#612 - Sheryl Crow on Meeting the Pope, Touring with Babies & Knowing She Was Ready to Adopt

00:00:06
Speaker 1: Someday, my kids are going to come back and say thank you that you dragged us during mid terms to fly over to Realm for forty eight hours to meet the Pope.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Today's guest is a true music icon, one of my favorites ever.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: It is Cheryl Crow.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Nine time Grammy Winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

00:00:28
Speaker 3: She has so many awesome songs.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Before becoming a superstar, she toured his backup singer for Michael Jackson on his Bad Tour way back in the day, and across more than three decades she sold over thirty five million albums, also becoming an advocate for cancer research, hunger relief education.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: She is still touring. Go watch her.

00:00:48
Speaker 2: Go to Cheryl Crow dot com or to our socials, go to shows. As we talk about, she still plays.

00:00:52
Speaker 3: All the hits and she has a ton of them, still making music, and we're going to talk. Now.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Here's my conversation with one of my favorite artists of all time and one of my favorite people of all time, Cheryl Crow.

00:01:05
Speaker 3: Cheryl, great to see you, Good to see you.

00:01:07
Speaker 2: I always love seeing you. I think the last time we saw each other was can you name it?

00:01:11
Speaker 4: Well? Was that your house.

00:01:12
Speaker 3: No, since then, oh where were we? Exactly?

00:01:15
Speaker 4: Exactly, well, we were in it.

00:01:17
Speaker 2: This is not one of those where I've got youa in you because it'd be hilarious if you remember it, because it wasn't like a formal setting.

00:01:23
Speaker 4: It was a yeah, where was it at a restaurant?

00:01:25
Speaker 3: It was in a parking lot.

00:01:26
Speaker 4: It was in a parking lot at the mall.

00:01:28
Speaker 3: That's right.

00:01:29
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that's right. Oh my god, that is right Hills Mall.

00:01:34
Speaker 3: That's right here. And I was like, oh no, oh Cheryl.

00:01:37
Speaker 4: Yea all good, Yes, I remember exactly.

00:01:40
Speaker 3: It's great to see you.

00:01:41
Speaker 4: It's good to see you too.

00:01:42
Speaker 1: And you're a new dad and I love that. I am I'm an old mom and I.

00:01:47
Speaker 3: Love that too.

00:01:48
Speaker 4: But I'm just going to give you one little piece of advice.

00:01:50
Speaker 3: It goes really fast. People say that to me.

00:01:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, write everything down, like there's certain little things. Both my boys love hearing about five any things they said when they were little, and you'll forget them. You'll think, I'm never going to forget this, and then you, as time goes on, you will write them down because they will love knowing that.

00:02:11
Speaker 2: It feels now that everything's going really slow. I know you say it flies by, so you're not getting much.

00:02:16
Speaker 3: It feels like.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: Our baby is barely over a month old, five weeks or so, and it's it's crazy because I'm still in that stage of because I'm going to end up being like a literal old dad because I didn't have a kid. Tell, I was in my forties, right, which is weird because my mom got pregnant fifteen with me and my mom was just my mom.

00:02:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, but thinking.

00:02:37
Speaker 2: Back, like that's so young, that like our ages were so close to each other, and I just feel like I'm going to be one hundred years old having to meet other dads that are all like twenty eight.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: Okay, I got my second kill when I was forty five. Nope, I got my first kill when I was forty five. I got my second kill when I was forty eight.

00:02:55
Speaker 3: And did you feel that way with other parents.

00:02:57
Speaker 4: Did you? I didn't.

00:02:59
Speaker 1: I've always felt young, and I live in I have a line of work that makes that tricks me into thinking I'm very young. That being said, I've always been in really good shape. So I mean trampoline every night. You know, to me, age was not a factor. The beautiful thing for me and maybe it will be this way for you. Is that there was nothing.

00:03:23
Speaker 4: That came along that I ever felt like I was going to miss out on. Like all my.

00:03:28
Speaker 1: Decisions were so easy based on like I don't want to miss anything with my kids. You know, I've been at like every baseball game I've been, you know, I just don't There's not one thing I feel like I hate missing that, but I really should be at my kids game.

00:03:44
Speaker 4: There's nothing, you know.

00:03:46
Speaker 2: I was talking to my therapist two days ago because I have a bit struggled with I don't want to be so old, and I don't feel like that's the case because I also am an industry that i'm it's young, and I've always been the youngest at what I do. I'm just now like catching up and starting to feel like, oh, I'm just normal in my age because I was always like the really young person doing But I think though if I could redo it, I don't think I would want I wouldn't have the same wife. Well, she'd have been like seven years old.

00:04:15
Speaker 1: So that had been weird, and you'd have been in jail and that would have been a problem.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: But also I was so scared of raising a kid and not having money like I.

00:04:27
Speaker 3: Was raised because we were very, very.

00:04:29
Speaker 2: Poor, and I was my whole life. I was like, I can't have a kid because that that can't grow up and have poor a kid that didn't have access to food. I don't go to the dentist of my twenties and so I would not do it any different. Yeah, but that has been a concern of mine. But you're rocking it.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: I have to say, you know, I have my own belief system. I don't believe. I believe your kids pick you. I don't think you ever get the wrong kid. I know that sounds really woo woo.

