A nine-time Grammy winner and an American music institution, Sheryl Crow has sold more than 50 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 Neighbourhood” 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 12th studio album, Evolution, 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 when I realised 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 LA, 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 loved some amazing people, and I’ve loved some other people, too.
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 30 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.
Nobody, where money is concerned, is trustable.
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 are 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 criticise, vilify. Just observe and try to breathe love through your heart.
YOU’RE HERE for a nanosecond. Why be an asshole?
Originally published on Esquire US
WE ARE AT A CROSSROADS. One road leads to extinction and the other could lead to a more peaceful, sustainable, healthier and joyful planet. Unfortunately, our emotional and spiritual development has not kept up with scientific knowledge.
IT IS WITHIN our power to reverse this calamity, and that can change if humanity has a shared vision. If we complement one another’s strengths, if we have maximum diversity of knowledge and if we connect, emotionally and spiritually... then it could emerge into a new paradigm.
ALL PEOPLE are interested in, is how many likes they get on their selfies. We have sacrificed ourselves for our selfies.
YEAH, I think celebrity is another way on how we replace ourselves with our selfies. It’s the human condition. They like to think that there’s somebody who’s superior but there isn’t.
I USED TO MEET people on the streets who told me, I read your books. Now they say my grandmother used to read your books.
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION is one particular aspect of mantra meditation. And the mantras that I use take you beyond thought. But now we see that that’s only one form of meditation. [There are others like] mindfulness, reflective inquiry, body awareness, awareness of mental space.
FUNDAMENTAL REALITY cannot be accessed by a system of thought. Whether it’s science or philosophy or any other system. If you want to know reality, you have to go beyond human constructs. Meditation is the only way to go beyond human constructs.
EVERYTHING WE TALK ABOUT IS A story. Stories are maps of reality, not reality. You can’t eat the menu, you have to eat the meal. And so if you want to eat the meal, you have to go beyond rational thought.
MY FAVOURITE BOOKS haven’t changed. Have you heard of Lost Horizon? It was by a guy called James Hilton. It was the first time people were introduced to the idea of Shangri-La. I have other favourites like W Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge; Rudyard Kipling classics; Arthur Conan Doyle... Shakespeare’s my favourite. I used to be able to recite every play of Shakespeare.
ACTING is a very interesting profession for good actors. I occasionally watch movies and the last one was Oppenheimer because I was curious about the person who had the insanity to create an atomic bomb.
YOU SAW OPPENHEIMER, RIGHT? What an ordinary guy. Do you read Einstein’s biography? I mean, the amount of human problems he had. When you look at famous people, whether they are in the arts or humanity or science or spirituality... everybody is fake. Including me.
IF THERE WAS a biography made on my life? [It’ll be an] authentic fake. At least, I don’t deny it.
HOW OTHERS depict me is a projection of themselves. The story you write about me... isn’t about me, it’s about you because of the questions you’re asking, right? It’s like using AI for a prompt: you’re asking me questions that the next person will not. Every story you write is about you.
IF I HAVE A GRAVE, it would say on the [tombstone], “Where you are, I once was. Where I am, you’ll soon be”.
I HAD A GOOD TIME. Been there, done that.
I WAS NOT SELF-AWARE as a physician-in-training. I graduated medical school in 1970 and went to the United States immediately. The first 10 years of my training, internship president’s fellowship, neuroscience, I was very much part of the system.
IN THOSE DAYS, doctors smoked; we all smoked. Even during the medical conference, doctors would advertise for Lucky Strike or Camel cigarettes. A very interesting time.
WORK doesn’t start until it’s 11am. When I get up at six, I reflect. Meditate; I do yoga. After five I don’t work any more. Weekends too.
I HAVE NO SOCIAL LIFE. I find social conversation very boring. Other than, spending time with friends and family, I don’t go to parties or watch movies.
IT’S DISTRESSING but I watch the news just to keep up with the world. Everybody’s fighting over nothing.
I WANT to be known as an interesting guy. But he’s not there any more. Move on. [laughs]
DO YOU know your great-grandfather? Do you know the grandfather of your grandfather? No. But because of him, you’re here. Every cell in your body has the genes of your ancestors. That is the legacy.
MY NEW BOOK is called Digital Dharma and I think AI, like any other great scientific discovery, can be used to heal the world or to destroy the world. But, at least, we have the intelligence to not allow that to happen.
THEN AGAIN, humans are crazy.
AI IS AUGMENTED HUMAN intelligence: it doesn’t say anything original. It’s a large language model that has no consciousness; doesn’t feel hungry; doesn’t have sex; doesn’t fear death... but it’s super intelligent as a language model..
A LOT OF PEOPLE think I am crazy. Maybe. I don’t know. If war and terrorism and eco-destruction and extinction of species, and poison in your food chain and chronic health and absence of joy is normal, then I don’t want to be normal.
I HAVE NO FEAR. I’ve no fear of death or anything. Zero. My stress level is zero.
TO GET TO THAT STAGE [of having no fear] is to recognise that you’re not your body and you’re not your mind. The only thing that’s real is consciousness; consciousness without form. It doesn’t have borders, therefore, it’s infinite.
Photography: Gan Kah Ying
Art Direction: Joan Tai
