Sheryl Crow has rerecorded her 2012 B-side “Woman in the White House” ahead of the 2020 election.
The musician completely transformed the track from a shuffling country tune into an extended hard rock stomper capped off with a blazing guitar solo outro. Crow hews close to her original lyrics — which certainly don’t feel any less relevant — although there are some slight tweaks, like switching up a Loretta Lynn reference during the bridge, “Just look what a mess its been/Heck, I’d write my own name in/I guarantee that we’d all be/Singing a different song.”
In a statement, Crow said of the song: “When I first recorded this song eight years ago, I was hopeful that we, as a nation, would seize the moment and put a woman in the White House. That did not happen — but our movement of strength grows as we take to the streets and make our voices heard. We must not stop there. It is time for us to show up to the polls, be seen and heard as the great leaders we are.”
Sheryl Crow’s revamped “Woman in the White House” arrives a few months after the musician teamed with Citizen Cope to cover Bill Withers’ “Lonely Town, Lonely Street,” in honor of the soul legend who died in March. Last year, Crow released what she said will likely be her final studio album, Threads, saying that she’d prefer to focus on releasing individual tracks going forward.