00:05:02
Speaker 3: But your kid picked you.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: At this moment, you're ready and you don't want to spend too much time over analyzing why now am I going to be this? Am I going to be that? Because then you miss out on the now? And I mean I literally sound like a self help book. But it took me forever to get to the place where I was like open armed and just like, Okay, I may not get to be a mom. I've loved a lot of amazing people, and I've loved some other people too, and that was where I got off and at which point, I was like, Okay, God, I'm just going to like, get in the boat, must start rowing. If you meet me halfway with a baby, great if you don't, and lo and behold the two boys that I have could not be more brother ish, could not be more of a crow, and it could not have picked me at a more I mean, I was ready, and I was away and aware, and I wanted them. And I'm sure you're the same place you're like, want I want my daughter? Now when you're in your twenties, do you really want to raise a human being?

00:06:13
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know if I could have, you know, I don't know if I would have wanted to even.

00:06:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I and I still struggle with knowing myself fully, but I definitely did not know who I was at twenty. I was all trauma at twenty. I'm just now figuring out I was all trauma at twenty like survival, Yeah, running as hard as I possibly could, thinking I was running to just like be the best, but really I was just running away from all trauma. So I think there are a lot of benefits to having I think it's awesome, but it's weird it's made me like, like rethink things. I was very resentful towards my parents, but again they were teenage parents. Yeah, so mom got pregnant fifteen, My biological dad was seventeen, and my dad left when I was like five. I don't know them. And my mom struggled and left and I was adopted and came back and all this. But then I think, man, they were teenagers. What do I there were teenagers with no money?

00:07:15
Speaker 3: What do I like?

00:07:16
Speaker 2: What what should I expect of teenagers with no money? And I would be resentful towards them, But then I think they did. They were together for a couple of years. They kept a baby alive for two three years. That's crazy because it's hard to keep a baby alive and we have all the resources, and to think that those two teenagers keeping me alive like I have, Like, I'm great. My heart's a little grateful for that. It never was until I had a baby.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'll tell you what, the older they get, actually the older I am. I'm just completely in all of the fact that we ever grew up to be adult.

00:07:46
Speaker 4: So many things can go wrong, you know, I don't know. I mean I think I tell my kids this all the time.

00:07:54
Speaker 1: I'm like, you have a college fund, and you have a therapy fund, and I hope you go to college, but I really hope you go to therapy because, and I tell them all the time, I've done a thousand things wrong, and I've done things that I haven't known we're wrong. That you will sit in a chair someday and need somebody to help you walk through the mythology of what I did that you felt like was to you.

00:08:26
Speaker 4: Because we're humans, you know.

00:08:29
Speaker 1: And like my older one, whyat when he was little, he would say, are you mad?

00:08:38
Speaker 4: Are you mad? At me?

00:08:39
Speaker 1: And literally I could be just like reading, you know, and my face makes that resting bitch face or whatever, and he would take it on and.

00:08:47
Speaker 4: Think it was him.

00:08:49
Speaker 1: Now, when I was a kid, I got the same look a lot, but never had the freedom to ask my mom or dad did I do something wrong? So you carry that stuff around with you, you know, And at a certain point, I think when you do get into therapy, you start understanding they do the best they can. They were people, and that's where they got off. My Dad's always like, this world'll be a great place. It wasn't for people. And that kind of is the reality is that we're.

00:09:15
Speaker 4: We don't have a handbook for how to raise kids.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: We do the best we can and we hope that they don't like walk into a moment and that moment becomes the mythology of who they think they are in the universe.

00:09:26
Speaker 4: But that's the reality, that's what they do.

00:09:29
Speaker 2: It's funny that stuff matters to me now because my wife and I last night we're talking and we have a brief period each night when the baby's a sleep that and I have two therapists, one for me, one for us, because we go and it was our first time to go us together and we don't have child care yet because the baby's like an inch worm, so it's like we give it to a nanny. So we took it with this to therapy. And so the baby's great, and we're in therapy and we leave and she's sleep when we get home, and my wife was talking about, you know, how amazing it is, and it is, and she was just making a joke about how we're going to give the baby everything, and I'm like, we're not giving the baby anything, Like this baby's going to start earning.

00:10:05
Speaker 3: Its keep immediately. And she's like, no, we're going to give it everything. Don't you want that?

00:10:09
Speaker 2: I said, no, I said, I don't want that. I said, I want to hopefully find it, like a compromise type place. I said, but it doesn't matter what we do. The baby's gonna be in therapy anyway, hopefully. And she's like, if we give it everything. I said, it'll especially be in therapy if we give it everything. Going well, I never had to work for anything, and here I am. So I just don't and I'm I'm very new at this. I just don't feel like there's a right when it comes to parenting.

00:10:35
Speaker 4: I don't know, Bobby.

00:10:36
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that you care and that you're so aware of it will you're head.

00:10:40
Speaker 4: You're totally ahead of the game.

00:10:42
Speaker 3: I'm neurotic everywhere though. This is no different than Yeah.

00:10:45
Speaker 1: But I'm telling you what, the older she gets, the more you're gonna realize, Oh, she picked me, she knew what she was getting.

00:10:54
Speaker 4: She knew. I mean, I could tell you crazy stories about why I know this.

00:10:59
Speaker 3: Give me one. Well, I'll give you two.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: So years and years ago when I had a four year old and a one year old and we're traveling on a tour bus and why it's taking his first steps in the green room at Ellen DeGeneres and Leeve I started out his life at two weeks old and a crib on a tour bus. I mean, all these things, I start feeling.

00:11:20
Speaker 4: Like, am I Is this fair to my kids? Is this normal? You know?

00:11:27
Speaker 1: And so I go to my acupuncturist in New York, really wonderful person. Is very intuitive. Like you'd never say psychic to him. He's like, psychic, that's bullshit. You know, we all are intuitive. It just depends on how much you want to know. But I said, you know, I voiced this concern, and he said, well, I'll tell you Whyatt came in for you, and Levi came in for Wyatt. And as matter of factly as it could be.

