Photographs by Victoria Stevens
The list of “wants” in Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” was always fictional — no West Hollywood car washes were visited or harmed in the making of that massive mid-’90s hit. But we can use the song’s hook as a springboard to ask what Crow really wants now, 31 years removed from her breakout song, and 22 years after she gave up L.A. for Nashville, an early trailblazer in the gold rush of non-country musicians ditching the coasts for the comforts of Tennessee.
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On this April afternoon, she wants to make it to her son’s baseball game before the sun goes down over I-65. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is also looking forward to hitting the road in a few months as part of the “Outlaw Music Festival Tour” headlined by her friends Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. And she’d be happy if the furor calmed down about selling her Tesla in protest of Elon Musk using DOGE to slash what she considers essential government services.
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But part of Crow’s existence is defined by not wanting what she hasn’t got — like a repeat of her past chart successes or a busy social calendar or a bigger sense of herself than befits her lifestyle as a mom living out in the country.
“I tried to read Eckhart Tolle’s ’A New Earth’ years ago,” Crow says over tea in a downtown Nashville restaurant, referring to the bestseller about living “in the now.” “And there were so many ’teaching moments’ that at first I didn’t get all the way through it.” Then she began rereading it during COVID, when she was “having so many close friends and family start to pull apart because of their perception of vaccinations and everything. And there was so much in the book about ego and about essence.” At least one of Toll’s “e” words brought up a lot of thoughts about the industry from which Crow mostly exists at a remove these days.
“When I think about it, it does make me sad that kids grow up now in my line of work where you hope you write a song as big as your brand, and the brand is so 24 hours a day — it’s so cultivated and so ego driven that if I were coming up in today’s world, I wouldn’t be able to do it, because the ego is the thing that makes me so miserable.
“I already struggle with having my feelings hurt. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go into it knowing I’ve got to build this picture of a famous, secure person but also try to be vulnerable and be an artist. I think if you’re a person like me that struggles with depression already, you’re always trying to figure out how to quiet those voices. And I’ve sort of made peace with it.”
She puts down her cup to spill the tea on her actual contentment. “I feel happy. I feel at peace. There isn’t that ’Oh my God, I gotta write a hit song.’ Even if I wrote a hit song, it wouldn’t get played!” she says and laughs. “So now I just wanna write music that feels like I’m glad I wrote it.”
Which is not to say that Crow is at all separatist when it comes to appreciating today’s music. Managing ego doesn’t mean failing to acknowledge rising generations of performers who, nearly to a woman, openly venerate her for helping to pave their way. At her Hall of Fame induction two years ago, Crow was celebrated on both ends: by Stevie Nicks, her own hero and forebear, and Olivia Rodrigo, a 21st-century acolyte. Crow loves the music that’s out there, with good reason: Her stamp is on a hell of a lot of it.
Her admiration for the next generation of women came to the fore recently, when Crow performed at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for an all-star network special celebrating Ringo Starr’s new country album. There, she was knocked out “being onstage with Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz and Larkin Poe. I remember having a conversation with people on the Grammys board 15 years ago, saying, ’What are you guys going to do to get instruments into young women’s hands?’ Lo and behold, some of the greatest musicianship right now is young and female.
“The caliber of writing is just so good with Chappell Roan, Olivia and Phoebe Bridgers, and these women are not just in the studio throwing in a lyric — they play,” she says. “If you want to take a course in great songwriting, go study at the college of Taylor Swift. There’s Brandi [Carlile] and Courtney Barnett. For a long time, there was a dearth of women who were playing and singing and rocking, and now I’m tickled.”
Being the mother of two teenage boys has kept her mostly off tour lately. But last year, “we did a bunch of dates with Pink, and I told her, ’If I got to open for you for the rest of my life, I’d be happy.’ Her audience is everything from families to bikers to gay couples, and she speaks to them through songs about hardship and depression and having to work really hard.”
