Crow herself says that she's not airing any dirty laundry on Wildflower. Instead, the disc's somber tone stems from nothing more scandalous than the inexorable approach of middle age. That, and a healthy dose of dem ol' kozmic blues. It's ''that feeling of 'Where do I stand?' and 'What do I believe?' and 'What are the big issues here?''' she says. Of course, that whole encroaching-mortality thing has personal resonance. ''When George [Harrison] passed away, I started to accept the idea that death is a part of life — that it makes a difference in the way you live your life,'' she says. ''And living with a cancer survivor [Armstrong underwent chemotherapy for testicular cancer in the mid-'90s], I think that Lance has a lot of that 'knowingness' — knowing what it means to be facing your last day. So I guess there is a certain amount of that on the record.''

One big question to be answered this fall is how her fans will react to this midlife crisis. Commercially, it seems quite inconvenient. The beer-buzzed, good-time gal whom listeners met on 1993's Tuesday Night Music Club has been very popular (her four studio albums have sold a combined 11 million copies in the U.S. to date). Her 2003 collection, The Very Best of Sheryl Crow, which contained the smash Cat Stevens cover ''The First Cut Is the Deepest,'' sold an impressive 3.4 million CDs. In other words, at 43 she's as hot as ever — and on the verge of mucking around with an incredibly successful musical formula. It's a bold move — or a foolhardy one.

Deciphering just what fans crave at any moment is nigh impossible. Crow says her stylistic transformation is partly due to a growing confusion about how to stay relevant in this Paris-and-Lindsay pop moment, in a culture obsessed with what she describes as ''beats and pelvic-gyrating music.'' This uncertainty first crept in as she recorded her last studio album, 2002's classic-rock-flavored C'mon, C'mon. Crow now calls those sessions ''the most unpleasant experience I've ever had as an artist. I was turning 40 and the business was becoming so youth- and image-driven that I just couldn't figure out where I fit in. It took the wind out of my creative sails.'' The album sold more than 2 million copies, but it doesn't thrill Crow any more. ''Some of it worked,'' she says, ''and some of it didn't.''

In October 2003, a year and a half after C'mon, C'mon debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart, Crow met Lance Armstrong at a benefit for abused and at-risk kids. ''We had a little bit of a flirt [after we met],'' she says, ''and then I went to Europe for a month to tour and we kinda dated by BlackBerry.'' The couple went public that December, after Armstrong's divorce from his first wife, Kristin, was finalized. ''Meeting Lance was kinda serendipitous,'' says Crow, ''and I just jumped on the [metaphorical] escalator and started traveling with him.'' It was the start of nearly two years of blissful inactivity, as Crow avoided the spotlight. ''I didn't have any guilt about it, but there were moments where I went, 'Okay, I'm not in the public eye. I'm not working. I'm not being productive.'''

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