00:11:56
Speaker 4: Right.

00:11:56
Speaker 1: So as the years went on, it's played out exactly that way. I mean, Wyatt, I've known all of my lives, if there is such thing. And Levi, I've gotten to know him every single day of his life, every minute of his life.

00:12:14
Speaker 4: I get to know him more and more.

00:12:17
Speaker 1: But when Wyatt was three and Levi was just a couple of weeks old, he was sitting on the floor and he was thumbing through a book, which he was very hyper focused on books and pictures and things. And just as an aside, I have this elephant necklace which I've always worn, and instead of him saying elephant when he was little, he would always.

00:12:39
Speaker 4: Say Africa, which I thought, well, that's it's very strange.

00:12:43
Speaker 1: Anyway, he's sitting on the floor, I'm giving Levi a bottle and he's stumbing this book and he says, oh, this reminds me of Africa. And I said, well, what are you looking at? And this was quiet, and I said, I said, what reminds you of Africa? And he goes, just looks reminds me of Africa. And I said what about Africa? And he said, I said, what do you know about Africa? He said, well, we used to live there, just like matter of factly. And I said what was it like and he said, we.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: Had dirt floors and we had grass on the roof. Here's three And.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: He probably hadn't seen dirt floors and grass on roofs of anything to really pull that in.

00:13:26
Speaker 4: Well.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: Then he starts telling me about how he had to walk for miles to get water and it was really long walk with those shoes, and he told me about all the big bugs and I'm like why, like very graphic.

00:13:42
Speaker 4: And then I said, was LEVI there?

00:13:44
Speaker 1: And he looked at me like I had three heads and he's like yeah, and he said but he was older than me, like I should know that. And then I'm taking it all in and I said, well, tell me more about Africa and he was like, I don't want to talk about Africa anymore. Never talked about it again.

00:14:02
Speaker 4: So I don't know.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: I like knowing that I don't know everything. You know, I'm making my peace with as a control freak and as somebody who's like total people pleaser. I'm in control of everything, and you know, I love and this is one of the great lessons. And I guarantee you that Billy will be the best teacher you ever had. I like, I'm comfortable now not knowing everything or not knowing anything.

00:14:38
Speaker 3: You know, did you want to have two kids?

00:14:45
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I was engaged. I had three beautiful step children. I wanted to have kids with this person.

00:14:55
Speaker 3: We split.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: In the same week that we split, I got diagnosed with breast cancer and I found out he was seeing a really famous actress, and I really felt like I went through about, I guess nine months of.

00:15:15
Speaker 4: Radiation and grieving and anger.

00:15:19
Speaker 1: And I had a really stoic oncologist who literally looked like my grandmother, and I thought, you know, not a warm and fuzzy person at all. But one of the things that she said to me was, I mean, I fully expect you had a lot of cigarettes.

00:15:34
Speaker 4: That's how her demeanor was.

00:15:36
Speaker 1: You know, just don't miss out on the lessons, you know, And she literally said just don't. She's like, I've had a thousand women come through with breast cancer. Don't miss out on the lesson. And I realized that having gone through all that I am a caretaker. I'm the last person I take care of. I take care of every of these emotions. I make sure everybody's good with me. I'm like checking ing jive and all through life. And I think it took that my life screeching to a halt to get to a place to go, Okay, who am I.

00:16:12
Speaker 4: And why am I doing what I'm doing? Do I love what I'm doing? What am I supposed to be doing? Do I want to be a mom?

00:16:18
Speaker 1: And I was talking to my mom about it, and I said I thought I would be a mom and she's like, this is like small town lady, right, grew up in the church the whole thing. She's like, well, you could get a sperm donor and you could just do it on your own. And I'm like, berness, Crow just told me to get a sperm donor. But it was kind of that, like the troops kind of gathering around me, saying, look, we're here, you adopt, will help you. And when why it was baptized, my whole family sit up there, and you know, I knew I wasn't in it by myself, and I literally had the way he came to me, through the channels that he came to me. I just was like, this, there is a God that's so much bigger than what we you know, It's a god that doesn't can't be confined to religion, a church, a movement. It's something so much bigger than our pea brains can imagine when you're talking about the souls of people.

00:17:19
Speaker 3: But I got the right.

00:17:19
Speaker 4: Kid, and he has been an unbelievable teacher for me.

00:17:24
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: And we're back on the Bobby cast.

00:17:39
Speaker 2: I always think when people try to define God that it's tough to find something you by definition, can have no understanding of the depth. And I find that it's even for people to tell me about it or tell me why I'm right or wrong, most mostly.

00:18:00
Speaker 3: Wrong about it.

00:18:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially now.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: You're trying to tell me what God is when we're just organic matter. You think our brains have any concept of what is actually greater than us. Our brains only allow us to know what we've read and what we've been taught, what we can envision by other people who have envisioned it, read it, been taught it. Yeah, And so I think I've struggled with people trying to tell me. I grew up very religious, very very in the Baptist Church. Was president of the FCA, which fellowship Chrisian athletes, which was all of that, and at it probably not as healthy of a relationship then as I do now, But it's not the same at all.

00:18:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.

00:18:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't.

00:18:42
Speaker 3: We cannot know, And I think that's what God is.

00:18:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so many and I am I know, I'm analytical, I'm also and I'm sure, in fact, I'm very certain that you're like me. You're very curious and so you ask a lot of questions and you do the deep dives and like for me, and I've been through lots of different religious incarnations.

00:19:06
Speaker 4: I was raised Presbyterian, which was basically, be nice.

