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Crow Jane Lyrics
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Horrors in her head
That her tongue dare not name
She lives alone by the river
The rolling rivers of pain
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
There is one shining eye on a hard-hat
The company closed down the mine
Winking on waters they came
Twenty hard-hats, twenty eyes
In her clapboard shack
Only six foot by five
They killed all her whiskey
And poured their pistols dry
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
Seems you've remembered
How to sleep, how to sleep
The house dogs are in your turnips
And your yard dogs are running all over the street
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
"O Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson
Why you close up shop so late?"
"Just fitted out a girl who looked like a bird
Measured .32, .44, .38
I asked that girl which road she was taking
Said she was walking the road of hate
But she stopped on a coal-trolley up to New Haven
Population: 48"
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
Your guns are drunk and smoking
They've followed you right back to your gate
Laughing all the way back from the new town
Population, now, 28
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Horrors in her head
That her tongue dare not name
She lives alone by the river
The rolling rivers of pain
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
The company closed down the mine
Winking on waters they came
Twenty hard-hats, twenty eyes
In her clapboard shack
Only six foot by five
They killed all her whiskey
And poured their pistols dry
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
How to sleep, how to sleep
The house dogs are in your turnips
And your yard dogs are running all over the street
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
Why you close up shop so late?"
"Just fitted out a girl who looked like a bird
Measured .32, .44, .38
I asked that girl which road she was taking
Said she was walking the road of hate
But she stopped on a coal-trolley up to New Haven
Population: 48"
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
They've followed you right back to your gate
Laughing all the way back from the new town
Population, now, 28
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Crow Jane
Ah hah huh
Song Info
Submitted by
typo On Jan 28, 2002
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So, somehow 20 people die in this song...but does the Crow kill them?
@milk_and_honey Yes, Crow Jane kills 20 miners. The miners come looking for something to do after losing their jobs. They enter Crow Jane's home without her permission, drink all her whiskey and rape her (Nick uses a euphemism for this - "poured their pistols dry"). In response, Crow Jane arms herself, travels to the mining town ("population 48") and sends the minors to their final retirement. As Nick's lyrics indicate, the town's population is 28 after Crow Jane leaves. Down 20 miners.
@milk_and_honey Yes, Crow Jane kills 20 miners. The miners come looking for something to do after losing their jobs. They enter Crow Jane's home without her permission, drink all her whiskey and rape her (Nick uses a euphemism for this - "poured their pistols dry"). In response, Crow Jane arms herself, travels to the mining town ("population 48") and sends the minors to their final retirement. As Nick's lyrics indicate, the town's population is 28 after Crow Jane leaves. Down 20 miners.
So, somehow 20 people die in this song...but does the Crow kill them?
The song's about this girl, Crow Jane, who gets raped (or maybe tortured) by twenty mine workers, then gets herself some guns, goes to their town and shoots them all.
I'm not sure though, if her measurments are suposed to indicate that she's pregnant.
@Ana-chan 32, .44, .38 are bullet calibres
@Ana-chan 32, .44, .38 are bullet calibres
@Ana-chan No, not pregnant. Nick's lyrics - "measured .32, .44, .38" - are different gun calibers. Meaning, Jane went to the gun store and bought a .32, a .44, and a .38 to arm herself for her trip to the mining town to kill the 20 miners who raped her.
@Ana-chan No, not pregnant. Nick's lyrics - "measured .32, .44, .38" - are different gun calibers. Meaning, Jane went to the gun store and bought a .32, a .44, and a .38 to arm herself for her trip to the mining town to kill the 20 miners who raped her.
Rape is torture, Ana. Nick's lyrics - "poured their pistols dry" - is a euphemism for rape.
Rape is torture, Ana. Nick's lyrics - "poured their pistols dry" - is a euphemism for rape.
The song's about this girl, Crow Jane, who gets raped (or maybe tortured) by twenty mine workers, then gets herself some guns, goes to their town and shoots them all.
I'm not sure though, if her measurments are suposed to indicate that she's pregnant.
The "measurements" are actually guns, surely? It makes sense with the mention of Smith & Wesson, and the period before the number (only noticed that after looking at the lyrics)
I can't really add anything more, except it seems that the miners forgot about it (either through time, or maybe just because they were drunk because of the whiskey) - "seems you've remembered how to sleep". The narrator presumes they would not be able to sleep if they knew what they had done.
@JumpHaround "Seems you remembered how to sleep, how to sleep" refers to Crow Jane. After she's raped by 20 miners, she has "horrors in her head, that her tongue dare not name." After she takes her revenge, she's able to sleep. She has peace.
@JumpHaround "Seems you remembered how to sleep, how to sleep" refers to Crow Jane. After she's raped by 20 miners, she has "horrors in her head, that her tongue dare not name." After she takes her revenge, she's able to sleep. She has peace.
In his book And the Ass Saw the Angel, Crow Jane is the nickname of the protagonist Euchrid's mother, who would wait drunkenly for her dead husband to come home-- certainly a more passive character of the same name. It really makes me wonder... If I were to interview Nick Cave, these are the kinds of things I would ask him about.
@feel me loud No one knows who wrote the original folk/blues standard, Crow Jane, that Nick's song is based on, but it has it's origins in the 1920s blues scene in Virginia and South Carolina. It was first recorded in 1927 by blues guitarist Julius Daniels, and often performed by Mississippi bluesman Skip James in the '20s and '30s, was a regular song in his repertoire. James didn't record his version of Crow Jane until 1964 when his '30s blues recordings were discovered by '60s musicians who helped revive James' career. James was a big misogynist, both...
@feel me loud No one knows who wrote the original folk/blues standard, Crow Jane, that Nick's song is based on, but it has it's origins in the 1920s blues scene in Virginia and South Carolina. It was first recorded in 1927 by blues guitarist Julius Daniels, and often performed by Mississippi bluesman Skip James in the '20s and '30s, was a regular song in his repertoire. James didn't record his version of Crow Jane until 1964 when his '30s blues recordings were discovered by '60s musicians who helped revive James' career. James was a big misogynist, both personally and in his song lyrics, so his version of Crow Jane is about a man who kills his partner because he feels she's "too prideful," has too much self-confidence, and then has the audacity to complain that he misses her after he's taken her life. I like Nick's version better, his decision to turn the song into a female empowerment murder ballad, his Crow Jane taking out the 20 coal miners who raped her, not letting them get away with it.
Crow Jane was raped by the miners from the next town, falls pregnant, becomes depressed (your house dogs are in the turnips, your yard dogs are runnin all over the place), goes to town and arms herself, catches a coal trolley to the next town where the miners are, and kills the 20 of them who raped her, as is evident by the drop in population from 48 to 28.