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

Janis Ian

Janis IanSongwriter Interviews

One of the first successful female singer-songwriters, Janis had her first hit in 1967 at age 15.

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular Music

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular MusicSong Writing

Starting in Virginia City, Nevada and rippling out to the Haight-Ashbury, LSD reshaped popular music.

Jimmy Jam

Jimmy JamSongwriter Interviews

The powerhouse producer behind Janet Jackson's hits talks about his Boyz II Men ballads and regrouping The Time.

Dar Williams

Dar WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

A popular contemporary folk singer, Williams still remembers the sticky note that changed her life in college.

Commercials

CommercialsFact or Fiction

Was "Ring Of Fire" really used to sell hemorrhoid cream?

Reverend Horton Heat

Reverend Horton HeatSongwriter Interviews

The Reverend rants on psychobilly and the egghead academics he bashes in one of his more popular songs.