00:19:10
Speaker 1: We don't care if you play cards, you can drink, pay your ten percent, show up, do your community work, work in the church, you know, very like not evangelical. Satan was just like a thing in a book and pretty easy going. And then I went through the born again thing, and I mean, and then I came out of that was just like, holy freaking shirt balls, what's happening here? There's And then I got into meditation, and I think, if you know anything about the brain, we really for what scientists understand and use about three percent of it. So for us to try to envision something that.

00:19:49
Speaker 4: Is not visual, it's not tangible, is futile. You know.

00:19:59
Speaker 1: The only thing that we can experience is if we sit in nature and feel the minusculeness of us and the fact that everything that keeps us alive metaphysically is what keeps a tree alive, and what keeps the mushrooms underneath the trees and what you know it it's all energy, that's all it is.

00:20:18
Speaker 4: And maybe God is energy.

00:20:20
Speaker 1: Wyatt, who's like super science kid, he goes to a private school that's Christian based and the whole creationism and stuff.

00:20:29
Speaker 4: He's like, well, if.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: We were like second grade, if we were like made in God's image, then that makes God an epe. But I'm like, maybe, I mean, we can't say what God is, you know. Maybe God's just a spirit. We don't Maybe God is space maybe. But it's as of late in this portion of my life listening to people who feel like they know so much and they use it against other people.

00:21:00
Speaker 4: I find that really concerning.

00:21:03
Speaker 2: One of my favorite things that I've heard people say in the past couple of years is never trust a pastor that tells you how to vote or a.

00:21:11
Speaker 3: Politician that tells you how to pray.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: Oh.

00:21:14
Speaker 3: I think about that almost daily at this point, because.

00:21:17
Speaker 4: I think I'm going to steal that we I mean.

00:21:20
Speaker 3: That's weird. I wish I made it out, but yeah, I think about it all the time.

00:21:23
Speaker 4: That is true.

00:21:24
Speaker 2: If I see a pastor telling people how to vote politically, that really.

00:21:29
Speaker 3: Turns me off.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess, you know, social media is a really hard place to navigate because as soon as you click on something like that, like I saw a minister who was saying that if you do not you know, if you are not a Republican, then you should just get out, just get out. And I watched it and thought, is this really happening?

00:21:48
Speaker 5: You know?

00:21:48
Speaker 4: And the pastor.

00:21:49
Speaker 1: Who's got so many followers, who said so many awful things about racist comments and comments about women not having the right shouldn't have the right to vote, but only bear arms, and I mean you should only bear children, not bear arms.

00:22:04
Speaker 3: But that that's for the husband.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's It does make raising kids simpler in the fact that there are only a couple of things our kids need to know, and that is to be a good person.

00:22:19
Speaker 4: To look around. I tell my kids this all the time.

00:22:22
Speaker 1: Your job is to look around and say where can I help somebody? And you should do it every day because when you bless somebody, it's really your blessing.

00:22:30
Speaker 4: You get blessed.

00:22:32
Speaker 1: And there's no better feeling than stopping and giving somebody money or asking somebody if you can help them, And me.

00:22:39
Speaker 3: It's the teachings of Christ. What you're saying right there, that's literally, that.

00:22:42
Speaker 1: Is the teachings of Christ. Yes, that's all you need to know. If you want to quot scripture at me, then I'm going to hit the restroom and then I might go out to the parking lot for a smoke. And when you come back and you're done with your scripture, great, But those are the only things I need to know right there.

00:22:59
Speaker 4: You know, I.

00:23:00
Speaker 3: Saw a picture of you and your kids with the Pope. That was an awesome picture. I love him. That was Yeah, it was awesome.

00:23:06
Speaker 4: I have to tell you, and I cannot wait until you make your daughter mad.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: Well, that's a weird thing to not wait for. I'm curious to know why.

00:23:15
Speaker 1: Because when she gets to be a teenager and you go, okay, this is an opportunity that someday you will thank me for. You will not believe the eye rolling you will get from your teenager. It is And I know someday my kids are going to come back and say thank you that you dragged us during mid terms during our review week to fly over to Rome for forty eight hours to meet the Pope. I'm waiting until they come back and say thank you for doing that. But to me, if you in this climate want to talk about holy teaching or teaching that is aligned with Christ, especially if you're going to a Christian school, then just listen to what he's own teaching, the teachings of Christ. To take care of immigrants, take care of the stranger, feed the hungry, help the poor. That's it, you know. But I will tell you something really funny. I find my kids over there.

00:24:12
Speaker 3: How did you even get the opportunity?

00:24:13
Speaker 4: Okay, so this is random. You get asked. I'm sure you do too.

00:24:16
Speaker 1: You get asked to do some kind of obscure things and you weigh it and you go, I've never even heard of that.

00:24:21
Speaker 4: Why would I do that?

00:24:23
Speaker 1: I got invited to do the Vatican Christmas and it's a great big fundraiser that they do every year, sponsored by an organization that works with the Vatican. It's completely charitable. This one, I think was helping with schools and africas I recall maybe Ethiopia it was. And I was the only American on it, didn't know anybody else. They were all like very big stars from other countries. And I said, yeah, I'll do that because I get to meet the Pope, and I love this Pope and I want my children to meet this pope.

00:24:58
Speaker 4: I want my kids. Were really going through it when.

00:25:03
Speaker 1: There is a mindset of Christian influencers and then there's Christians and they're asking a lot of hard questions. I was like, this is this is important to me and hopefully someday it'll be important to them.

00:25:16
Speaker 3: So we go over.

00:25:17
Speaker 1: My son is waiting to hear if he's going to get into the college that he wants to get into, and I was like, dude, you're gonna meet the pope.

