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Rating: Sheryl Suzanne Crow, aside from being one of my greatest icons, has always been a muse with multiform talent: always so different yet true to herself, complex, rich in nuances, and always immediately recognizable and identifiable. With such a personality, there is absolutely no need to make abrupt and sudden turns: her artistic journey has always been fluid and linear like a river: sometimes overflowing and impetuous, other times calm and serene, yet always unchanging in its flow towards the sea. However, in 2005 something changes, the course of the waters is diverted, new landscapes, familiar yet different, come to the listener's ears, and so "Wildflower" is born.
Surely the most meditated, reflective, and perhaps most feminine album of Sheryl's career: a sound rich in orchestration, warm, dense, creamy, and enveloping, reaching emotional heights that give goosebumps in the song that gives the album its title. In it, that voice I have fallen madly in love with turns into a whisper, a gentle lament that wanders with the grace of a butterfly over the arpeggios of a subtle folk guitar and the slow and melancholic swirls of a string-based background; a song that becomes the core of the entire album, where all the others somehow reflect and almost become variations on the theme: lyrics and melodies that are a bit like a light smile while a tear slides down the cheek, sung by a voice that warms the heart: songs that grow with momentum, with absolute naturalness like "I Don't Wanna Know", "Perfect Lie", "Good Is Good", "I Know Why" and the more complex and bluesy "Letter To God", or "Where Has All The Love Gone", ecstatic and liberating, and "Always On Your Side", pure magic in the form of a breathtaking piano-ballad, sung as only Sheryl can and knows how, with that "Butterflies are free to fly and so they fly away" that almost seems like a tribute to Elton John, which SC almost reinterprets in a strictly personal way in this wonderful song that challenges "Wildflower" for the highest moment of the album.
A record of rare and particular beauty, chromatically a natural green shaded in various tones, "Wildflower" is not, however, a perfect album, if only because more rhythmic tracks like "Live It Up" or "Lifetimes", enjoyable when taken individually, seem almost like foreign bodies in such a specific and defined context, but it remains a precious treasure chest in which Sheryl, the wild rose of Missouri deposits a piece of her soul, her uncertainties, her reflections, and her unshakable strength of spirit, thus reaching her peak as a songwriter.
"I know why the heart gets lonely every time you give your love away, and if you think you're only a shadow in the wind rolling round but when you go and let somebody in they might fade away" - "I Know Why"
"And everything I know just fades away, and where the wildflower grows it picks its space, and that's the way it is when nature plays its lovely hand, we'll understand everything" - "Wildflower"
"A
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Chances Are (05:16)
I was lost inside a daydream
Swimming through the saline
I looked at you and you breathed in
Well that's the way it's always been
It all comes down to creating time
You don't always have to make it rhyme
We'll all drive by in our hybrid lives
Chances are we'll make it back
I was doing time in the LA jail
My crime was living inside a failure
No matter how it don't matter now
Rest assured the rest is blurred
It all comes down to doing time
We don't always have to make it a crime
We'll all drive off in our hybrid lives
Chances are we'll make it back
We'll make it back... We'll make it back
Terrence McKenna said
It is better to explore within
We were apes before we spoke of sin
The cosmos sits on the tip of a pin
It all comes down to creating time
You don't always have to make it alright
We'll all drive by with our hybrid lives
Chances are... Chances are... Chances are
We'll make it back... We'll make it back
We'll make it back... We'll make it back
05 Wildflower (03:57)
Quiet EYES
You have always been my wildflower
Showing up wherever beauty's lost its way
Your heart must break
I was free
Until I heard the song you sang me to me
Pulling me away from everything I knew
To be with you
And everything I know just fades away
And every time you go it hurts me so
I don't know why WHEN I know we're free
Free to fly
Here we are
Burning faster than the CLOSEST star
Falling back down to the Earth
I love you so it sometimes hurts
Closer still
You will find me standing on the hill
Waiting for you with my arms stretched open wide
Now, come inside
And everything I know just fades away
And every time you go it hurts me so
I don't know why WHEN I know we're free
Free to fly
And everything I know just fades away
And where the wildflower grows it picks its space
And that's the way it is when nature plays its lovely hand
We'll understand everything
Everything, everything
06 Lifetimes (04:12)
Take off your halo, take off your golden crown
The spotlight's off, the shades are down
Where are your friends now, they're ghosts in a windowpane
Sometimes it's hard to stay the same
We can live lifetimes in a single day
No matter what you do, I love you anyway
You say if you're lost inside; well, I get lonely, too
Even in the worst of times, I give my best to you
I dreamed I was swimming, fighting the undertow
Drifting in circles, no place to go
And when I woke up, I was wringing wet
So much stronger than before
We can live lifetimes in a single day
No matter what you do, I love you anyway
You say if you're lost inside; well, I get lonely, too
Even in the worst of times, I give my best to you
The words escape
The silence made
The looks betray
I'm not afraid
We can live lifetimes in a single day
No matter what you do, I love you anyway
You say if you're lost inside; well, I get lonely, too
Even in the worst of times, I give my best to you
Even in the worst of times, I give my best to you
07 Letter to God (04:04)
I woke up late
Put my sweater on
And I walked down to the shop
I stood in line
'Til the line was gone
And my turn to win was lost
What do you do
When you look to the left and to the right
And find no clue?
