like, if it makes you happy, you can tell, like she's belting her ass off. That's a high-ass note to hit.

It's a hard note to hit in full voice. That song in particular, like, it's so, like, she wails. Like, she really is just, like, wailing. Like, those high notes in that chorus are, those are like big, big, huge notes. And this is also to say that like, I mean, she studied her major like in college was like piano and like vocal. And it wasn't necessarily like singing in particular, but it was like the voice.

Like she learned how to properly use her voice. And she knows all the technical terms and all the things that even though I took opera lessons, I don't remember a goddamn single thing from it. There's right. There's like several kinds of female musician in the minds. of the world. Either you're a pop star and you don't write your own songs or you're a singer songwriter and it's just imagined that you have an acoustic guitar. Yeah. And you've plucked it out on the acoustic guitar, right? Or you're in a band and you maybe wrote part of the song or whatever.

But like Cheryl Crowe is like a piano, extremely talented piano player. Yeah. And I read something. She said she writes most of her songs on the bass. Yeah. I find that fascinating. Can you explain a little bit about this to me and the rest of the community of non-musicians who, like, don't understand? She talks about writing on the base as sort of existing as this thing where she can kind of, like, pull in the rhythm is there, and it kind of allows her to write around the rhythm of what a song is going to be. But melodically, like, because if you think about, like, the bass, it's almost like it's one note, right? It's like, you're just hitting, like, a bass note and you can kind of write to that. It gives you a lot of space

for melody. I think it allows a writer. I've never particularly like written a song on bass, but I will say that I have written on like a lowy string of a guitar, which you could argue is sort of similar to a bass. I think I read Mitzky also writes on bass.

That would make sense. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah, I think her because if you listen especially the earlier records, like they're very rhythmic records. Like the songs. Totally. It's not a song where it's like every beat is the same and every rhythm is the same.

Like you listen to, especially on Tuesday Night Music Club, like there's a lot of like jazz like jazz drum parts. There's a lot of like kind of not to sound like the biggest white lady, but like funky parts. You know, she gets a little funky. It's funky. This is totally neither here nor there. Well, it's related to funk. Did you know Flea played on you ought to know?

Flea and Dave Navarro? I didn't know that. I was today years old when I learned that. Anyways, no, I agree. It's like, her music is bluesy and it totally makes sense if you think about, again, we've talked about her influences

being like the Rolling Stones, Janice Joplin. Like, that's bluesy rock music. So like, she's in that lineage. So yeah, the bass thing now that you say it, that way, it makes sense to me. Also my first instrument, for those of you at home,

keeping track of my musical career. In 1998, she collaborates on Scott Weiland's album, 12 Bar Blues. She plays accordion on Lady Your Roof brings me down. Lo-key, this is a good album, by the way, if you guys have not listened to it. Scott Weiland was very talented. She also loves the accordion.

Doesn't she play it on strong enough when she's on stage? Like, isn't that what she's playing? She has. She has, yeah. And then in 98, she plays the second Lilith Fair. And this is the iconic Lilith Fair, where Cheryl Crow brings one Mr. Prince out. He might have been going by the artist formerly known as Prince as the symbol then.

I don't really know. I don't know how to say the symbol. But he shows up at Lilith Fair and he plays guitar on Every Day as a Winding Road, which he loved that song and we don't want to get ahead. But later, Shail Crow sings with him on an album. And on that same album he covers Every Day as a Winding Road. That's how much he liked it. Yeah, they were friends.

And she talks like later, it might be the Dax Shepherd podcast interview. She talks about how sadly they kind of had fallen out of touch. And when Prince passed away, she was really kind of regretful that she hadn't, like she hadn't spoken to him in a while. Yeah. Which is sad. And then in 1998, your favorite album comes out. The Globe Sessions.

The Globe Sessions of Globe. The Sessions of Globe. Sessions of Globe. September 1998. I did not realize that the name of the, the name of the. this album is because she built her own studio in New York called Globe Studios. Yeah. I will say something about Cheryl. The album titles are just straight to the point. Right. Like, no, we're not like dealing in heavy-handed metaphors. We're, yeah.

This is called Tuesday Night Music Club. Every Tuesday, we had a music club. It was a night. Named after the studio, named after myself and so on, so on, sure. We love it. Listen, I'm here for it. So I read that this was the album where she sort of finally departs from spending the majority of her songwriting as like an observer, a storyteller of like, you know, because they're like, I don't want to say fake stories, but you know, fictional characters. And this album is like very personal. Yeah. This to me feels like her breakthrough record. And when I say that, I don't mean like the record that brought her to the scene and everyone learned about. her. To me, it feels like a breakthrough, as in like a therapy breakthrough, where it's like

an artist really stepping into her own power and her own story and who she is. And it feels like she's sort of reckoning with like a lot of shit and a lot of pain from the past. There's a line in a song on this record where she says like, it don't hurt like it did. I can sing my song again. And I think that like genuinely like sums it up. She's coming off of the record where she's basically middle fingers to the air. The first record has so much drama, so much pain. and here she is like stepping and being like, I'm Cheryl and here is what I have to say. To me, that's like what it feels like. So you would say this is like her blood sugar sex magic.

Yes, exactly what I would say. Exactly. Well, this is obviously the album that has the goddamn gorgeous, glorious jam, my favorite mistake on it. It sure does. Opening song. Like, what a way to start a record. Should we hear it? We absolutely should. Okay, this is my favorite mistake. That was my favorite mistake. My favorite mistake is my

favorite Cheryl Crow song, I think. But what's your favorite mistake? Where do I begin? That is strictly between me and my therapist, TBQH. I'm sure you know this because you are the real researcher host of the show, but do you know that that song lost to My Heart Will Go On at the Grammys? in 1999? I did know that. Isn't it funny to think of those songs even like existing in the same category?

Yeah. Cheryl Crow also later loses a Grammy too since you've been gone but we haven't gotten there yet. My favorite mistake, a cultural phenomenon in 2007

leads to an episode of Grey's Anatomy with the same name. Gorgeous show, gorgeous pairing of things. This song allegedly is about Eric the Clapton.

One Eric Clapton. There's an interview with her on a podcast where she talks about how much she loves the idea that only she knows who this song is really about and that everybody has their own, you know, ideas. And it's kind of like it's

her, you're so vain. Yeah. Yoursovane core. Yeah, exactly. I have an issue with that song because With your Sauvain or with this song? With your Sauvain because it's like, I bet you think this song is about you.

But it is. It is about you. And it feels like I'm stuck in some like illogical loop. It just really gets to me. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Whoever this song is about, it doesn't matter. I don't want Cheryl to have her heartbroken, but I have to say I'm really glad she did in this instance

because what a gorgeous piece of art it produced. And it feels timeless. Like to me, this feels like a song, that could exist on like the last like Heim record. Like I feel like there would be no bands like Heim or like Wachachatchee or Brandy Carlyle, all these sort of women that feel like they kind of model themselves after bits of this era.

I don't feel like they would exist without Cheryl Crow. And I'm sure that they would probably tell you the same thing. No, totally. I mean, they all kind of exist within a lineage. And like there's a lot of crossover. You know, we haven't gotten there yet. But later on, Cheryl Crow produces a bunch of a Stevie Nix album, Stevie Nix famously, a mentor to Hymie. Cheryl Crow really dances with country music

back and forth in a lot of these albums, you know, and later just a full... We get there. Full sex. Full sex with country music. Well, sexual relations. Apparently, Crow agrees with you, or she did in 2005, that she told the BBC that her favorite single is my favorite mistake. Also, the Globe Sessions won this Grammy and beat out. David Matthews Garbage John Fogarty and Whole for celebrity skin

I love the idea that John Fogarty and whole were in the same category that kind of makes sense to me because what's the middle ground between those two she all girl. She also won best female rock vocal performance for Sweet Child in mine, the cover. How do you feel about this cover?

