Hard to Make A Stand

Album: Sheryl Crow (1996)
Charted: 22
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song seems to look at the world through the eyes of a person trying to make sense of this world. It mixes the morbid with a strange sense of hope. Plenty of black humor to go around, as well.
  • This was the third single from the album. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Stephanie - Thurmont, MD, for above 2

Comments: 3

  • Alx from Tarragona, SpainI once read that this song is, among other things, about abortion, as Adrian says, but I think that Sheryl is not showing any of her ideas about this topic. For me is about contradictions in life; a woman being killed by people defending human life. It is also about respecting each other and giving importance to all human beings.
    The whole song is just great, I use to play it in my English classes because it has a lot of good things to comment about.
  • Cole from Brooklyn, Nysheryl said in a concert in 1995, right before the song came out that she was working on her album in pasadena, ca. There was a coffee shop next to the recording studio and there was a crossdresser that stood outside and handed out flowers. He/she had been doing it for years and all the locals thought he/she was a weirdo. One day, he came into the coffee-shop when Crow was in there and the owner kicked him out for disturbing the patrons... she said she thought it was bull. The next day, she was in the coffee-shop, and the cross-dresser held up a sign to the window that read, "If I'm Not Here Then You're Not Here" and signed it "Miss Creation"... she said she liked it so much that she went back to the studio and wrote a song about it. Here lately, at her shows she has been playing the song again, introing it with, "this is a song about a crossdresser I once knew in Pasadena, California."... So there you go!
  • Adrian from Brookings, SdI read that this was a protest song about abortion, with Crow being on the pro-choice side.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Grammar In Lyrics

Grammar In LyricsMusic Quiz

Lyrics don't always follow the rules of grammar. Can you spot the ones that don't?

Chris Isaak

Chris IsaakSongwriter Interviews

Chris tells the story of "Wicked Game," talks milkshakes and moonpies at Sun Records, and explains why women always get their way.

Edie Brickell

Edie BrickellSongwriter Interviews

Edie Brickell on her collaborations with Paul Simon, Steve Martin and Willie Nelson, and her 2021 album with the New Bohemians.

George Harrison

George HarrisonFact or Fiction

Did Eric Clapton really steal George's wife? What's the George Harrison-Monty Python connection? Set the record straight with our Fact or Fiction quiz.

Superman in Song

Superman in SongSong Writing

Not everyone can be a superhero, but that hasn't stopped generations of musicians from trying to be Superman.

Michael Bolton

Michael BoltonSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.