Something Sheryl Crow Sang

© Melissa Gaggiano

I've had this Sheryl Crow album since I was about seventeen, in which she sang:

"No one said it would be easy

But no one said it'd be this hard"

This line is true of anyone fleshing out their own career/future/path/destiny/or whatever and they only have themselves to say 'yep this is right', 'you're on the path that you need to be on'.

You feel like you're doing it right when that figurative cheque with your name on it comes your way. But what happens in the quiet corners of your work day, between the projects, when you don't know what to focus on next? How does one move through that thick cloud of doubt?

Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we get stuck. Sometimes it takes all our effort to move forward. To say yes, let's start this thing, and who knows what it will bring.

Thankfully there's another line in that same Sheryl Crow song that goes:

"No one said it would be easy

No one thought we'd come this far"

I guess she knew when she wrote that song that as hard as things get, we can still make it if we at least try.

It's All About The Albums

I don't think there has every been a time that I wasn't inspired by music. I was always surrounded by it. Whether it was the music I loved or hated. Funnily enough, some of the music that truly disturbed me during my baby/toddler years, has come to be amongst my favorites as a fully grown adult. I guess if you hear it often enough, you get used to it.
I would like to talk about the music that moved me. Now I couldn‘t go through it all, otherwise I‘d be here all night. So I‘ll do the next best thing. I‘ll just talk about the albums that changed and moved me…


When I was about 1O years of age I was blown away by a girl pop-rock band called Shakespear‘s Sister. About a year later, on a Friday night, my parent‘s took me to JB Hi-Fi. This was a monumental evening for me because this was to the night that I would hold in my hands my first ever compact disc album. I was drawn to Shakespear‘s Sisters‘ debut album, so my parent's bought that for me. I felt so grown up beginning my CD music collection with this particular album. The music had a hard edge, but was also very feminine. Sacred Heart is good for a listen if it is the end of the week, your boss has annoyed you, your boyfriend has broken up with you, you‘re recovering from that lovely time of the month, and you are about to get ready for a night in town with the girls.

As soon as I saw Vanessa-Mae: Violin Player being promoted on television I just knew that this was something for me. At the time of getting this album I must have been in year 10. Vanessa-Mae‘s album moved and excited me. Never before had I realised that a classical player could do for the violin what Jimmy Hendrix did for the electric guitar. In fact to describe this album with just one word, I would say — electrifying.

Harry Connick Jr made me sit up straight and listen when he came out with the album She. I was almost through high school — I‘d say about year 11. After hearing the same old, same old on the radio Harry's old school big band sounds blaring out of the radio simply blew me away. Such a breath of fresh air, was this album. He really made me wish I had been born on the banks of the Mississippi.

At the same time that Harry Connick Jr found me, Sheryl Crow was another to also enter my heart. My reaction to both these artists were similar. I just could not believe that commercial radio was playing anything as pure as these two. It was like tasting nothing but junk food, then somebody putting something flavorsome, spicy and wholesome on my dinner plate. For the first time in ages I was listening to something real and from the heart.