I'm going to be really, really honest with you and I already know you're going to get mad at me. But I learned... You don't like Guns and Roses. I didn't know this song until I heard the Cheryl Crow version in Big Daddy. How is that even possible? Because my dad...

All of my music, because I was... I mean, what year did that movie come out? The song came out in 99, so... Well, I was like not... I mean, I was like a preteen at that time. And, like, Guns and Roses... You're like, a rocker. My dad's a rocker, but my dad listened to, like,

Steely Dan. and the Doobie brothers. And he like, I mean, my dad is like a Guns and Roses fan, but I wasn't really like exposed to that type of rock and roll growing up. Like I was, my parents listened more to Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. That is what I heard every day of my life. And so genuinely, like when I first heard this song, I thought it was a Sheryl Crow song.

And then, of course, as I get older, I realize this is not a Sheryl Crow song. I just want to say, though, that having now become familiar, with the original version. Everyone's going to roast me so hard for this, but I don't care. Her vocals at the end of that song, fantastic.

Fantastic. You were going to say that it's better than the original. No, I wasn't. I wasn't going to say it was better. No, I wasn't. I can hold two thoughts at once. I don't think it's better.

I'm just a little blown away that it, as a cover, beat out Melissa Etheridge, Tori Amos, Sarah McLaughlin, and Ani DeFranco. Apparently, this was a little affair category that year.

female rock vocal performance and she won. That's amazing. But the year before she did lose in that category and I only bring that up so that I can bring up the song that she lost to which is the fucking banger uninvited by Alanis Morissette

off the City of Angels soundtrack. So this album is well received but it's around the time that people start sort of I don't know like I don't say backlash but there's like some questioning Like, for example, there's like the head from a mojo profile of her. Although we haven't really talked about it, she was very massive in England.

Like, England loved Cheryl Crow. Like these first few albums, like charted super high, always at the top 10. She was very big there. She gets a lot of press there. So the head of this mojo profile says, too country for pop? Two poppin for rock? Or rather gorgeously just right. Cheryl Crow's third album, The Debate Continues.

Do you feel like her music was hard to genre-fi? I guess for small-minded people probably, you know, like I don't, I would say that like, yes, if you ask like, what is Cheryl Crow, what does she sound like? She has lots of influences, lots of genres to pull from. So I do think it would be maybe difficult to sort of like put her in one genre. Like I'm not really sure that to me she just sounds like Cheryl Crow, which I know doesn't help. Like I'm not making a case for, you know, know for what she sounds like if I say, she just sounds like Cheryl Crow, but actually kind of I am. Because authentically, I think she just sounds like whatever the fuck she wants to sound like at the time. Yeah, totally. There's like a few lines from that Mojo profile that I wanted to read you and get your opinion on.

So this writer says, Cheryl Crow tends to show modest restraint as a singer. It probably comes from her country roots in Kennet, Missouri. All the more striking than that on the Globe session, she starts to let writ. Not in the manner of Aretha or even Slain Dion, but in her memory. most climactic refrains, she presents a natural stoic at the end of her tether. Yeah, I'm just like nodding along as you read this. I agree to some extent. I do think that like, you know, I've talked about it like earlier in this episode, like

where you really hear how, like in the, for example, the Tomorrow Never Die song, she belts, like she's really, she's going for it on some of those notes. But I do feel like this record in particular is where you really hear how good a singer Cheryl Crowe is. And that's kind of like what I was saying. Like she steps into her power. I think she steps into her power as a vocalist especially because there are some notes on this record

that as a person who's been singing my entire life and took like opera lessons and was classically trained to hit very high big notes, full voice, they're insane. Like I will try singing along in the car and my voice is bleeding. My throat is bleeding, not my voice. That's interesting because I can hit all that.

Well, I guess some of us are just better singers. You know, but you've raised an interesting question in my mind because I'm wondering, like, I wonder if that has to do with, I'm sure some measure of it has to do with just like feeling more uncomfortable as an artist, your two albums in you. But I think, I mean, again, pure speculation, but like I have to imagine there's some connection between these songs being really personal. touching like really emotional spots and then that belting and that like release of that emotion through really letting your voice out. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, I believe that like, again, you have to remember she studied vocals. Like she studied the voice. She has, she knows how to properly sing. She was trained in how to do this. And so I think that, A, maybe it does have something to do with, like, in the beginning,

she potentially felt more reserved because she was singing more narrative stories. You know, that would actually be like a really good question to ask her. I wonder if anyone's ever asked her that before. Cheryl, drop us a line. Cheryl, call us, text me, at us on Twitter.com. Okay, so I'm going to read a couple of reviews for you of this album. The Washington Post. all Cheryl wants to do is find a soulmate who will make her happy.

That's one of the central themes on the Globe Sessions, Crow's third album, and clearly are her most personal. He's basically saying they were all about songcraft, storytelling, and sound. And then he goes, what was missing and what is abundantly available on the Globe Sessions was a sense of emotional exposure. Where many of the previous album songs felt like notebook sketches, these feel like diary entries, shaped by romantic failures and frustrations. They mark the first time Crow has addressed this territory as participant rather than chronicler.

And as the third person observed gives way to the first person exposed, you'll feel you're meeting Cheryl Crow for the first time. Do you feel like that's why this is your favorite album? You know, I was thinking that actually, like, as you were just reading that, I was making all these parallels, like, you know, just with myself and the way that I write as well, like for Best Coast. I was thinking about that. And I was just like, A, maybe from my perspective as a songwriter, who writes from a very personal space,

maybe that is why I'm very connected to it. But separating myself completely and just being a listener and a fan, maybe that is what it is. It's just like her music prior to this, this is going to make me sound like really narcissistic, but like I can relate to a lot of music. I can hear something in a song and be like,

oh, I've experienced that. I've felt that. And I have felt that with her songs, her albums prior to this. But I think on this one, now that I'm really thinking about it, it's like some of these lyrics really hit home and I listened to them. And it's like if I was still making AIM away messages, I would use a lot of these lyrics because they feel very, you know, relatable to me.

Why don't we hear another song off this album? Is there a song that you feel really like is a great example of this sort of like personalization of the songs or personal exposure? There is a song on this record that is called The Dism, difficult kind. Number one, her vocal take is amazing. And number two, I think it really is like kind of almost like it could be related to strong enough where it's like, it's an interesting question that I think is being asked.

And it feels like she is talking about this idea that like her whole life she has been made to feel like she's a difficult person, which again, I don't subscribe to Cheryl. I think you're a wonderful princess queen. All right. Cheryl, your wonderful princess queen, and this is the difficult kind. That was the difficult kind. Gorgeous.

There's lyrics in the song where she says, the chorus of this song is, if you could only see what love is made of me, then I'd no longer be in your mind the difficult kind because, babe, I've changed. Kind of going back to my idea that I'm like, I think this is her therapy record. Like I think she's doing some like real deep examining with herself

and she's really trying to be like all the people that ever thought of me, as XYZ way, like, I wish you could understand, like, how hard I'm working. And I think what love has made of me also is probably just her experience in the world and, like, how, you know, because as we know, love is just, it is, love is, is everything, everything is love. Fox of chocolates. Um, I love, I love this and I love the lyrics. I, yeah, I get the sense again. We can never know. This is between Cheryl and God, but that this is like less of a love song and like you're saying more of a song, like a more general song.

