Sheryl Crow, I don’t know, she’s got something going on, and has been one of my muses at critical moments. She writes and sings like a broken angel, with equal measures of strength and vulnerability, passion and fear, hope and futility. Some of her music is exquisitely beautiful — notably just about anything from the album Wildflower — and some of it is deeply moving — notably, just about anything from the album Wildflower. This one’s not from that album (rather, Tuesday Night Movie Club). Here it’s arranged as a simple (nonetheless beautiful) country melody. While the words ride gently over it, beneath them runs a subterranean river, in a dark, soulful place Sheryl Crow goes better than anyone else. There flows a sense of betrayal, pain and futility. From all that, Crow extracts a searing elixir of truth then, somehow, you drink it down and it’s beautiful.
I promise to believe
Lie to me
But please don’t leave
Oh my, that hurts.
There’s a beautiful duet with Stevie Nicks on YouTube that I couldn’t embed.