00:25:24
Speaker 4: Just ask him to put in a good word with the guy upstairs. When we got back to the hotel right after meeting thee and he opened his computer and he got in so I was like, see.

00:25:33
Speaker 3: That's awesome.

00:25:35
Speaker 2: Whenever he's coming down and you actually see the Pope that I just think there's only been a few even huge like celebrities I've met where I've been like, I'm jaded.

00:25:43
Speaker 3: I'm sure you are too, in a good way, in a bad way. Always.

00:25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just people are it's the Pope, it's the position. Yeah, when you see him's at a pretty cool moment.

00:25:53
Speaker 3: It is.

00:25:54
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I guess as an American, you think.

00:25:56
Speaker 1: You're going to be like, hey about the white Saux, you know, and you're gonna be high five and all that stuff.

00:25:59
Speaker 4: He is very very.

00:26:04
Speaker 1: He's very reserved, like we didn't really know what to expect. You know, we're we're going to talk about barbecue and Chicago and all that stuff. And and I when I met him, I didn't want to monopolize this time. There was like a long line of people, and I had my boys, and I just said, you know how much it meant to me that he was really spreading the teachings of Christ, because for me, no matter what your belief system is, those teachings are teachings that should be to me, you know, mimicked by all of us and and all he what he said to and I said, it really matters to me, especially now with what's happening in our country. And he said yes, he was only in my head. And he said, yes, we all have to work together. And I was like, okay, that's very popey, you know, very very popy. And then I introduced my sons and he was very you know, but I mean, it's got to be it's got to be a hard job, you know, it's like any other job because you're so highly scrutinized.

00:27:06
Speaker 4: But he was lovely.

00:27:08
Speaker 1: His his demeanor was very, very peaceful.

00:27:15
Speaker 3: I know.

00:27:16
Speaker 1: The last pope was much more jovial and outgoing, although he didn't speak any English, you know, he was just very and this Pope is much more sort of observant. And I don't know, I just I have a lot of respect for him by Virginie of the fact that I just feel like he's just saying exactly what Chris said.

00:27:35
Speaker 3: You know, my wife and I went to Italy.

00:27:38
Speaker 2: I can think it was the first time we ever went a few years ago, and so obviously i'd never been to that again. And we had booked this trip to go. We got a guide to take us, and I got COVID. No, and so she went, you.

00:27:50
Speaker 4: Got to go back.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: I know.

00:27:52
Speaker 1: You know, it's really funny. I tipped my kids in last summer. I took him to Rome.

00:27:57
Speaker 3: I got COVID while I was there, while you were there, I got COVID, I got COVID. Yeah, I was staying in Rome.

00:28:04
Speaker 4: But wait, did you see did you You didn't tour? You were just stuck in the hotel.

00:28:07
Speaker 3: You're stuck in the.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Hotel, like yeah, and she was like, yeah, she didn't go to Italy without me. We were already in Italy, right and then yeah, and she went into COVID and I was like, you still have to go.

00:28:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you have to go back there. She went, yeah, you have to go back and do the tour.

00:28:21
Speaker 4: I mean, it's she said, it was amazing, it's amazing.

00:28:25
Speaker 1: I mean now, when we went, it was very crowded and the kids, the boys were like, why are you making us do this? But they won't forget it. But the thing I think was really interesting is taking them to the coliseum. Oh crazy, because you go, okay, boys, as bad as you think it is, nobody's piling into a stadium to watch people get eaten by a tiger or stab to death. You know, we have come at least a little ways, you know, I mean, just to just to be in a place that's older than your own country, you know, especially as a teenager, because there are only so many awe moments you're going to have as a teenager, because you're so self aware and so like what am I missing?

00:29:07
Speaker 4: You know, where's my phone? And they were they were kind of blown away.

00:29:12
Speaker 6: The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast. I love a guide.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: We had a guide take us to, yeah, the coliseumas as well. Yeah, you know they don't there's not a floor. It's basically underneath where the floor was. You can see how it advanced it was, yes, and how they would get room to room, and they had elevators and lifts. But when again I will nerd out of a guide. It doesn't matter where we are a guide too.

00:29:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And.

00:29:48
Speaker 2: So just to hear the stories of there were a couple of different ways that people fought. Either there were basically prisoners that would fight and or people that had no money and it was their only way. And if you had if you got a certain amount of wins, it's very much like Gladiator the movie. And if you could win a certain amount, then then you would be almost elevated as a citizen and you would have money for your family. So it was either people who got in trouble and were in jail or people that just wanted a better life for their families. And they were the ones down fighting in the coliseum.

00:30:19
Speaker 1: Can you even And the people were like, you know, we want we want them to live and fight again, or I mean, and how it would last like days and the rich people would be at the very top and the women would be you know, women weren't allowed to hang out with them.

00:30:34
Speaker 4: It's just.

00:30:35
Speaker 3: This is crazy, because you're right, we this country has not been around long.

00:30:39
Speaker 4: It has not been around long.

00:30:40
Speaker 2: I remember I was in Philadelphia and I was, I don't know, doing sulting out there for work, and we went looked at the Rocky Statue and then saw the Liberty Bell. But then we went over and it was like Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Independence and it was like, you know, seventy but it was right next to a seven eleven. There's seven eleven built like right next to the house. But that so that that was weird. And then two just a couple and fifty years we're I mean, we're hitting that.

00:31:07
Speaker 3: But that's nothing. First of I went to Lune. I never went anywhere as a kid. So Arkansas that's about it.

00:31:12
Speaker 2: Where'd you go up in Arkansas Central like hot springs on a rock that area.

00:31:16
Speaker 3: So I grew up.

00:31:16
Speaker 1: I grew up like three miles from the Arkansas border Missouri, right.

