This is the Sheryl Crow Threads album release special, and back at the beginning,
Sheryl mentioned that it was a song she recorded with Kris Kristofferson that really sparked the
idea for this entire album. We're actually about to play that song. It's called Border Lord,
and I would love for you to tell people the story of how you ended up recording this song
with Kris Kristofferson and how it ultimately led to your entire new album, Threads.
Border Lord is the first song that I recorded for this record, and the record was really just
kind of an idea. I had worked with Kris, and he really is the inspiration for this whole record.
Kris Kristofferson I've known for many, many, many years and have had the good fortune of
collaborating with him. I grew up listening to his music, but I also, when I became a young
songwriter, I just really poured over his music. He's one of the great storytellers. He and Willie
Nelson both are the great storytellers in music, I feel. Bob Dylan, I mean, they're
a handful of people I think have really been like the John Steinbecks and the Mark Twain's of music,
and Kris, his wife asked me if I would go into the studio with him and record some of his material
for posterity because he didn't own any of his masters, so we went in and we were recording a
lot of his material, and he could talk about unbelievable experiences from way back when he
was recording these things, but he wasn't able to remember 10 minutes ago, and this is what happens
when you have Alzheimer's or, in his case, maybe Lyme's disease that was afflicting his memory,
and I came home from that.
Experience from Austin feeling like these are the moments that you just don't want to ever take
for granted, and I called his wife and said, when he's in Nashville, would he come record with me,
and would he do a couple of his songs, and so he did. He came into Nashville, and we spent the
afternoon recording a couple of songs, and Borderlord was one of them, and it was one that
I'd wanted to record, and it just really brought home to me how important the relationships that
you have in your life, how important they are, and familial or friendship or musically or
individual.
In every other way, and he's been an important person to me, and he's also a reminder of how
important it is to hold the people dear that you love and that you've had your life experiences
with, so he's really the inspiration for the whole album. He was what made me want to call up the
Stevie Nicks's and the Keith Richards and all these people that I've loved and known and that
I've grown with through the years and my 25 years of doing this or 30 years of doing it and have
wanted to sort of pay homage to on this record.
And also,
even the young people of wanting to sort of say to them, you have the future, and you are carrying
on the tradition of the great Chris Christopherson.
Well, thank God for Chris Christopherson for inspiring Cheryl to make this incredible new
album. It's called Threads, and this is Cheryl with Chris. It's Borderlord on Big Machine Radio.