All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning

Chart Performance: Pop (#2 for 6 weeks) & Modern Rock (#4); 1994

Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne

Before success finally found Sheryl Crow, her life went quite literally from bad to worse. The “bad” in question involved Michael Jackson’s tour of that name, on which the self-proclaimed King of Pop stroked Sheryl’s thigh for 18 months as they performed I Just Can’t Stop Loving You together.

Post Bad Sheryl’s hopes for a solo career plummeted when she discovered that all interested parties wanted her to go the dance-pop tart route. Two bouts of severe depression followed, separated by an ill-fated debut album that her label rejected as being too slick..

Finally, Sheryl fell in with a group of like-minded musicians, dubbed the Tuesday Night Music Club, who met weekly at Toad Hall Studios in Pasadena, CA.

The resulting album appeared in 1993 to little fanfare. Two singles fizzled before All I Wanna Do, the “throwaway” from the album, was released.

A poem by Wyn Cooper about a bar near Crow’s home fused with contributions from Sheryl and other TNMClubbers made for a unique and catchy record, one which won the 1994 Grammy for Record of the Year.

This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2024 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.

Produced by:

• Bill Bottrell

Lyrics Written by:

• Sheryl Crow
• Kevin Gilbert
• Bill Bottrell
• Wyn Cooper
• David Baerwald

Awards:

• “All I Wanna Do” won the 1995 Grammy for Record of the Year
• “All I Wanna Do” was nominated for 1995 Grammy for Song of the Year