00:31:20
Speaker 4: And about eight miles from Tennessee.

00:31:22
Speaker 2: So yeah, so, and we spent a lot of time in Fatteville now, and that's where University of Arkansas was, So.

00:31:28
Speaker 4: Matt Orthodox was in Jonesboro.

00:31:30
Speaker 3: That's the right side. Listen. I've been everywhere in Arkansas. I didn't a big state. The movie theater was in Blivel. I went to Bible a lot. They had the boat they made the boats in Bible. Yeah, like the track or they had. I forget what boat company was.

00:31:46
Speaker 2: But I'd never been out of Arkansas much until I got a little older. Then I left the state a little bit, but I never left the country until I started to nobody did.

00:31:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm older than you, but I mean people didn't get on planes.

00:31:58
Speaker 4: I mean no, hardly ever.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: I mean we were middle class, so I probably was better off than what you were from what I understand, but we still didn't.

00:32:08
Speaker 3: I mean, well, first time I went to London, I was blown away. Yeah, at the age of stuff.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, just that alone, there'd be a building from the thirteen hundreds. Yeah. I'm not a crier for the most part. And it's not a masculinity thing. It's a vulnerability thing. So growing up, I felt like I could never cry because I couldn't be vulnerable. So I'm naturally inclined to not cry. I don't fight it anymore, but mostly I just lock up and don't. There have been a couple of times, but we went into this massive church in Austria and it was it was like like twelve hundred and like for some reason, I just started crying. And I think it was because that had just mattered for so much longer than anything I had ever been around, Like it had mattered to people, Yeah, for so long. Yeah, and that made me emotional. Yeah, because you're right.

00:32:56
Speaker 3: We're here.

00:32:57
Speaker 2: We're two hundred and fifty years in there, one hundreds and is wild?

00:33:01
Speaker 1: I no, And you know, I think now more than ever, I feel the ego of America. You know, we've listened to so long about how we are the exceptional country, and watching what's happening now, I feel like we're all getting very desensitized to the ego aspect of our country and you know, coming in and demolishing and all.

00:33:32
Speaker 4: In the name of making it better for other people.

00:33:34
Speaker 1: And I think it's just it's going to be an interesting time when we come through these next couple of years to see where we land, you know, especially we're getting ready to celebrate two hundred and fifty years, which does not feel to me. It doesn't feel and this sounds awful. It doesn't feel like weorth celebrating at this moment. Like I'd like to celebrate what we really stand for, but I don't see that happening next year. I feel like it's going to be a huge celebration of ego and who we've conquered and how rich we are, and you know, all all the things that seem that right now are masking what's really happening in this country, and that bums me out.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: It's hard to celebrate and be joyous when there's so much division in vitriol, and it's.

00:34:29
Speaker 1: Been sown right in front of us, you know, it's been you know, I've had lots of conversations with even people in my own family about well, Biden, this will Obama, this will even Bush this or reaganess or whatever. And I don't remember a time when anybody who was supposedly the leader of all of us would say that some of us were the enemy. And it really has seeped in to the national conversation. It seeped into our families at the dinner table. It's an incredibly effective tact to keep us at each other's throats, and it's been disheartening. I think, you know, one of the things for me that's been helpful is being quiet. And I've limited my surfing on Instagram and all that stuff to like ten minutes a day because it really does do damage to the spirit.

00:35:35
Speaker 4: But we are spirits. It's like what you said, we are souls.

00:35:40
Speaker 1: We come, we're here for a minute. You either leave the campground nicer than you found it or you don't. I was raised to leave it nicer. I'm that obnoxious person that walks around the beach with a plastic bag and fills it with crap.

00:35:55
Speaker 3: My kids are like, why do you have to be that person?

00:36:01
Speaker 1: But all you can do is, you know, model to other people it's okay to actually be a good, nice person and to not hate, and to not listen and to not join and just try to look around and go where can I help somebody? Because I mean, literally, I'm sixty four, I'm counting my summers and I don't feel that.

00:36:26
Speaker 4: But we're not here very long. I mean we are literally not here very long.

00:36:31
Speaker 1: To waste it for one second buying in to that kind of hate coming from a pastor, or from a president, or from anybody.

00:36:42
Speaker 4: It's just not worth it.

00:36:44
Speaker 2: My hope is that this is part of a cycle that has happened many times over, and it's just it's happened so many times just like this, and just like every other time, we've gotten out of it. And by we, I mean the human race. Yeah, because this feels to me, and it's probably because I'm the most aware though now like the worst it's ever been in my life.

00:37:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, But you know, I wasn't an adult. I wasn't an adult in nineteen sixty nine.

00:37:05
Speaker 2: I wasn't an adult in Mongolia when there are all these eras and times or during.

00:37:11
Speaker 3: The crusades or all those times seem to be pretty rough. Yeah, And I just think it's surely.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: We've gotten through this as humans many times over, because may I don't want to be at the end.

00:37:25
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so that whole end thing, I know that. I mean, I don't want to get started on the whole biblical thing.

00:37:31
Speaker 3: Well, I think just environmentally too, Yes, I agree, I agree.

00:37:38
Speaker 1: I would say that because and this is totally just my take on it. There was a great book that came out about twenty years ago that I read called The Fourth Turning, and it basically documented through history like the twenty year cycles of you know, coming out of World War Two. You know, the war created a lot of jobs, and then out of that we went into you know, the fifties where women were in the kitchen and their role was to make dinner. And then there became like this, wait a minute, why would I you know, social unterests asking questions we entered in the sixties. The sixties was you know, like the twenty year cycles and what be got what and what changed from these monumental moments in history. Well, so now our monumental moments are they're worldwide because with technology, there is no it's not like neighborhood, it's not like community. This is happening everywhere. But the outcome of that will also be something huge, and maybe it is a moment of enlightenment. You know, maybe it is a we have a moment where and I'm starting to see it now where people are asking questions about how long have we been living with corrupt with our lives being manipulated by the powerful, who have all the money, who have all the power.