There's the really good lyrics of like, oh, ball-breaking moon and ridiculing stars, oh, the older I get, the closer you are. It reminded me of that Charlie Rose interview that we both watched in advance of this. And I wanted to play a clip from it. Charlie Rose, like, basically starts to be like, people have called you this, this, this, and this, and like, it's kind of like harsh and, like, intense. And I just, it's interesting. You're A tough.

Nobody would deny that. Yeah, I'm tough. Demanding. Okay. The next one's going to be mean. Well, control freak. I find it's easier if I do things myself. Let's just put it like that.

It's crazy, like, the way he comes at her, he's just like, yeah. People, you're tough, demanding. Controlling. You know, and it's just like. Yeah, it's a bit intense. She also says something really beautiful in that interview that, to me, is so real

and like as an artist I really really related to it when she talks about how you're just like when you're in the public eye especially when it happens like rather quickly like you're still learning who you are you're still figuring out like what your interests are who you are what type of people you like

what you don't like and the world kind of boxes you in and says you're this person meanwhile you're still figuring it out but you're figuring it out with you know in her case millions and millions of eyes on her. And that must have been really, really difficult for her. That's

why I think this record must have been very cathartic for her to just sort of like let some of this shit out. Totally. I mean, it was really well received. Rolling Stone gave it four stars. It did really well. It's a great album. I know that this is your favorite. This is their song you want to play off it. There's also a song I want to play off of it. So this might be the thickest section. I told you. that I could literally put this entire record on the playlist

because it's just my, it's my favorite. It's the one that like I know every lyric to every song. Like I've, you know, studied many of her records. But this is the one that when I listen to it, it's just like there's not a single song on this record that I ever want to skip or I ever. I'm kind of like, this isn't my favorite. It's like every single one from top to bottom is just fantastic.

Yeah. And besides my favorite mistake, they're not, the songs aren't as well known as maybe some of the other singles that we're. played. Exactly. And I think that kind of what I was saying like earlier when we talked about, I think it was the self or yeah, like when I didn't put every day as a winding road on the playlist, it's because it's like a lot of her records that had the big hits that everyone sort of knows her for and like you can't walk a mile without hearing it in a grocery

store or a karaoke bar or whatever. It's like a lot of the other songs got overlooked. Whereas I think this one is so interesting that there's one big banger that everyone knows and the rest of it is kind of like songs that, you know, only deep, deep, deep Cheryl fans might like really, really connect to. Real heads. Real heads, no. The Globe Sessions is the best one. Okay. What song do you want to hear? I'd love to hear anything but down. That was like the third single on the record. She writes this one by herself. She works again with Jeff Trott. Jeff Trot, after a self-titled record sort of becomes her main guy, her go-to guy. And this record is one that she she takes the range, she does it herself,

she writes it herself, and I think that this one is another one. Again, it's difficult because I think most of the songs on this record really showcase her vocals, but this one in particular has a moment in the third verse where it's just like truly like, holy shit, this woman is a fantastic singer. Also, one of my favorite lines is in this record.

It was so much easier before you became you. And I really wonder if she's talking to herself in that. That's my take on it, is that she's a mirror. Yeah. I feel like that's about her. Well, let's hear anything but down. That was anything but down. Gorgeous record. You know, I think sometimes, again, speculation, there's, it's not an either-or, right?

Like, a particularly bad breakup can lead to a journey of self-exploration. Of course. Yeah. You know, it's sort of the straw that breaks the mental health's back, if you will. Who's been there? Not I. Certainly not I. Nor myself. Not me driven into the loving arms of my current therapist by a very bad breakup.

In 99, Cheryl Crow makes her acting debut as an ill-fated drifter in the drama, The Minus Man. So where is it you're coming from? Vancouver. Well, he must not be in much of a hurry. What makes you say that? You'd be on the interstate. Did you watch this? I've never seen it. No, I haven't seen it.

It stars her then-boyfriend Owen Wilson as a serial killer. Oh. I didn't. Oh, so that must be how they met. I didn't realize that. Movie night. Okay. And then in 1999 also, a big year for Cheryl, she appears on Prince's album, Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic, singing backup on the song Baby Knows. And that's the album that he also puts the cover of Every Day as a Winding Road on. Okay, so after this, she puts out a live album, Cheryl Crow and Friends live from Central Park, pretty good. Which has a fantastic version of Strong Enough with the Dixie Chicks.

Shout out The Chicks. Oh, yes, I'm out. The Chicks now. Yeah, Sarah McLaughlin's on here, Stevie Nix is on here, Keith Richards is on here, like, no big deal, just like all of the most, all of her heroes and famous people. And Mr. Eric the Clapton. In 2001, the Stevie Nix album, Shangri-La, that Cheryl had done production on came out.

I mentioned it because I found this really interesting piece of an interview with Stevie about this album. And they ask her like, oh, is Cheryl Crow another one of your rock star friends? And she goes, she is. I can't pull anything with Cheryl, nor her with me. Also, I can give her advice because I've already gone through everything she could possibly think of going through. She's like the little sister I never had. And the guy goes, Rosanna Arquette and Laura Dern. were with you in the studio when you were recording the track Fall from Grace.

Do you have any normal friends? And she goes, you know what? That was the first time I met them. The only reason they were there is because they'd come to see Cheryl Crow. Cheryl does know everybody. That's funny. I mean, I think that's just like truly a testament of like she just seems like a really kind and caring person.

I want to hang out with her. I'm super down to hang out with her. Have a few Guinness? Bring us the tap. We are down for the tap of Guinness. Because remember, it has to be from a tap. That's the way she likes it. Nobody wants a tall can of Guinness disgusting.

So the next album comes out in 2002. Come on, come on. Cheryl's 40 years old. So this is her like gorgeous 40-year-old album, much like my gorgeous 40-year-old album, which will be coming out next year. Of course, everyone knows the lead single, which is Soak Up the Sun.

Yep. Again, it's like a song you cannot walk a mile without hearing in a CVS. Still at this day and age. Let's fucking play it, babe. Let's set this off right. Fuck out. Liz Fair on background vocals, don't you forget it. I've never forgotten it and I never will. This is Soak Up the Sun. That was Soak Up the Sun.

Fucking Bop. It's so good. Her friend, the communist, she's disparaging him, I will say. She's disparaging the communist. And I want to just point out the lyric, I don't have digital. This is 2002, so early in her net. by I don't have Didley squat. But I'm like, does she not use an opt-or? Is that what she's saying? I don't have limeware. Don't download my songs. No, I don't know what that means.

There's a song on here that's dedicated to Owen Wilson. At this time, they've broken up, called Safe and Sound, which is pretty good. I also really like Steve McQueen, the album opener. Steve McQueen is a great song. It's like classic Cheryl. the force that she is, just banging one out. It's really good.

I want to read this quote from this interview with The Guardian, and then I want to play the other song that you chose that I also really like. So there's this interview with The Guardian, again, big in the UK. Yeah, these are like all UK interviews. I'm not going to quote too much of this interview because I fucking hated it. It, like, really made me angry. For context, though, at this point, Cheryl Crow is extremely famous. Yeah.

