All I Wanna Do

The spark for this song was a 1987 poem titled "Fun" by Wyn Cooper. In the December 2006 issue of Blender magazine, Sheryl Crow explained how the song came together: "We were jamming in the studio, and I picked up this poem in a book - the first line was, 'All I wanna do is have some fun.' It encapsulated what was going on in LA, a real extreme feeling of apathy and defeat. It's masked in this light pop ditty, but it's about somebody down and out, sitting in a bar watching their life go by. I contacted the poet, Wyn Cooper, and he was really pleased. And the song was easy for me to sell because it was a character I could easily slip into. There was a lot of drinking going on in my life then, a lot of late-night bars. The song was a throwaway - it wasn't even going to be on the album. My little brother kept saying, 'This is a big hit.' And there really is a bar on Formosa across from a car wash. But I haven't ever spent a morning in a bar having a beer." Cooper is listed as a writer on the song because the lyric is based on his poem.

Tuesday Night Music Club was Crow's first album, released when she was 31. It took nearly a year for the album to catch on as Crow toured small theaters while she built an audience. She got a lot of exposure in 1994 when she opened for the Eagles on their reunion tour and played Woodstock II. "All I Wanna Do" was her breakthrough hit, reaching #2 in America on October 8, 1994, 14 months after the album was released.

This song reflects the laid-back Los Angeles lifestyle, but Crow grew up in a small Missouri town. She later moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career.