As for joining up mid-tour with Nelson and Dylan after Labor Day, she “would’ve done every single one” of the “Outlaw” fest summer gigs, “except my kids don’t want to go on the road.” (They’ve already seen that world … yawn.) “I’m too selfish to want to miss any time with them; I feel like my 18-year-old was just born, and he’s gonna be leaving for college in a year.” But once they’re both out of the house, “I’ll go back to work full time, because I have an acute connection to joy when I’m playing.”
Crow describes her nearly 20 years in Nashville as grounding, although in some ways, she was born grounded.
“I think it makes a huge difference when you’ve punched a time clock,” the Missouri native says. “I was a schoolteacher after college, and I didn’t make my first album until I was 29.” At the peak of her ’90s stardom, she was a Hollywood Hills denizen, but some dramatic circumstances preceded her transition to Tennessee.
“We all have those moments in our life where we have to pivot,” she says. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, and I moved here in 2007. I think having come out of a relationship [with former professional cyclist Lance Armstong] where I thought I was gonna be married and was close to the kids that were gonna be my stepkids, then got diagnosed — all three of those things made me reassess. I just looked at it and thought, ’I want to put down roots; I want to have a family.’ My sisters live here, and my family all lived within three hours, and I just decided to start phase two.”
Crow has zero regrets about that relocation, although as a proud progressive with a legendary knack for triggering conservatives, she harbors no illusions about being universally beloved in her community.
“Tennessee is a hard place for me. I mean, I struggle,” she admits. “I call my representatives [in Congress] every single morning — Andy Ogles and Marsha Blackburn hear from me every day — because we have to stand up and be vocal and fight for the future for our kids.”
Wait — their offices get voicemails every weekday from Sheryl Crow? She nods and smiles. “I do think, ’Are they laughing?’ But it’s like what Jimmy Carter said: As long as there’s legal bribery, we won’t ever have fair elections. So we have to keep raising our voices and showing up to these organized rallies.” Makeup: Jo Baker/Forward Artists; Hair: Lona Vigi/Forward Artists; Photographed at W Nashville Randy Holmes/Disney/Getty Images Sheryl Crow on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
More alarming was the far right’s response to the video she posted of her Tesla being towed away. “This feels different, because when I came out against Walmart carrying guns [in a 1996 song], not everybody was armed — and certainly I didn’t live in Tennessee, where everybody is armed. So yeah, there was a moment where I actually really felt very afraid: A man got on my property, in my barn, who was armed. It doesn’t feel safe when you’re dealing with people who are so committed.”
So would she post that same farewell-to-Telsa video again, knowing the response? There’s a pause before she answers, but only a brief one.
“I can’t help it,” she says. “I feel like I’m fighting for my kids. Also, that’s the way I was raised. There have been times when it hasn’t really been fun, but I follow my Atticus Finch dad; I’m very similar to him if I see something that seems unfair, you know?”
And with that, this Atticus Finch mom is off to the ballgame.
Sheryl Crow is urging support for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national advocacy group that focuses on legal action to protect the environment. Founded in 1970, the organization has more than 3 million members and boasts the expertise of 700 scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists. The group sued the first Trump administration 163 times and came away victorious in nearly 90% of those cases. From the look of things, there’ll be just as much action during Trump’s second reign.
“I’ve always been so vigilant about climate change,” Crow says. “My parents said, ‘You need to leave the campground nicer than you found it,’ and we always did. When we camped, we picked up trash that wasn’t ours, and when I take my kids to the beach, we all three pick up people’s cigarette butts or plastic bottles.
“It’s having an awareness that the planet is someplace we get to be on for just a little bit. And right now, this organism that we live on is being disregarded, particularly by this administration, who not only don’t have it in their consciousness, it’s seen as a nuisance to business. So for me, it’s really important that this organization exists to defend our national lands and to protect our water and air.”
Crow concludes, “Let’s face it: I may not be here to see my kids teach their kids how to leave the campground nicer than they found it. And who knows what the campground’s gonna be like when they get it. That concerns me.”
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