Today’s Song of the Day Challenge theme is “A song from the 90s”, and my pick is “All I Wanna Do” by the lovely Sheryl Crow. Released in April 1994, the song was from her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club, and was a breakthrough hit that made her an international star. The song was written by Crow, along with Wyn Cooper, David Baerwald, Bill Bottrell and Kevin Gilbert, and remains her biggest US hit. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1994, spending six straight weeks stuck behind “I’ll Make Love to You” by Boyz II Men. I think it’s far superior to the sappy “I’ll Make Love to You”, but what do I know? At least it reached #1 in Australia and Canada, and won Grammy Awards in 1995 for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

I love its breezy, country pop vibe and lively mix of twang and slide guitars, but to me the highlight of the song are the wonderful and humorous lyrics that tell the little story of her time spent in a dive bar on Santa Monica Boulevard with a patron named Billy, watching people washing their vehicles at a car wash across the street. The lyrics were adapted from Wyn Cooper’s 1987 poem “Fun”, and resulted in Cooper earning considerable royalties, and also helping to promote his book, originally published in a run of only 500 copies, into multiple reprints. (Wikipedia)

Hit it!
This ain’t no disco
It ain’t no country club either
This is LA!

“All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die,”
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It’s apropos Of nothing
He says his name’s William but I’m sure,
He’s Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy
And he’s plain ugly to me
And I wonder if he’s ever had a day of fun in his whole life
We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday
In a bar that faces a giant car wash
The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch break, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts in suits

They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store too
Well, they’re nothing like Billy and me, cause

All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I’m not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I’m not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard

I like a good beer buzz early in the morning
And Billy likes to peel the labels from his bottles of Bud
He shreds them on the bar
Then he lights every match in an oversized pack
Letting each one burn down to his thick fingers
before blowing and crushing them out
And he’s watching the bottles of Bud as they spin on the floor

And a happy couple enters the bar
Dangerously close to one another
The bartender looks up from his want ads

Otherwise the bar is ours,
The day and the night and the car wash too
The matches and the Buds and the clean and dirty cars
The sun and the moon but

All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I’m not the only one