If you owned Sheryl Crow in the fall of 1996, odds are you bought it for “If It Makes You Happy.” That one went Top 10 and won her a Grammy.
Walmart wouldn’t stock it. Not the album, and not the single either. The album turns 30 today, and the line that got it banned is still sitting exactly where she put it.
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Walmart refused to carry the record over a single line in “Love Is a Good Thing,” where Sheryl Crow sings about children killing each other with guns bought at the chain’s discount stores. UPI reported the ban on Sept. 10, 1996, a full two weeks before the album reached stores.
The company’s answer was short. A spokesman said Walmart “believes this is an unfair, untrue and totally irresponsible comment,” and noted the chain had stopped selling handguns and kept strict policies against selling to minors.
Walmart never asked her to rewrite it. A&M executives said so at the time. No negotiation, no edited version for the shelves. The chain just didn’t carry it.
The Ban Took the Hit Single Down With It
“If It Makes You Happy” has nothing in it about guns or Walmart. Walmart kept it off the shelves anyway.
The album hit No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and spun off five singles. “If It Makes You Happy” peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100, “Everyday Is a Winding Road” reached No. 11, and the record took Best Rock Album at the 39th Grammys, with a second trophy for Crow’s vocal on the single Walmart wouldn’t carry.
None of that got it onto a Walmart shelf.
Industry officials put the damage around $400,000. Her label had its own estimate, at least 10 percent of what the album could have sold.
Four of Her Five Favorite Songs Are on It
Crow produced this one herself, with Tchad Blake engineering, and cut most of it at Kingsway Studio in New Orleans.
Thirty years later she still reaches for it. On a podcast in May she ranked her own five favorite songs, and four came off this record: “Maybe Angels,” “If It Makes You Happy,” “Redemption Day” and “Everyday Is a Winding Road.” Only “My Favorite Mistake,” from 1998’s The Globe Sessions, came from anywhere else.
“All I Wanna Do,” her most commercially successful song, didn’t make the list.
Walmart Moved 23 Years Later
In September 2019, after the El Paso shooting, Walmart said it would stop selling handguns, handgun ammunition and ammunition for military-style rifles. It also asked customers not to open-carry and called on Congress to debate an assault weapons ban.
Crow was asked about it that week. “I was so happy to see Walmart take the stance that it did,” she said, calling the decision forward-thinking and responsible.
Asked about 1996, she kept it plain. “It’s always good to point out what you see, even if it’s not popular.” She’s still at it. She put out a pointed new song last month.
In July, UMe announced a deluxe double-LP reissue for its Vinylphyle series, pressed on 180-gram vinyl with new cutting masters built from the original final mixes. Her catalog keeps getting picked up elsewhere too, right down to Chris Stapleton‘s take on a 1993 ballad.