Crow Jane

I love the imagery of verse 4. In the foreground, a group of somber faced pall bearers lower her into her grave while Skip looks on farther in the back wailing her name. In the third verse when he talks about buring her and he says that nobody can take her place, he's not talking about her grave, he means no one can take the place she had in his life. What happened was he killed her(duh!) and then afterward he felt really bad about it and tried to make up for it. That's what he means by the golden chain and silver spade. That's the tragic part of the song. He tries so hard to make things work after she's dead, when he didn't do enough while she was alive. I think he still blames her though, the chorus is of him begging her not to act so damn proud.

I always got something a little differen't from this song than what the previous commentor stated. I never used to know the lyrics apart from the bit when he song "someday you you to lay down and die" That line is so powerful and sad. It reminds me of the futility that is felt in life, and skip james always portrayed this in his songs. His voice always represents how overwhelmingly fragile you can feel. His guitar, it cries, it weeps. All of his songs have a sense of "ultimately futility in the end". I love the name of this song too, Crow Jane, renders a sense of dark loneliness.

I agree with both previous comments. To expand on the futility of life idea, the name Crow Jane to me is like Jane Doe thing meaning it doesn't matter who she is because it is experienced by everyone in life.

Women, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

I was wondering if Crow Jane is a reference to Jim Crow and the potential implications with regards to who Crow Jane was?