She's not like the level of famous probably that she gets in a couple of years because of her relationship with Lance Armstrong, which that just takes her to the whole other like dimension of fame. Yeah. But she's still very famous. She's like celebrity famous, not just musician famous. And sometimes, you know, celebrity profiles are fucking annoying. So this person goes,

the best way to irritate Crow is to venture that relationships with Clapton and country star Dwight Yoakam, notwithstanding, did not know she did. She seems to have had long spells as a singleton. Is there a worse fucking word in the English language than singleton? Literally, fuck you. Would she say that she has put her career before her private life? And she goes, it hasn't been my choice to get married and have a family, she says,

a touch defensively. I'm not saying I won't incorporate that eventually, but it's hard for women who travel or are in the public eye because very few men, are willing to hold down the fort and raise kids. It's kind of a woman's job to hold down the home. I know that's archaic, but anyway, I don't want to talk you about my personal life. It's a greedy way of looking at it to think people need to know about an artist's private life. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure I won't get old alone.

I love that. I love that it's not an artist's job to tell you about their personal life because genuinely, I think I don't owe you shit. I don't need to tell you anything about myself. I think there's also this idea that it's like maybe coming off of a record that was very personal where she was kind of again, sharing a lot but not being very specific to what she's even sharing.

There is this idea that people feel like once you give them a little bit, then like you owe them all of it. And it's like, no, that's not how it works. But again, she is at this point, as you said, she's no longer just Cheryl Crowe the musician. She's now basically like Cheryl Crowe the celeb, which, you know,

changes things drastically. I mean, throughout this profile, there's like very, from what I can recall, like not a ton talked about the music. Anyways, I just brought that up because I thought it was annoying. It is.

And they're always talking about her single or her life or whatever. And again, to point out, she's 40. So this is like, you know, people are like, how abnormal? Yeah. You chose the song It's Only Love on here.

Famously has backing vocals by one. Goop. CEO of Goop. Winneth Paltrow. Yes, it sure does. I love that, that this is a, because she originally wrote this song for Stevie Nix

and it appeared on the Stevie Nix record that we were just talking about. And she does it herself. She throws a little Gwyneth on there. The story that allegedly how Gwyneth ended up on it, do you know the story how allegedly this happened? Yeah, apparently her boyfriend at the time was like a music producer. Guy O'Siri was her boyfriend at the time. Oh, my, a music producer.

Excuse me. Just one man. Let me back up and put some respect on the music. the name of Guy Osir, who a legend. And he apparently just like tells Cheryl like Gwyneth loves you. Cheryl thinks like,

okay, this will be fun. Like, why don't we just have Gwyneth Paltrow like sing backup vocals on this song? And then that's allegedly how it happens. Listen, people don't remember, but Gwyneth Paltrow actually has a beautiful voice. She does. Never forget country strong, a goddamn beautiful film. Also,

the karaoke movie. What's the karaoke movie called? Duets. Duets. Fantastic. She has the song with Huey Lewis. The Smokey Robinson cover, it's fantastic. That's right. So shout out, Guantifoldro. But I love that this record has backup vocals from not only Liz Pharre, but also Guant Palo.

It's truly like a girl boss moment, this record. White, blonde, thin women unite and make this fucking gorgeous album. Let's hear It's Only Love. I just, and this song to my ear sounds like it could easily be a modern country song. Yeah, I could see that for sure. You know what I mean? Okay, this is It's Only Love. That was It's Only Love.

So good. This is the album that I feel like what happens is, here's the thing. It's like, she's gotten this her whole career, but like this is the album where people start to kind of be like, oh, she's a populist. Like she just makes adult friendly, you know, like that kind of thing. And it's like, first of all, her music has all. always kind of been, you know, that kind of music in no bad way. It's amazing. And also, like, she's 40. What do you want her to do? Like, make a kid's bop record. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what did you, I'm sorry, what were you expecting? Yeah. I think that kind of like going

back to the question that like we, we had earlier where it was like, producer Dylan asks us, like, did you think her music was like, quote unquote cool? Right. I feel like this is the record for her in like a, you know, a shitty, cool person. I only like cool kind of music. Cheryl Crow's my guilty pleasure sort of way, which is not me, would kind of argue she's no longer, quote unquote, like, cool, you know? Right.

We've gotten to my favorite part of the episode, which I will point out that you tried to skip the song picture with Kid Rock, and I said, over my dead body. I pretend this part of her life and career doesn't exist, the Kid Rock portion. This is a fucking. banger, first of all. Bethany, you're fired. It's not a bad song. It's not a bad song.

Producersadilly is screaming in the chat. It's the best song, all caps, WTF. This song comes out November 12, 2002. It is the fourth single off of Kid Rock's 2001 album, Cawkey. Love it. Let's hear it, and then we'll talk. We'll just get into it. We'll talk about it. There's a lot to say. This is Picture Featuring Cheryl Crow by Kid Rock. That was

Picture. The Missouri jumped out, babe. And that is a gorgeous song. As Prish Dillon says, this is goddamn canon. Her voice, I mean, you know,

I keep going back to the voice, but her voice is really, really good in this one. Do you know that this song is Kid Rock's highest-churning single?

That's right. It beat out Ba'u-Daba. What? The yes. Highest turning single of all time. It hit number four.

It's also Cheryl Crow's second highest-tarting single of all time. After all I want to do. My, oh, my. That's crazy. Put some respect on pictures' fucking name. There was a little snafu in which A&M would not allow originally them to release it as a single. So he had to re-record it with this country singer Alison Moorrer.

So there's like two different versions. We've talked a bunch about the flirtation with country. This is just a straight-up country song. In fact, it charted on Hot Country. It was, I think it was nominated for vocal event of the year at the 2003 Country Music Association Awards. So she stepped right over the line. Yeah. She's on her way to her country record, which is coming to us soon.

I just love this little line from The Boot. Rock, not rock music, kid rock, had a bad track record, with radio-friendly language. His previous single, You Never Met a Motherfucker Quite Like Me, and counted an opposition for obvious reasons.

Rock's affinity for the F-word and controversial subject matter span the track lists of all his previous albums, which included songs such as balls in your mouth, sorry, these are asterisk, and fuck off and fuck that.

This is a man who has not gone to therapy the way in which Cheryl Crow has, just FYI everybody. Producer Dylan is like saying something in the chat that's like akin to I could change him. And it's truly alarming to me. Dylan, no, no, no, no.

I could fix him. I wonder if they discussed politics at the time. I'm going to go ahead and guess no. They performed this song at the 45th annual Grammy Awards. And speaking of politics, and Cheryl Crowe were a large peace sign and a guitar strap with the words no war, because this was during the Iraq war. Anyways, that's it.

I just wanted to mention that it's a goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song, and I'm glad we got to hear it. There's also the song that she collaborated with Michelle Branch on. Do you know that song? Love Me Like That. I'm not like super familiar with it, but I know that it exists. It's a fun song. Then she is featured on the Johnny Cash album, American Three Solitary Man, singing background vocals on Field of Diamonds.

Silent Beauty Shining High. And she plays accordion on two songs, Wayfaring Stranger and Mary of the Wild Moore. She loves that accordion. telling you. And she loves Johnny Cash. She does. There is a 2003 greatest hits compilation, the very best of Cheryl Crow, which I only bring up to mention that she records a new cover for it, which is also one of her famous songs. The first cut is the deepest, originally by Cat Stevens. I do love that cover. I think it's really good. It's really good. It's really gorgeous. 2003, something else happens. She meets a man. A cyclist man, maybe? She meets a bicycling man.

