Soak up the Sheryl

Sheryl Crow scrapped her debut album because she felt it was too polished. Ten years later, she's released her most polished effort, C'mon C'mon.

No, the album is not as schmaltzy as a Celine Dion one (with the exception of the duet with Eagle Don Henley, It's so Easy), but gone are the spaces so prevalent on Tuesday Night Music Club and The Globe Sessions . Every hole gets filled with something whether it be vast string sections, loud, prevalent guitars, or just the overdubbed voices of Crow and her many collaborators. It's an album to be played loudly. It's an album to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to.

C'mon C'mon starts off with the rocking Old Western getaway guitar song, Steve McQueen . Sheryl's Leaving Las Vegas. Again. I suppose we all have Las Vegases to leave, again and again.

Steve McQueen rocks and snarls with lyrics like "All our popstars look like porn" and "I ain't taking sh** off no one" as it references old classics like Freebird and Crow's own All I Wanna Do.

Next comes the first single, Soak up the Sun, a breezy ode to deciding to get happy, despite the circumstances. It's ironic that the lyrics "It's not having what you want/ It's wanting what you got" are being used to sell AmEx cards. Those lines seem anti-materialistic to me... Oh well. The beauty about Sheryl Crow is that even her most intellectually light songs are actually rife with dirty, complicated underbellies. All I Wanna Do seemed like a song about just wanting to have a good time. The genius was the irony Crow added to Wyn Cooper's poem about wasting away your life in a bar immune to the fun alcohol is supposed to bring.

There are, like three (or more) versions of this song. There's the radio single. There's the VH-1 version. And then there's the album version. When I first heard Soak up the Sun on the radio I was surprised at just how short it was. Two eight-line verses, no bridge? No instrumental? What's up with that? But the album version definitely makes up for it, adding an extra verse and an extra few bars to the beginning of the song.

The Lenny Kravitz collaboration You're an Original is one big rocking lip-curl dedicated to spoiled, bored teens, and may very well be an attack on Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, the "popstars" that "look like porn." (Though I suppose with the new watered-down retro-grunge craze she might want to change that to "all our popstars soundlike Korn", or whatever. Hey, I'm not gonna write her lyrics for her, though if she sees this and uses it, I'm filing copyright infringement charges and expect punitive damages totaling frontrow tickets.... Or not. I'm not that mean.)

Crow narrows her eyes through Shirley Manson-style lyrics like "Just a little queen/ Dirty mouth and mean/ There's nothing we can sell you" and "Pretty little girl/ Expensive little world/curiosity is peeking/ Here today and gone by morning/ Your ice cream cone is melting fast." Kravitz almost drowns her out during the chorus, but that's okay. Had it been that guy from Nickelback I would've cried.

Safe and Sound receives more modern orchestration than her Tribute to Heroes version. I prefer the latter with its sparse, haunting piano, and undubbed vocals. Lyrically, for a song recently written prior to the terrorist attacks, it was one of the strongest, most poignant songs at the concert, but on the album, it pales in comparison to the lyrical genius of The Weather Channel.

(By the way... On the page opposite the lyrics to Safe and Sound is a picture of Ms. Crow in a bikini top. All I can say is "MY BREASTS ARE BIGGER THAN SHERYL CROW'S!!!" or at least "MY BREASTS AREN'T SMALLER THAN SHERYL CROW'S!!!!")

C'mon C'mon, the title track, is Crow's foray into the contemporary country world. It's a duet with Stevie Nicks that dares a lover to "break (her) heart again/ for old times' sake". I've actually found myself in line at Target humming this song. Change a few lyrics and it's the perfect ode to impatience. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon waste my time again!"

Yeah. Okay. That was embarrassing.

Next comes the aforementioned duet with Mr. Hotel California. It's So Easy, written with Crow's sister, Kathryn, is a schmaltzy, Beatle-esque song about an affair that's closer to true love. Perhaps if the music weren't so sparse it would work. Maybe I'll grow into this.

Over You, like C'mon C'mon, is a lover's lament about the residue an ex will leave in your heart and the sudden ubiquity of that person after the whole thing is called off. It's soaring chorus is both painful and exhilarating.

Lucky Kid sounds very Veruca Salt. It's punk in nature and bratty in sound. It's one of the best songs on this album. With lyrics like "I want to make you see/ you belong to me/ You won't ever win" and "I want to make you scream for mercy", Lucky Kid snakes around plotting revenge and reconciliation.


I haven't really gotten into Diamond Road yet. It's a trip down memory lane with a loved one about to die. It's really quite beautiful. "Keep the memory of your face/ but wipe the pain away." "Give me something of your soul/ So you don't fade away."

Crow's version of It's Only Love isn't as delicate as Stevie Nicks's. Musically it doesn't lament as much as the Nicks' version. The tenderness is lost and replaced by orchestrations of hope.

Abilene, the duet with Dixie Chick Natalie Maines is an offer of support to a Sweet Rosalyn, aka a stubborn, lonely depressed girl. Crow sings "Can't you see I'm holding your flag/ the one you left on the ground." Even when Abilene gives up on herself, Sheryl Crow is there. God bless her.

Hole in my Pocket is another top-down song. Sheryl Crow is famous for her sarcasm and it's on full display here. The song is half-apology, half-shrug. "I got a hole in my pocket/ You give me love and I drop it/ I guess I'll throw it away". Oops, Sheryl did it again.

And the album closer is the genius, the diamond, the zenith. An examination of a depressed person in between moods, "The Weather Channel" is a stark contrast to the relatively sunny songs that precede it. Crow doesn't sing so much as mutter lines like "Cause I got no one/ who will bring me a/ big umbrella" and "I got friends/ they're waiting for me to comb out my hair/ come outside and join the human race/ but i don't feel so human". It's an excellent commentary on what it's like to be on the brink of a horribly dark mood that you can't see the end of. Crow reportedly was feeling very down during the three years it took to make this album. She even said she came close to Mariah Careying...But out of the blackness came this beautiful, amazing song. And with the harmony of Emmylou Harris...Damn. I am breathless.



Songs I like best for now...
Steve McQueen
You're an Original
Lucky Kid
C'mon C'mon
Hole in my Pocket
The Weather Channel.

Songs I may grow into, but for now kinda make my teeth edge...

It's so Easy
Safe and Sound.