A home record

Shortly before announcing her engagement to champion cyclist Lance Armstrong last month, Sheryl Crow was sitting in a production studio talking about her new CD, “Wildflower,” and the relationship between life and art.

“Everything that happens to you influences your writing,” Crow said. “And if you’re really true and open, a lot of what you’re going through gets exposed. Then you have to go out and talk about it. It does make for a tenuous situation.”

Two weeks later, the singer/songwriter seemed less pensive as she called to relay details of how Armstrong proposed as they were wrapping up a vacation in Sun Valley, Idaho.

“We drove up to this little town called Stanley and went out on a fishing boat,” she said. “There we were in the middle of this unbelievably clear lake, and we promptly ran out of gas. Then Lance became really romantic, and he said, ‘I have something to ask you, and I’m really nervous.’ “

Moments later, the serial Tour de France winner popped the question, and the multiple Grammy Award winner said yes.

“Then we both got really emotional,” Crow said. “And then we picked up the oars and rowed back to shore, which is kind of a metaphor for what being a couple is like, I think. It’s about teamwork, you know?”

Those who have followed the 43-year-old singer’s career may be surprised to hear her discuss private matters with such giddy candor.

“I’ve always been reticent to advertise my personal life for the sake of celebrity,” Crow acknowledged. “But there was no hiding my relationship with Lance because he’s extremely high-profile. In the last couple of years, he’s been more high-profile than I have.”

For Crow, one of the most distinctive and prolific artists of the past decade, being a celebrity girlfriend for the better part of two years has proven something of a double-edged sword.

“I’ve received a lot of criticism from women who have asked why I would give everything up to follow a man,” she said. “But it was a great gift to give myself, to invest in my life, in all the things I wanted to do outside music. I learned how to ride a bike, got to see all of Europe.”

She also kept working. Crow had planned to take a breather after releasing a greatest-hits collection in late 2003.

“I saw that as an opportunity to say, ‘OK, now I’m closing a chapter,’ ” she explained. “I can step back from my career a little bit and begin to figure out how to begin the second phase.

“I was in a new place and a new relationship, which creates vulnerability and requires you to face who you are. And I had a lot of alone time where I could just sit with myself and write about what someone my age is thinking about.”

Crow eventually wound up with 36 new songs and a plan to record a double CD.

“My intention was to have one record that was all art songs without any conscious aim to have a hit single,” she said. “The other would be made up of 10 or 11 3 1/2 -minute pop songs in the flavor of The Beatles. But somewhere in the process, I realized that the pop record would likely overshadow the other one.

“So I decided that instead of just giving people what they want, maybe I would try to give them something they could use.”

Thus the seeds were planted for “Wildflower,” which arrived in stores Tuesday. It’s a collection of intimate, lyrical songs dressed in lean, rootsy arrangements.

Neil Young’s 1972 release “Harvest” and George Harrison’s 1970 album “All Things Must Pass” “were my parameters,” Crow says.

“I’ve found George Harrison creeping up in my psyche a lot since he died,” she said. “To me he was a really pure example of someone who tried to live with wide-open eyes and a wide-open heart. I wanted to make a quiet record, something that really spoke to my spirit, because there is so much chaos out there right now.”

On “Wildflower,” Crow’s dusky-sweet singing often is set in slightly higher keys, further enhancing the tender, keening qualities of her songs. She points to the gently glowing title track as “dealing most strongly with the recurring theme of the album, which is that the more chaotic times are, the more we have to reach within to find the more innocent part of ourselves.”

That theme was greatly affected, Crow says, by the time she has spent with the 34-year-old Armstrong’s three children from a previous marriage: son Luke, who will be 6 in October, and twin daughters Isabelle and Grace, who turn 4 in November.

“Being around children that small, you see how naturally they gravitate to the light,” she said. “They’re not cynical yet. It takes many years to unlearn that kind of innocence.”

Crow met Armstrong when she was performing at an annual fund-raiser thrown by tennis champion Andre Agassi.

“While I was on stage, I made some comment about wanting to go ride bikes with Lance Armstrong,” she recalled. “He came up to me later in the hallway and said, ‘OK, I’ll take you for a bike ride if you teach me how to play guitar.’ “

For the next month, the two communicated via Blackberry, “which is really a sort of lame throwback to letter-writing. In this weird way, we got to know each other before we ever went out.”

Armstrong has proven no slouch as a guitar student.

“He can remember anything; he learned five or six languages without taking a class and is extremely good at math,” Crow said. “You can show him a chord and how to strum, and he’ll remember everything the next time he picks the guitar up. Now that he’s not riding, I’m going to crack the whip and make him practice more.”

But where her own music is concerned, cracking the whip isn’t a big part of Crow’s plans at this point.

“For the better part of 10 years, I’ve been on this course of making records, touring and then going back into the studio the second the tour’s over,” she said. “I’m 43 now, and I don’t want to be gone all the time. Large chunks of your life just disappear.

“I have missed playing, I’ve missed that connection with the audience, and I’m ready to go out again. But now I want to figure out a way I can be home as much as possible. Maybe we’ll do something like two weeks on, then four or five days off.”

Crow was in the kitchen one day when her old friend Don Henley, for whom she once sang backup, called.

“He asked me what I was doing, and I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I’m cooking, I’m doing laundry, and it’s been really fun,’ ” she recalled. “And he said, ‘You know, it’s in the small things, in the domestic exercises of life, that you can find your deepest, most meaningful inspiration.’

“My (new) record does feel like a home record in that way, in being kind of about the thoughts in your head. It was an exercise in getting out of my way and enjoying writing songs.

“It’s the only record I could make at this point, and hopefully, it will resonate with other people, too.”