A Livestrong bracelet. Lancelot Armstrong. Enter Mr. Armstrong into the life of Cheryl Crow. Sir Lancelot, if you will. He is 10 years younger than her. I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't actually know that till today either because he has one of those faces that is simply,

I don't know how old you are. You could be 30, you could be 50. I don't know. He can't call it. He does. So they start dating. this is something I didn't understand. So, well, I guess I kind of understand it.

They start dating. Not only does she not put out an album for two years, which isn't that weird because she's gone longer without being an album, she completely stops touring. And there's like some, you know, pushback from her fans about like, are you what you're putting your career on hold for a man? You know, the pink pussy hats came out, babe, and they were angry. Again, this is how famous she is now.

She's, like, doing interviews for ABC now. the person says, Crow said some of her fans thought she was making a mistake by setting aside her own career for a man. And she says, there are people who still think I'm nuts.

I mean, I have a massive feminist following and a lot of those people are mad. They're like, why would you quit everything for a man? She says she has no regrets. It was a choice. And I really gave myself the gift of just saying I can do whatever I want. I can follow this person around

and just wash his bike shorts if I want. Yes, bitch. Trad Cheryl Crowe. I love it. I would also love to quit this podcast and wash a man's bike short. But also it's like she's been doing this for so long. Like I hate this idea that it's like if you're one thing, you have to be this thing and it has to be your identity.

And it's like you're not allowed to stop. It's like let her stop and live strong. Live and let live strong is what we're saying here. This woman is 41. Let her rest. Who cares? She fucking found some hot ass cyclist and she wants to tour the world with him fucking go in the side car, you know, like whatever. Like, ride on the fucking pegs.

I don't know. I don't know what they did in their private time. But this, I really hate that. I really hate that people are like, you have to blah, blah, blah. I brought up the Lamps Armstrong thing, mostly just so I could talk about the washing the bike shorts, but also because I think this relationship really colors the next album, which is Wildflower that comes out in 2005.

Yeah. Did you know Beck's father, David Campbell, did all the string arrangements on this album? I did not know that. That's pretty cool. Apparently he's a very famous string arranger. What do you feel about this album? It was commercial successful. Like it hit number two at the Billboard 200, but it didn't, it got mixed reviews, and it definitely didn't make as much money as her other albums.

I mean, I like this record. There's definitely songs on this record that I do really like. And I think, again, I know I talk about it nonstop in this podcast, but she has a some really beautiful vocal performances on this record. And I think it's also like a record of a woman who is in love and who is like has taken some time for herself and wants to talk about it. It's also really funny that like, because they're engaged like when this record comes out. And it's so funny that like the record comes out and like people think that she's like,

they're like speculating that they broke up. There's some questionable lyrics of like, are you leaving him? Like what's happening? And then dot, dot, dot, dot. she does. And she's like, have you heard of fiction, though? But I don't think she was leaving him during this. No, she wasn't, but it comes. Basically, to be continued, it's coming. But Lance Armstrong kind of has to go on the record and be like, we're fine, we're good. Yeah. Not everything has to be about our relationship, which is true. Like, again, let's keep in mind, this is a woman who's,

like, writing songs like, his daughter's name was Easter. It's like, what? What are you talking about? Like she loved to just like tell a story. You know what? Who's Easter? It's called art sweaty. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. I want to say that then this is literally no shade to Cheryl.

This is just shade to the year 2005, which I've gone on record on multiple episodes and I'll keep going on record. It was a disgustingly ugly aesthetic time. This album cover is kind of insane. And this is also the record that she loses to since you've been gone. So it's like we're in that, we're in that time of the world. And for those of you that don't remember, since you've been gone, is stylized with a U, not a Y-O-U.

Also a fantastic fucking song. That's a goddamn, that's canon. That's like forever fucking canon. I mean, since you've been gone, should win the Grammy every year as far as I'm concerned. I don't even care if it came out 15 years ago. It's literally one of the best breakup songs that's ever been created in the history of time.

You feel a little anxious, babe? Put that shit on your speakers. And just dance like a maniac in your house. you're going to feel better. This is basically to say, I'm sorry, Cheryl, that you lost, but it's a really, really good song. You know who else lost? Hollaback Girl by Gwyneth Stefani. I don't think her name is Gwendolyn.

I think it might be Gwendolyn, actually. It's probably Gwendolyn. Anyways, Gwen Stefani. Another favorite of Prince who appeared on that album that Shale Crow appeared on, closing the loop, if you will. I want to hear a song. I want to hear Good is Good because you put on the playlist. and then I want to ask you some questions. So this is, good is good.

That was, good is good. It's good. It is good. I love that it's kind of like George Harrison-esque guitar. Like, I really like that song. Again, Jeff Trott. Jeff and her really, obviously, great chemistry. They wrote really, really beautiful songs together.

Again, to my ears and maybe my ears are broken, but it also sounds countryish. It does. I mean, yeah, we'll get there. But, I mean, I think for a long time, she is sort of inching her way closer and closer to her country record. And this one definitely feels like it's getting closer.

This one is just a softer record, right? It's like softer songs, more delicate songs, more like ballady songs. I wonder, and I couldn't find really any evidence to back up my wild speculation, but I was like, I wonder if this is like not only an album of being in love, but it's like the kind of love that's like nesting and domestic.

And like, you know, like Lance Armstrong had children. And she's like, you know, sort of playing mother to the children. There's a family vibe. Like, that's a very different love than like a tumultuous, you know, like exciting, whatever kind of love. Again, I was not part of their relationship. I don't know. Yeah. But that yields different songs.

Yeah. She sounds comfortable. She sounds cozy. Like, it feels very much like she's in a good place. I'm not a person that. subscribes to the theory that you have to suffer to create good art. But I will say that maybe this album could have used just a dose more suffering. She suffered a lot.

She really had a hard time. She deserved to have her moment. She's soaked up the sun. She's got the sun. Right. And now she's full of her vitamin D and she's just going to go off and live. You're the guy that leave Britney alone. I am.

Leave Britney. Leave Cheryl alone. Leave Cheryl alone. Rolling Stone gave this. three stars, which, you know, for them is okay. They really like live it up because it's very up-tempo. And I think that's like, by and large, the criticism of this album is like, where's the up-tempo stuff that we like, you know, which is like, again, to your point, like, let her do,

let her try different things. Let her not make this an album a thousand times. Yeah. Well, because if she did, they'd be mad about that. Totally. And did you want to play another song from it? There is another song on this record that I really like called Perfect Lie. Let's hear it.

Okay. This is perfect lie. That was a perfect lie. Just perfectly. No. It's a good one. I think that song too, like, I feel like on this record,

you can tell she's really inspired by the Beatles. And there's a lot of like George Harrison-style guitar lines. There's a lot of sort of like melancholy, like melodies that are kind of, you know, show up in George Harrison songs. And Jeff Trott's like a fantastic fucking guitar player as a Cheryl Crow. That's the song specifically that, Lance Armstrong had to come out and be like, we're fine. We're fine.

But people were confused because they were like, you're engaged to the celebrity. Why are you making this kind of like, like we said, sort of sad and, you know, down tempo record? There's also a line and soak up the sun that she has to work a dead end job to like do something. And it's like, babe, obviously nobody, no Cheryl Crow after two platinum albums was working a dead end job.

