Sheryl Crow - Full speech from Power of Women Nashville
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00:00um thank you first I just have to say I love Maren so much and yes I did call her I called
00:07somebody that knew her that knew how to get her phone number so I could call her and just say
00:12I don't know you at all but I already love you um and I want to just say one thing about you
00:19and I and here no I'm kidding um you know as a songwriter no matter how long you've been doing
00:28it from time to time you meet people that make make you want to be better that make you want to
00:33keep writing songs that you know resonate with people because they're having the same experience
00:38that you're having and Maren has always done that um from the very beginning for me um I hear her
00:45music and I don't just hear her music but I I feel her and her music and it makes me want to go into
00:52my little safe space and write songs that I know could mean something to somebody else and so
00:58that is the gift um that I get from you and um so thank you for being here um also I want to thank
01:08um you guys that are doing all this work I'm so off script I I worked on a script this morning and
01:15I promised my 15 year old I would not use the word skibbity toilet or cringy and I wouldn't go like
01:23this um he's just like don't embarrass me I'm like that's my job I'm your mom um you guys that are
01:34doing the work in in mental health I you know I had a boyfriend once that said I was crazier than a
01:39three-legged lizard on an icy pond um I have been I have been in and out of therapy for what feels like
01:49the better part of my whole creative life and it has been a lifesaver and as I watch uh the person
01:54who was connected to the car that I donated um do away do away with the the hotline where kids can
02:05call who are feeling suicidal I think you know the work of every artist um who feels compelled to lift
02:13their voice into the fray to do what's right for other people is so important and for me I don't
02:18even know where I'm in this so I'm just going to tell you how I feel about things um so um I'll look
02:25at my watch for me I feel like the blessing is in is in the doing and the giving and it's not in the
02:31outcome and I feel like where we're at now in our humanity is challenging um it's somewhat terrifying
02:39but it is asking us to those of us who are connected to spirit who are connected to nature
02:49which for me is where I find God um right now circumstances are asking us to
02:57use our use our spirits use our um the drive that we had when we were little and we saw somebody else
03:08fall down and we ran over them to them to pick them up it's asking us this moment for us to show up
03:16for people we'll never meet in our whole lives people whose circumstances so totally different than
03:21ours but that we feel we're seeing something unfair and there's a lot of it right now and
03:29I always tell people when I'm at functions like this and I do thank you variety because I think what
03:35you're doing today is bigger than the event because the people that fill the seats are doing the work
03:44that will leave the room that will create more work and more work and inspire other people and it lives
03:50on and that's what we do I um so I I thank you for giving me the award I'm actually not
03:58a country singer I'm not um in fact um I'm I'm I'm so old now that I'm sort of like I don't know what I am but
04:10it's liberating by god um about 20 years ago um there was a movie that came out called an
04:30inconvenient truth and it was produced by laurie david and al gore was a very big part of it and
04:34what he did was he showed us the science um to what was going to be coming um and we believe the
04:43scientists um we didn't do very much because people didn't know what to do what I did was what I always
04:48did which was exactly what my mom always did if you see something that you feel like you can help
04:54then you show up to the committee meeting or you go down to the church or you take a casserole for me
05:01I went on tour with laurie and we talked about climate change at universities she talked about
05:07what was coming she talked about what they could do I of course played songs and part of my songs
05:13skit was to do like some comedy that went with it so part of the comedy was like okay here's what you
05:19guys can do you can go to your cafeteria and you can take the grease and you can put it in your gas
05:24tanks or you can get on a life cycle and you can run the electricity in your study hall
05:29well and then I had this other brilliant idea which I thought was kind of hilarious
05:33where let's save trees and only use one square of toilet tissue unless it's a big job and you can
05:40use two well I think uh it might have been two days or even one day after going to capitol hill and
05:49meeting all of these senators who were poo-pooing the science that fox tv ran a whole thing that
05:56absolutely crucified me made me look ridiculous disqualified me said I was trying to legislate
06:02legislate toilet paper here is the moral to the story that thing still gets talked about and it
06:10has been the gift that has kept on giving because it gives me every opportunity to talk about what's
06:16happening right now I think there's not a grand mystery as to why people write songs or paint paintings
06:26or write poetry or make casseroles I think there's something in us that is part of the human experience
06:35that makes us want to be better um that makes us want to give voice um to what we all experience we
06:45all have the same emotions from fear to joy to anger to feeling lonely to feeling suicidal all of these
06:52things they're just wrapped in different stories we're blessed because we get to go to a page with a
06:59guitar or a piano and get to write about it and some kid or some adult will listen to it and go I am
07:06not alone in the universe I feel that way too so it is such a gift to actually be here in the room
07:13with other people that I know feel exactly the same that I do which is where can I go to make things
07:20better where can I go to help somebody else um and that is the gift it's not the outcome the gift
07:27is in is in the blessing so I thank you guys this is a blessing I appreciate my friends who are here
07:34I appreciate my keyboard player who is here um I don't go anywhere without a long history of friends
07:41who predominantly are on my payroll um but um but I do not take it lightly so I thank you so much