00:39:00
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:39:15
Speaker 3: Two things.

00:39:16
Speaker 2: One, I did an interview, okay, and they had me with my top ten favorite artists of all time and it was an order. Here we were one of my top ten favorite artists of.

00:39:27
Speaker 4: All time, I'm one of yours. You're kidding me.

00:39:30
Speaker 3: I'm not making that up by there. Yeah, so thank you.

00:39:34
Speaker 2: That is.

00:39:36
Speaker 4: Okay, I have to.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: I'm going through them all the other day on a Sunday looking like crap, which I never put on makeup. I'm walking with my fifteen year old. An older couple walks by and he said he heard him say, I think that's Cheryl grow And he said, mom, did you hear that? I said no, and he goes, they I think they thought that was you. And I was like, oh really, And I could see him thinking, He's like, so when you you were like like when you were like really happening, were you like, were you like the Taylor Swift? I was like, oh my god, I was like so much bigger than her. It's just funny, you know.

00:40:14
Speaker 3: Thank you.

00:40:14
Speaker 4: I'm very touch. That's very that's very cool.

00:40:17
Speaker 3: So I knew you were coming in and so in no order. You were high up there though County.

00:40:25
Speaker 4: Crows yep, I love them. We came at the same time you did.

00:40:29
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:40:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's my favorite band ever.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: And now I really don't always believe now and they don't meet your heroes type thing, because who knows.

00:40:38
Speaker 3: People are just people.

00:40:39
Speaker 2: Heck, your hero could just be sick with the day you meet him and it's a bad experience, or give the album.

00:40:43
Speaker 4: I met Adam.

00:40:45
Speaker 2: So yes, I met Adam, but I didn't want to because I had not heard that he was mean. But he just was like completely disconnected and like, did so that's just I'd heard a couple of times. Yeah, And I was like, you know what, I'm an adult. I don't I can separate, Yeah, unless it's like r Kelly. I can separate art and artists.

00:41:04
Speaker 3: And so I.

00:41:07
Speaker 2: I had him just into the studio and I was like, hey, man, I'm a massive fan. And he goes, you were going to come and come to a meet and greet and I said, yeah, I backed out. He said why, I said, because I don't want to meet you because I don't want to not like you because you have a favorite, and he goes totally get it.

00:41:23
Speaker 3: And now at this point he's awesome, like he's.

00:41:25
Speaker 4: Yeah he is. I love him. I do like we dm he comes to.

00:41:31
Speaker 3: He's a good dude.

00:41:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:41:32
Speaker 1: I mean he's eccentric. And that's what you want him to be. I mean that face, that hair, that voice, those I mean you want him.

00:41:41
Speaker 3: To not just be like, you know, normal people make normal art. I don't want somebody.

00:41:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, he's exactly what you want him to be.

00:41:49
Speaker 2: Ben Folds, John Mayor, Love John Sheryl Crow, Weezer, Garth Brooks, Casey Musgraves, Buddy Holly, Bill Withers, Beastie.

00:41:58
Speaker 4: Boys, Oh my god, him, that's amazing.

00:42:03
Speaker 3: Eclectic, except not really. I had Napster.

00:42:08
Speaker 4: Still though. I mean, that's that's a that's a great list. I love that you had BECI boys.

00:42:13
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

00:42:15
Speaker 2: I was like, they're well, I'm from Arkansas, so we didn't have anybody Jewish. So I was like, those white kids are rapping. I was like, that's crazy, hilarious.

00:42:25
Speaker 3: And so you don't know that's about me.

00:42:27
Speaker 2: But when I was like in my mid twenties, i'd signed a record deal as a white rapper very briefly and Beastie Boys.

00:42:34
Speaker 3: Where they were like that was like my group. It was awesome. My name is Captain Caucasian. You met her? My stuff?

00:42:39
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I have not On occasion, I will just play not Mistay around my house.

00:42:46
Speaker 3: Reggieiot, thank you very much. What so we people?

00:42:50
Speaker 2: We have people bring in music that matters the most to them and it's kind of somebody that we want to shine a lot on shining.

00:42:56
Speaker 1: You asked me to bring him one and I couldn't. Okay, there were you Okay, Well, I'm bringing in ones and actually they meant something to me when they came out, but now they mean more to me, which is really weird. But songs in the Key of Life. When I was a kid, this album came out we Hold for the Camera.

00:43:15
Speaker 4: I was in the Key of Life. It was a double album. It was a Stevie Wonder.

00:43:20
Speaker 1: I'm a piano player, I can play by ear and that was this album made me feel like, I don't know, I mean, this is going to sound really weird and I hope nobody is offended by it. But when I was young, I would go in to uh our living room, I'd turn all the lights off and I would learn his music. I'd learned Loves in Need of Love Today, and I would play it with my eyes closed to see what it felt like to be gifted like he was.

00:43:47
Speaker 2: Now.

00:43:47
Speaker 1: I was never gifted like he was, obviously, and thankfully I'm not blind, but I mean he I just feel like this album, in particular, he went so far deep in spiritually to document what was going on.

00:44:03
Speaker 4: In the world at the time.

00:44:05
Speaker 1: And if you can imagine doing that and being blind as a black man during the civil rights movement, to not be able to actually witness it visually, but to be able to bring it to music and document it. I still believe that that is the highest form of inspiration, and that artists who like him sat themselves down and gave over to it and let us have it is one of the highest.