Like, no one questioned that. Like, literally, again, it's called fiction. Yeah. However, it turned into not fiction because I'm on February 4th, 2006, she had a very public breakup with Lance Armstrong. She sure did. She said on record that it was about not having children. Yeah. I mean, she talks about how like raising someone else's kids was, you know, not really what she wanted.

Like she... Or like maybe not like so much not what she wanted. She really wanted to have her own children also. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And probably made her think, oh, I really want to be a mother of my own children. Yeah. So they break up because God is an interesting figure. Two and a half weeks later, she's diagnosed with breast cancer.

Yeah. Rough. Really rough. I'm glad that she got to have the time to rest and take time off. because as I was sort of foreshadowing, like life gets really messy and hard for her again. Like she gets to have this period where she's not touring, she's living it up with Lance,

she's hanging out at home. And then as life does, it gets fucking crazy again. And she goes through a really hard time. So I'm at least grateful that Cheryl got her rest. Totally. I mean, she overcame breast cancer

and she's like a sort of a poster child for early detection, which is really cool. My mom had the same. type of breast cancer as her and went through the exact same process, yeah. I mean, she came out the other side and she made another album.

Mm-hmm. In February of 2008, detours was released. I've not had cancer. I don't want to, you know, pretend to know what it's like to, like, have such, like, an intensely close brush

with your own mortality, you know? But I do find it very interesting and sort of, like, honestly, heartening that this album is produced by Bill Betrell. So, like, after all those years, she reunited with, you know, this person that was really instrumental

in her very first and arguably most important album of her career, you know? And she had, she'd literally produced every album after that herself. Yeah. It's very interesting to me that she was then not only wanting and willing to go back to Bill Betel,

but just in general to surrender the control. Yeah, of course. Like I again, like to what you said, like I have, I've never been sick with cancer or a terminal illness at all. And I have no idea what that would be like. But I can only imagine that a lot of healing probably comes from something like that. And she probably did a lot of, you know, a lot of was probably forced to do a lot of work with herself and reckoning and forgiveness. Because I think that is a huge part of it. You know, like again, we don't know exactly what went on. between Cheryl and Bill. We only know what we've read and seen. But I can imagine that it was probably cathartic to just like let it go. Surrender it. Forgiveness.

It's an important thing to do. This album was recorded at her natural farm. She told E that this is the most honest record I've ever made. It's about being forced to wake up. She said it was very inspired by the last three years of events in my life. So this is like, babe, it's like, You've heard of the breakup album? What about the breakup cancer combo album?

Yeah, this is a really intense record. She also becomes a mom. This is like when she adopts her first child. And this is like her record where she's like, if the Globe Sessions is sort of her coming to who she is, you know, after the, you know, the early stages of her career, I feel like this is her coming into like a new chapter of, I'm a mom, I survive cancer.

I just, you know, I'm not no longer with the, person that everyone on the planet knew I was with. Like, it's truly like a new breakthrough. Dare I say this is the Kintako Hut of albums. The what? Kankato Hut. You know, the KFC Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, three-way combo. The most glorious intersections.

I honestly was like, is this a red hot chili peppers reference that I missed somewhere? That's just like what I assume you're referencing out all the time. No, but I do wish there was a red hot chili peppers song about the Kintagah Hut. No, I just mean all three things are here. that this is the Cantago Hut. There is a breakup. There is brush with mortality and there is new motherhood. It has everything. Yeah. She also said when Bill and I got together again to work on this record, it was such a cathartic and comforting moment. She wrote that on her blog. Keep in mind this was 2008. blogs were... Sheryl Crowe.blogspot.com. Cheryl Crow's Live journal did reflect that. Just kidding.

Okay, so then she told this to the guardian, which I found very interesting. I was ready to have my life changed. Being diagnosed with cancer made me ask, what do I want out of life? It gave me an incredible fearlessness about adopting Wyatt, and he's been such a blessing. He's the most happy, joyful little child. I've always felt like I was meant to be a mom one way or the other, and it didn't make sense for me to go to a sperm bank. It's a gift to be able to give a home to a child who needs one.

I'm so moved by the idea of, like, you come close to losing everything, and it removes the fear from your life and you're just so much clarity about exactly what you want and like I'm going to go get it and I know how I'm going to get it and I'm not even questioning myself anymore. Yeah, it's beautiful.

It really is. And I think that through the whole like arc of her career, she falls down and she picks herself back up again and every time she picks herself back up again, she seems stronger than she was the last time she had to pick herself back up, you know? Yeah. I will say,

Cheryl is strong enough to be her own man is basically what I'm taking away from this. Damn. Fire take. Cheryl don't need no fucking man. Cheryl is her own man. Better than my can Taco Head. My friends, honestly.

So this album is pretty well reviewed. Rolling Stone gave it three and a half stars. Now that we've laid this stage for every input that's gone into this album, I'd love to hear a song. What song do you want to play off this album? I want to hear Diamond Ring because it is a good one. I was hoping

that you would choose Diamond Ring. It's good. Once again, in the tradition of not having a metaphor, this is truly about giving back a diamond ring. This is Diamond Ring. That was Diamond Ring. This song, what is it about Bethany? It's about a diamond ring and how it fucks up everything.

She refuses. Of course, she's asked millions of times, like, is it about Lance Armstrong? and she refuses and says, like, I've been, listen, I've been engaged three times. It didn't work out every single time. Clearly, I have an issue with diamond rings and engagements. And I kind of love it because it's like, we think maybe it's about him. But I don't know. This song is pretty crystal here. We made love all day in our little hideaway, but I blew up our love nest by making one little request. Yeah. You were not strong enough, confirmed. It's a course, confirmed. You were not

live, you were not live strong enough, if you will. I always wonder if motherhood does anything to your, like, diaphragm or range or whatever. Oh my God. Producer Dylan, she made it almost all the way through this episode without getting fired, and then she just messaged me, are you strong enough to wear my band? Like the yellow, love strong band. Well, it's been nice working with you,

Patricia Dylan. I wish you were the best of luck on your adventures. People love this album. Three and a half stars from Rolling Stone. It has the things that I think critics, and maybe fans also love about Cheryl Crow Records. It has the personal, it has the sort of upbeatness, it has the emotion, it has pop, it has some like feelings of roots rock.

Like it's a really good, it feels like a really good, I know I already said the Kentucky Hut thing, but again, the Kentucky Hut thing. It's like a really good like merging of all of her, I think, greatest strengths. Yeah, I agree. In 2008, she puts out an album called Home for Christmas. We're not going to play a song off of it, but I think you can imagine. and what that album's about. It's about Christmas.

And then in 2010, the album 10, 100 miles from Memphis? Yes, which is literally as far away as her hometown was from Memphis, 100 miles away. Right. I mean, people don't think about how Missouri is like literally the South in some senses, you know,

in many senses, Mason-Dixon line. Tell me about this album. This album, for her, it's her final record for A&M. And remember, she's been with A&M since the beginning. Like she's been just turning out records with this label. And I think for her, this is just like, she's like,

okay, this is my last one in my deal. I'm going to do what I want to do because, not that she needs to earn it, but like she's earned it. She's earned the right to make a fucking R&B soul, whatever this record is to her. I am not personally the biggest fan of this record. I respect it and I respect her immensely.

and do think that it's really cool to hear her completely in a different landscape than we've ever heard her before. But personally, this is not one that, like, I pick up and sit down and listen to very often. But, you know, it's really cool to see an artist just, as we've already discussed, like take risks and just do something completely different,

which definitely is what happens on this record. I agree. And once again, for the haters at Homo will mention that is this is below the Mason-Nixon line and you can suck it. I will say that on this record, she kind of doesn't play a ton of instruments. She just focuses on singing on this record. She sort of like comes in and is like, I want to sing and I want to just like make a record that pays homage to the music that I grew up listening to and the music that ultimately

inspired her to start making music in the first place. What song do you want to hear off this record? The cover of I Want You Back is kind of good. Yeah, let's play that one because it's like she, It's like she literally titles it, I want you back to Michael with love. You know, like I think at this point, Michael Jackson,

it's where it starts for her. And so I think it's a bit sweet that she wanted to cover this song. Although again, it's not something I'm going to listen to every Tuesday night in my music club. Okay, this is, I want you back. That was, I want you back.

