“Leaving Las Vegas” was the fourth single from Sheryl Crow’s debut album and the first one to go Platinum (selling a million copies.) But what many listeners don’t know is tragic events surround the song.

Crow and her friends from the Tuesday Night Music Club, who she named the album after, wrote “Leaving Las Vegas” one night after contributor David Baerwald suggested they use the title of a novel written by his friend, John O'Brien, a struggling author at the time.

O'Brien said they could use the title of his novel as long as he was given credit, which is only reasonable. However, this seemingly minor issue would have tragic consequences about two months before the song was released as a single. Crow had performed on The Late Show with David Letterman, who later asked her if “Leaving Las Vegas” was autobiographical in any way.

Crow said the song was autobiographical but failed to acknowledge the contributions of Baerwald and especially O'Brien, who were both furious about Crow’s indiscretion. The incident seemed to so incite O'Brien, that he committed suicide on April 10, 1994, although this has never been confirmed or denied. Still, O'Brien’s suicide drove Baerwald to distance himself from Crow afterward.

A dark cloud brought on by O'Brien’s suicide hovered over the Tuesday Night Music Club for years afterward. And perhaps saddest of all is two weeks before O'Brien took his life, he learned his book was gonna be made into a movie starring Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue; the movie went on to win an Academy and a Golden Globe award.

This video covers the story in greater detail