00:44:38
Speaker 3: Blessings there is.

00:44:40
Speaker 4: It is truly a gift, a gift. Yes, we were given a gift. That's exactly right.

00:44:44
Speaker 1: And every time I hear this stuff, like I went out and ran the other day and I was like, what I want to hear? And I put on this album, which I'll do every five years, and I run hard.

00:44:56
Speaker 3: I cry.

00:44:58
Speaker 4: I just in.

00:45:01
Speaker 1: I'm awe struck that anybody could do that, could just go that far in and write these songs anyway. So that's that's that Stevie Nicks rumors. This record for me made me understand.

00:45:16
Speaker 3: It's funny, you say, Stevie rumors. I know, and I love the whole album.

00:45:21
Speaker 1: But for her, listen, when I was like in eighth grade, that was my hair. I started wearing like the shawls, you know, I sang into the curly iron and that's how weird life is. Many years later, I got to produce her and I told her that that was like I.

00:45:36
Speaker 4: Wanted to be you. I wanted to be you. But she, you know, she was like country. She she was like she loved country music so much.

00:45:47
Speaker 1: Anyway, and then All Things Must Pass, which is one of the greatest albums that was ever made.

00:45:55
Speaker 4: George Harrison Pass.

00:45:57
Speaker 1: Yes, as somebody who has gone through a lot of spiritual journeys and ask a lot of questions, this album.

00:46:07
Speaker 4: Was a game changer but also.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: A life raft for me for a couple of years. It helped me kind of find my way through the disappointment of Christians. And I know that sounds harsh. I have stories that go along with that, and I've come back around to understanding that every faith.

00:46:28
Speaker 4: Is made up of flawed people. You know.

00:46:31
Speaker 1: So, but the best thing that we can do is to quiet ourselves and not always be praising and asking, but be listening, which is what meditation is. This was about around the time I started meditating mindfulness, meditation, and that saved my life.

00:46:51
Speaker 4: And when I say it saved my life, actually mean it. It saved my life.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: So thank you for showing those and sharing that.

00:46:57
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:46:58
Speaker 2: Final question, what are the five best Cheryl Crow songs starting at number one?

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:47:05
Speaker 4: Wow?

00:47:11
Speaker 3: Well, uh best technically or my favorites?

00:47:15
Speaker 4: My favorite song?

00:47:16
Speaker 3: Yea, let's doo favorites?

00:47:17
Speaker 1: Okay'm mene my favorite which is number one? Uh, my favorite mistake And it's the only song that when it comes on the radio, I don't turn it off.

00:47:27
Speaker 5: Do you like it?

00:47:27
Speaker 3: Do you like how you sound?

00:47:29
Speaker 5: I do?

00:47:29
Speaker 4: But there I don't know. I think it's also how it felt when I wrote it. It I don't.

00:47:35
Speaker 1: I don't overanalyze it, criticize it, you know, whereas other things I go, gosh, I wish I would have done this, or would have.

00:47:40
Speaker 3: Done that Best Songs Number two.

00:47:43
Speaker 1: Redemption Day wrote it after I went and played for the troops in Bosnia, came home, wound up writing about asking questions about why do we go into the places that we go into to create a presence When Rwanda was under complete and total genocide, we were in Bosnia defending you know, our oil. And then Johnny Cash recorded it, so that was that's really the one you should check out if you're gonna listen to it, if it makes you happy. That was the result of my first record being huge. In my second record, people going well, she doesn't even write her own songs, so I was like, oh, really, let me just here. And then every Day's Whining Road, I would say that one that was the result of a really good friend of mine who was in crowdit house killing himself and.

00:48:45
Speaker 4: It feeling too close to home.

00:48:47
Speaker 1: So I wrote that song and then it wound up actually strangely having a lot of different lives, particularly through COVID. And then the last one I would say, mmm, gosh, maybe I shall believe.

00:49:07
Speaker 4: That's my faith my faith song strong enough to make it?

00:49:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean yeah, not really. I love the song. I love playing it, but then I.

00:49:18
Speaker 1: Sometimes I go, maybe I should have done this or I should have done that, But yeah, I do love it. I always tell people I've been engaged three times. I never got married, so I've never been divorced, so I have.

00:49:28
Speaker 3: All my money.

00:49:29
Speaker 4: Still.

00:49:32
Speaker 3: You are awesome.

00:49:33
Speaker 4: Oh thanks for having me, Bobby.

00:49:34
Speaker 2: And what was awesome is like we crammed in a little music talk at the end. Yeah, and that's that's like how you know it was great. I feel like it is great.

00:49:42
Speaker 3: You're gonna be a great dad. I'm your biggest fan, so I'm glad I made the list.

00:49:46
Speaker 4: I'm very flattery.

00:49:47
Speaker 3: I hope.

00:49:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:49:47
Speaker 2: I think I'll be a good dad because I'm so concerned I won't be a good dad. That's literally like the logical part of me goes, I think I'll be a good dad because I'm so worried.

00:49:54
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be a good dad.

00:49:55
Speaker 4: You're going to be a great dad.

00:49:56
Speaker 3: And we talked about your towards up before you came in, And I hope do you play it? Do you play all the hits?

00:50:03
Speaker 1: We play all the hits, Yes, definitely, And we are very very blessed because honestly, with the climent it is now and people making their own playlists and stuff. I don't know how you do it, but for us we have you know, about fourteen songs that generationally people know, and I do not take it for granted, so we are happy to play them.

00:50:24
Speaker 5: Love it.

00:50:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, there she is. Thanks for having me, Sheryl Crow. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.