This gets pretty good reviews, though. I have to say, like, Ann Powers in the LA Times says, it's kind of like a summer skinny dip into the retro soul sound that has updated 60s nostalgia for the post hip hop generation. Lovely. She really likes this record too, so I'm very happy for her. I like that she said that she wanted to make a sexier album than detours when she made this.

So it's very like a Cheryl gets her groove back, you know, like literally and figuratively. You know, maybe after you've like sort of like wrung your hands of all the like sorrow and like introspection, Maybe you just want a fucking party. Yeah, that makes sense. And again, like, I think that's why it's cool that she's like, I'm going to put down some of the instruments and I'm just going to sing and kind of like show up and rock out. I like that.

Totally. Okay. Then 2013, we have Feels Like Home. We've finally gotten to an explicit, full-on country music album. Straight country. Yeah. This is her first record. We knew it.

We could taste it. We could smell it. We could see it. This is her first record without A&M who she's been with forever. This is her first record where she has a song on it where she didn't write it and other people wrote it for her because again she's like

in Nashville now she's making a record. This is like straight up like a song is written for her in the Nashville like song machine and she puts it on the record which is fitting with it being a modern country record because that's oftentimes how it can work. Yeah. I guess like, you know, her neighbor was Brad Paisley, maybe still is, and he introduced her to the producer of this album, Justin Nebank and a bunch of Nashville songwriters, including one Christopher Stapleton. You might fucking know about him. Heard of him. Let's hear Easy, because you chose that song, and that was kind of her, like, hit off the album. This is easy. That was easy. fun, a fun song.

I feel like that song is like if Soak Up the Sun was a country song. That's my take on it. It's just got that same like easy, breezy, fun vibe to it. And then that's why I really like it. I couldn't disagree with you. It sounds like it could be like a Miranda Lambert, Shnayh, Wayne song. Like, it sounds like a classic country song. Sure.

I mean, charts on the country charts. It gets played on country radio. You said she left A&M. I mean, she went to Warner Nashville. Like, she fully is on a country label. She opens for George Street on a leg of the Cowboy Rides Away tour. She starts wearing boots. She's gone country, babe.

She gone country. I think this is like a round when her QVC clothing line came out, honestly. It would make sense. Check so. That does check out. Back to your point about the Beatles. In December of 2015, she covers a hard day's night at the John Lennon's 75th birthday concert. Love that.

Yeah, she, I mean, everybody, I think every musician ever would, you know, say the Beatles are an influence of them in some way, shape, or form. But I think with her, you can really hear it in her songwriting pretty often. We mentioned in one of the bandswams, and I can't remember who said it. But they were like, oh, you say you're influenced by the Beatles. That's cool. That's like saying like you're a painter and you use brushes. That was funny.

I couldn't find a lot of reviews about this album. And by I mean, producer Dylan. American songwriter gave it three and a half stars. But more importantly, I think it, how do I say? The country music community wasn't like, no, you can't sit with us. They accepted her, yeah. No Casey Musgraves here. More, yes, hell yes, bitch, comes out with us.

So that's cool. I mean, it might have had something to do with the fact that she was a super established artist. And then the next album comes out in 2017, by myself. Tell me about by myself. I think by myself, honestly, it's kind of like her return to rock after making a country record, after making 100 miles from Memphis

and going completely off the Cheryl Crote Road that we, the winding off the winding road, if you will. That we have known her to be on. What if she like saw the exit for the Kintako Hut? I'm sorry, I'll go now.

Please continue. She leaves, you know, like she goes and she makes these two records that are like, again, like her influence are rooted in both of the genres that she sort of does, but they're very different than what we know her as doing up until this point. And so then I think this one kind of comes out,

and it is a bit of a more of return to rock. She goes back to work with Jeff Trott. Jeff Trott's back in the building. They obviously have really great chemistry. There are some really good songs on this record. And I think that it's like she's writing kind of more straightforward lyrics again. There is a lot of like narrative kind of storytelling that's going on. in here. But also this record sort of feels like an artist who is, you know, she's been in the

business for a really long time. And she's sort of making a lot of commentary on like how the industry has changed and what things look like now. She literally like writes songs about like indie bands and hipsters and taking selfies and bands blowing up overnight, TikTok, all these things. She doesn't mention TikTok, but, you know, sort of that concept that bands just explode overnight. Yeah. So it's almost like her take on the way that the world looks in 2000. as Cheryl Crow, who's, you know, basically at this point, like a legacy act. What song do you want to hear off of this one? I would love to hear Be Myself. I think it's a great song.

This is Be Myself. That was Be Myself. Great song. I like that she also, not just Jeff Trott, but she worked again with Chad Blake, who engineered and mixed. I think Cheryl Crow and The Globe Sessions, and he also worked with Tracy Chapman. Oh, nice. She said about this album to the New York Times, I've been working for over 30 years. Artists who have been around for that long become criticized for their later work being kind of soft,

or it's not what it was, or they don't have anything to say anymore now that they have money. I really on this record wanted to feel like I felt on my second and third and fourth records, which was just a feeling of liberation. We were celebrating us coming back together, celebrating this liberation of being older

and making music that isn't trying to be anything other than what it is. It's literally in the title, Be Myself. Like, she's truly just like, here I am, being myself, doing my thing, tried my two records that are kind of, again, off the winding road. And now I'm back to myself. Totally. Rob Sheffield reviewed it for Rolling Stone, and he called it her toughest best album in a decade.

Yeah. He really liked it. I like that song, A Heartbeat Away. Yeah, that is a really good song. Yeah. That one is like a true, like, rock banger. Totally. It's got great songs.

The next album that comes out is called Threads. Is Threads the one where she does all the collaborations? Yeah, this is her final record. She has gone on record many, many times saying she will not make another full-length record after this. Yeah, because Threads is the album that she, like, kind of put together a dream list, or I don't know if that's how she went about it,

but, like, it has this, like, all-star fucking lineup of, like, Oh yeah, it's crazy. So many artists that she admires, she has worked with in the past. Who else is on here? Bonnie Rates on this record, Stevie Nix, Marin Morris,

Brandy Carlisle. Don Henley, her original mentor. Chris Christofferson, Johnny Cash, after he's passed away, is on this record. Everybody's on this record. And also Keith Richards. Yes, Keith Richards is on this record.

There was an interview with her where the guy who's interviewing her is talking to her about, she has a duet with Stevie Nixon, Marin Morris, and how he's saying that, like, it's so interesting that, like, Stevie inspired Cheryl,

and Cheryl is inspiring Marin and how it's kind of like this through line of all these different artists and how they kind of all inspire one another. And she sort of says that this record for her is like that. It's like she got to work with all these people

that she loves, and then she brought in younger people like St. Vincent's on this record. Right. Like I said, Maren. and Brandy Carlisle, like all these other artists

that you know she's inspiring. So it's really cool that, and then of course, like the title is very literal, like threads. It's kind of like all the little threads that have sewn together who Cheryl Crow is and what she does.