Well I'm sending a letter to God
How will it be when I'm gone?
And what if everyone is wrong?
I took you in
Made a bed for you
And in turn you gave me some
Words to go on
Told me I was saved
But you never said what from
What do you do
When you look to the left and to the right
And find no clues
To the questions you ask yourself at night?
Who will come through?
You'll be sending a letter to God
How will it be when you're gone?
And what if everyone is wrong?
A solid case
For the innocent
Could be made and laid to rest
They say, "it won't do
If you aren't like us
Then you've failed the final test"
What do you feel
When you look to the east and to the west
If this is real
Does it feel like some never ending test?
A finance deal
If this is my one last chance to invest
I've one request
I'll be sending a letter to God
To know where will I go when I'm gone
And what if everyone is wrong?
08 Live It Up (03:42)
You get high-jacked, waiting at the bus stop
By Jesus, who's working at the pawn shop
Escaped by, barely in the picture
But never far from the lens
You'd never risk it, inherently self-conscious
So twisted, resting on your haunches
So mystic, paintin' in a poncho
You better get ready
Everybody's out to have a good time
Live it up, like there's no time left
Just like there's no tomorrow
Live it up, like there's no time left
And there's no time to kill
Live it up, like there's no time left
And no time left to borrow
Why don't you try to get it right this time
Get it right this time
You get worked up, jammed and overloaded
Your time's up, before you even know it
But you can't stop, working on the outcome
You're hawking your latest sins
Put on your backpack, take a trip to nowhere
You're sidetracked, on your way to somewhere
You wind up right back where you started
You better get ready
Everybody's out to have a good time
Live it up, like there's no time left
Just like there's no tomorrow
Live it up, like there's no time left
And there's no time to kill
Live it up, like there's no time left
And no time left to borrow
Why don't we try to get it right this time
This time
No reason to worry, even if it isn't goin' our way
Forget about tomorrow, because all we really have is today
Live it up, like there's no time left
Just like there's no tomorrow
Live it up, like there's no time left
And there's no time to kill
Live it up, like there's no time left
And no time left to borrow
Why don't we try to get it right
Why don't we try to get it right
Why don't we try to get it right this time
Get it right this time
Get it right this time
All right
10 Always on Your Side (04:15)
My yesterdays are all boxed up and neatly put away
But every now and then you come to mind
Cause you were always waiting to be picked to play the game
But when your name was called, you found a place to hide
When you knew that I was always on your side
Well everything was easy then, so sweet and innocent
But your demons and your angels reappeared
Leavin' all the traces of the man you thought you'd be
Leavin' me with no place left to go from here
Leavin' me so many questions all these years
But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
This isn't how it's really meant to be
No it isn't how it's really meant to be
Well they say that love is in the air, but never is it clear,
How to pull it close and make it stay
Butterflies are free to fly, and so they fly away
And I'm left to carry on and wonder why
Even through it all, I'm always on your side
But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are we left to wonder, all alone, eternally
But is this how it's really meant to be
No is it how it's really meant to be
Well if they say that love is in the air, never is it clear
How to pull it close and make it stay
If butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away
Leavin' me to carry on and wonder why
Was it you that kept me wondering through this life
When you know that I was always on your side
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