What I've Learned: Sheryl Crow

A nine-time Grammy winner and an American music institution, Sheryl Crow has sold more than fifty million albums worldwide and is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. With songs like “Love is a Good Thing,” “Redemption Day”, and “There Goes the Neighborhood” in her arsenal, she has few peers when it comes to chronicling, as she describes, “the things that I see and the things that disturb my peace.” Her twelfth studio album, Evolution, out March 29, continues the tradition; she wrestles with AI anxieties, rails against Internet trolls, and yearns for human connection.

I have been a musician since I was old enough to reach the keys on a piano.

There was a moment where I realized that what I was meant to be doing was not only reflecting but documenting the human experience.

It’s very hard for me to understand why I’ve had the colossal success I’ve had when I’m not the greatest singer, I’m not the greatest songwriter, I’m not the greatest bass player, guitar player, or producer.

Everything is about the voice in my head that tells me that I’m not enough.

My career has been largely propelled by my need to not just be liked but to be great. I have really come to terms with that. Cancer put that all into perspective—and several bad relationships.

I’ve loved some amazing people, and I’ve loved some other people, too.

The last few times I’ve been back to L. A., I felt melancholy. It’s the feeling of being young and having everything be exciting and full of possibility.

But I don’t really miss it. I’m most happy when I’m in this house with my boys in this town.

I’ve always struggled with the weight of everything. I come by that genetically.

When I first started taking off, I could not figure out how to hold all the energy coming at me. So I went and studied with this woman named Sharon Salzberg; she teaches mindfulness meditation.

I do mindfulness at least thirty minutes in the morning. Wherever I am. Two cups of coffee. Focus on breath.

It’s a practice of letting everything go. It’s about finding compassion for yourself and your imperfections.

I grew up looking at magazines with Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks, and they were mythical. I didn’t know that fame wasn’t going to feel like those black-and-white photos.

Nobody, where money is concerned, is trustable.

There is divinity and there’s ego in everything. When you take your analytical “This is who I am and this is what I do” out of it and sit down with that weird, obtuse experience called life, sometimes something you couldn’t imagine surfaces.

I have a few songs that I think, I don’t even know where that came from.

I talk about mental issues because when I was really struggling, I didn’t have an example of somebody who said publicly, “I’m struggling, and this is what I did.” We need to make that normal.

There’s not a handbook for how to navigate, as a woman, a business that is predominantly run by men. Or for when you have a strong woman, how that challenges men and their feelings of importance.

I have been advised on numerous occasions to please just tone it down.

I wish I would shut my mouth, but I can’t do that.

With cancer, I had to learn how to say no and put myself first. A year of crying and being mad and not writing and resenting and having fear—and then ultimate joy and adopting a child. There was so much living that went into one year of my life, it seemed like I’d been slapped.

I would not wish cancer on anyone, but for me it was a tremendous—actually, a monumental—gift.

Having a diagnosis like that demands that you rebuild and decide what your life is going to look like and who is going to be in it—and who you’re going to be in it.

You and you alone are responsible for your art.

I look at what Taylor Swift has done and think, She’s a powerhouse. The fact that she came up with solutions for how to not allow her music to be a moneymaker for other people when she should be owning it.

You want to be airy-fairy and making great music and having people love you. But what a distraction.

By the time my kids came into my life, I didn’t have things that I felt compelled to accomplish. That makes decision-making easy.

I have this relationship with these two boys that I’m raising, and I have not manifested somebody coming in and changing that dynamic. That’s not to say I’m going to grow old by myself. I would like not to.

I tell my boys: “You have a college fund and a therapy fund. I hope you use the college fund, but please use the therapy fund.”

Our knee-jerk now is to immediately criticize, vilify. Just observe and try to breathe love through your heart.

You’re here for a nanosecond. Why be an asshole?