Yeah, even Eric Clapton, Eric V. Clapton. If Lance Armstrong played music, I bet your bottom dollar that man would be on here as well. Do you want to laugh? I forgot that Pitchfork was around for this. And Pitchfork did review threads.

It gave it a 6.3. Okay. 6.3. In other words, Cheryl Crow has always gone by with a little help from her famous friends. Kind of rude.

What do you expect? What do you expect? From what someone we interviewed recently called it, Pitch the Tent. I sure that was funny. What song do you want to hear off of threads?

I would love to hear Redemption Day and then just briefly kind of talk about it because it has a really, really cool story. Okay, great. This is Redemption Day. That was Redemption Day. Now, this is the song that she originally wrote and recorded. Was that on Cheryl Crow? Yeah. So she writes this song, as we discuss, she comes back from playing for the

troop. She goes to Bosnia. She sees all these, like, really horrible things in the world. She's watching TV, like, Rwanda is in the news, and she's just, like, can't wrap her mind around what's going on. So she writes this very political song. And years and years later, like after June Cash passes away, the Johnny Cash's people reach out. They're already like at this point friends, but they reach out and they're like Johnny really wants to cover the song. He feels like it's really an important message

to get out into the world. So he releases the song. And then I believe by the time it comes out, he has sadly already passed away. And then when this record is coming together, she goes in and is basically playing piano just to his vocal. Like it's just him singing his cover of Redemption Day and she's playing the piano.

And she talks about like literally kind of having like a spiritual experience with like the ghost of Johnny Cash and how she had goosebumps and just felt like, I can't believe that I'm doing this. And then goes and like takes it to her producer and the producer is like, well, you need to put your vocals on it. It's your record. And she's like, I don't want my voice to be on this. Like I just want this to be piano, me on the piano and Johnny because. it's her record, she goes and she records a vocal.

So she records her vocal over Johnny Cash, over her piano. And this is basically the song and the experience that makes her say, I don't want to put records out anymore. Like, I feel like I have done everything that I've needed to do and that this experience

that she has with, you know, the energy and the feeling of Johnny Cash in this room, kind of leads her to just be like, I'm good. I can continue to release music and I can continue to tour, but I really don't want to make any more records. And of course, every person she talks to, every interview is like, is that true?

Like, do you feel like you'll, and she simply just says, she's like, I mean, never say never, but I'm pretty sure I'm done. And I really respect that. This feels like the peak, you know, Pinnacle as an artist. Like you have every, I mean, you get to hear your song recorded vocals by Johnny Cash

in the room while you play piano. You know, you have Emmy Lou Harris, on here, Chris Christopherson. Sorry, the story of everything song that includes a rap by Chuck Dee. It's about, you know, the current state of America and racial issues and stuff. It's really good.

It also has guitar by Gary Clark Jr. And Andrea Day sings back up. I mean, there's just everything. You have to think if Prince was alive, he would definitely be on this album as well. But unfortunately, he had already passed away. Yeah, probably. Well, yeah. So that may or may not be her last album. But, you know,

every other album that she's put out is still getting massive play from her mega fans all around the world, yourself, myself, and then a bunch of mega fans we talk to that I'm going to play their thoughts and feelings for you right now. Tuesday Night Music Club was one of my favorite albums when I was a kid. I used to put it into my disc man and put on my headphones and lay in bed and just listen to it all night long. It's because the songs are good. And she's one of those artists. It's like the first time you kind of hear, you hear a new Cheryl Crow song on the radio or whatever.

you're like, God, is this a cover? Because it just feels so familiar. And it's almost like it's always been with us. And we think about Cheryl Crow, it's kind of like, dude, what would a world without Cheryl Crow be like? Like, it would be so weird if those songs weren't just, like, woven into, like, the fabric of our reality. A lot of her songs sound really timeless to me,

and I think that they'll be played for decades and decades to come. I really appreciate her insanely strong work ethic, especially in the face of some really intense hardships, like having cancer and depression. both of which I know she's a huge advocate for and she's trudged through some pretty nasty public breakups. If you grow up listening to her like I think a lot of people my age did, she means one thing to you as a kid

and then when you listen to her as an adult, there's just this entire rich world that you had no idea existed when you were listening as a kid. It's moody, it's atmospheric, it's emotional, it's relatable, and it just feels like, feels like you just got out of a therapy appointment. Okay, that song, for example, you're my favorite mistake. Like, that's like a perfect song to me.

Like, like, the only thing that I can actually think about being wrong with that song is apparently it's about Eric Clapton, which I'm like, ew, like, gross. That should actually be, like, your least favorite mistake. Like, Cheryl Crone's so much cooler than Eric Clapton. And Prince even recorded a cover of Every Day as a Wining Road. So that's basically all, like, anyone needs. to know that Cheryl's beyond legit. There's also this very bizarre punk side of Cheryl that I love.

She sings about swimming in a sea of anarchy. She's scraping mold off of bread to, like, serve to some dude in bed. She has a communist friend. Like, listening to these lyrics, you're like, what is your life, Cheryl? And I can't really recommend enough watching her duet of Strong Enough with Stevie Nix on YouTube. I think it's from VH1 Storytellers. and I've probably watched that about 50 or 60 times. I've gotten pretty deep into Cheryl Crow fandom.

I made a fanzine with my friend Bree all about Cheryl called Summer of Cheryl. And we also once snuck into one of her shows, which I will say that we only snuck in because it was sold out. And we would have totally bought tickets if it wasn't sold out. She was, of course, amazing. Corcious. That made me emotional. Like, I really started.

I almost did. I was choking up a bit. Those are your people. She's such a special person. And to hear, like, some of the, like, I was nodding along to everything. I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, she really is just such a special, special, special person.

And I'm so glad that we have her. I can't wait until she files a restraining order against you. Podcast comes up. It would be my honor. It would be my honor and the greatest honor of my life to receive a restraining order from Cheryl Crow. Bethany, thank you so much. for coming on and talking Cheryl with me for these hours. I laughed, I cried, I learned so much,

I was strong enough, I was not strong enough. A lot happened in these last few hours. Thank you, Yossi, for allowing me to talk to you about Cheryl Crow on a podcast and not just in our everyday text message. Just not over text messages. I'm on the phone and in person. We always end with one last song to leave our fans with. What song would you like to play last? I'd love to hear a song called Members Only off of the Globe sessions. Okay, gorgeous. Come back next week for a new episode of Bandsplane. And this is Members Only.

If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplaine, only on Spotify. Our guest today was Bethany Kosentino. Follow her on Twitter at Best Coast. Huge thanks to the Cheryl Mega fans you heard on this episode. Robin Edwards, Meredith Frazier, Reed Smyd Bush, and Sarah Davis. Bandsplane is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by my favorite mistake, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and edited by Nico Palela with help from Casey Simonson and Tari Miller.

Executive producers for Bandsplain are Gina Delback and me, Yossi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozantino, that's right, and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos Dillel Stela Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Philippa Guillermo, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and the Cheesecake Factory.

Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsblane, only on Spotify. Found Geronimo's rifle, Maryland shampoo. Ben and Goodman's corset and pen.