Sheryl Crow Predicts The Future!

Don’t worry about gasoline prices. Sheryl says it will be FREE!

She also recognized climate change back when we still called it “global warming.”

There’s another prediction in the same song: Crow sang, “London suffered sweltering heat.”

Gasoline isn’t free yet, but it was down to $3.71 in my city today. That’s almost free!

Sheryl Crow released the song “Gasoline” on her 2008 album, Detours. Unfortunately, that year marked another for high gas prices when they peaked at an average of $4.10 in July. That’s $5.64 today, adjusted for inflation. No wonder people were angry.

This year, we peaked at $5.10, which seemed like the world's end for many out there. But, of course, those people were blaming Joe Biden. Oh, if they could only read. Poor republicans — bless their hearts.

“Gasoline” begins with an intro of her twangy electric acoustic guitar. Then, in the first verse, a line goes, “When crazy Hector Johnson broke into the refinery.”

Who the heck is Hector Johnson? The only thing I could dredge up is that he played bit parts in the movies “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Arrow,” “Fringe,” and “Santa’s Little Helper.” He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. Does anyone know anything about Hector Johnson? If so, please respond to this article!

“Gasoline” is a protest song set in the midst of an imaginary revolution in the future (although 2017 has now since come and passed). In 2008, Sheryl said,

“it’s like a science fiction song about looking back and proposing what it would have been like if people were really, really awake and took it to the streets. [It’s saying] we will not be oppressed by these oil prices dictating how we’re going to live our lives. It’s fantastical but at the same time hopefully it’s thought provoking.” ~Quote from genius.com

In today’s language, she may have used the word “woke” rather than “awake,” but you gotta give her credit — she was spot on.

Sheryl Crow has been one of my favorite singer/songwriters since the release of “Leaving Las Vegas” from her debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club, in 1993.

I happened to be visiting Las Vegas at about the time of its peak of popularity. That was my first time in Vegas as an adult, and those stories shall stay in Vegas. The first time I was in Vegas was 10 when my mom ditched me at Caesar’s Palace. We were eventually reunited after a few hours and kissed and made up. So the song is somewhat thematic for me.

Here’s a whiff of “Gasoline:”

Twenty years after her debut, Crow released the decidedly country “Feels Like Home.” By 2013 I’d pretty much stopped buying CDs and became enamored with iTunes (which I am listening to now). After buying her first six CDs, I passed on this one and only downloaded one song off of it.

“Easy” could have been the theme song to COVID before we knew what it was!

In “Easy,” a couple dreams of getting away to Cancun but can’t make it because “no money makes that kind of hard to do.”

So she’d have to change a few lyrics, but this would be a perfect quarantine song.

This is the stuff staycations are made of!

During COVID, we had to reinvent fun within the confines of our four walls or the four sides of our lot.

Crow sings in the first verse:

“Forget the beach I’d rather be here with you playing croquet, okay (baby that’s not true).

Succumbing to the reality of the situation, she then sings to her lover in the chorus:

But you make it easy, easy Easy to get away Sit in the sun and drink beer all day Because it’s easy, easy Easy the rain away, who needs Mexico? Baby let’s stay home

In 2020 and 2021, millions of us had to stay home and play croquet or some facsimile. But we could still drink!

Here she is at home, with her perfect teeth and her studly boyfriend in the music video!:

I still listen to the radio, usually in the car. But since it’s gone corporate, you don’t hear much variety. As good a singer/songwriter as Crow is, she never got the kind of airplay she deserved. Not rock enough for rock. Not alt enough for alt. Too rock for country. Where do I hear her music the most? In grocery stores!

She’s kind of in her own genre, and it’s too bad she’s been pegged that way because as well as she’s done, she could have been a superstar. But, of course, selling eight million copies of her debut album is nothing to snub your nose at.

If you were wondering, there will be no further collaborations with Kid Rock! That friendship ended after Rock posted a crude sexual remark about Taylor Swift on Twitter. Crow came to Swift’s defense and responded to his rant. But, of course, his support of Trump didn’t help matters!

Crow turned 60 in February. She has two adopted sons living in West Nashville, TN.

Here are a couple of other stories from The Riff you might like:

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