Prologue | "Riverwide" by Sheryl Crow

River is wide and oh so deep

And it winds and winds around

I dream we're happy in my sleep

Floating down and down and down

I first heard “Riverwide” shortly after my 23^rd birthday in September of 1998, when Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions came out. I'd bought the album for “My Favorite Mistake”—a song that spoke to me because I was in a relationship I knew was unhealthy but couldn't quite let go of. It was something different from loneliness, and at the time, that felt like enough.

But “My Favorite Mistake” wasn't the song that stayed with me. “Riverwide” was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGxfPp7XAZk

There's something haunting about it—the sparse instrumentation, the vulnerability in Crow's voice, the way the refrain reveals the storyteller’s deepest fear without ever naming it directly. I didn't know it then, but more than 20 years later, when I sat down to write Autumn's story, this would be the only song that ever belonged to the prologue.

Autumn’s Playlist: Finding the Right Opening Note

The prologue of The Strangest of Places introduces you to Autumn at a crossroads. It’s not the dramatic, Faustian bargain kind, but the quiet, erosive kind where you realize you've been treading water for so long you've forgotten you once knew how to swim.

That's what “Riverwide” captures for me: the feeling of being stuck in a current you can't control, afraid of what happens if you let go but equally afraid of staying exactly where you are. It's about fear, yes—but also about the moment just before cataclysmic change, when you can feel something shifting below, even if the surface looks calm.

I won't tell you exactly how the lyrics map to Autumn's journey—that's yours to discover—but I will say this: listen to this song after you read the prologue, and you'll understand where she's starting from. Listen to it again after you finish the book, and you'll hear how far she's traveled.

Making Autumn Yours

I wanted the prologue's song to summarize where Autumn was in her life, her state of mind, and foreshadow the journey ahead—a pretty tall order. I don't recall the exact moment I settled on “Riverwide,” but I knew it was right. Some songs just fit so perfectly that you never give it another thought to consider other options, and this was one of them.

When I finally settled on the book's closing chapter song (also a one-and-done decision) I was thrilled to notice the river theme flowing between them. I hadn't planned that. Sometimes the subconscious does better work than the conscious mind.

Everyone hears different things in music. Your Autumn won't be exactly like mine, and that's exactly how it should be. If there's any piece of her in who you are, I want you to make that connection in your own way.

What “Riverwide” means to me might be completely different from what it means to you—and when you listen to it after reading Autumn's story, the meaning you find will be yours. That's when she becomes more yours than mine.

As an author, that's my ultimate goal.