After thinking about it a bit, I think that one possible meaning for "light the fire piano" could refer to an electric guitar. Don often referred to guitars and basses as "upright pianos". Lighting the "fire piano" could mean plugging in the electric guitar - and getting ready to rock.
Again, I feel like there is a lot going on within this song - which is often the case with his lyrics. On the one hand, it evokes obvious Crow Dance imagery. Native Americans of various tribes in North America would have crow dances, celebrating Crow. Crow Spirit meant various things to different tribes, but a common element was mortality, from a spiritual perspective - not a negative thing. When dancing, they would sometimes dress up as different powerful animals, including panther - "crow dance ah panther". And of course there is the black/white connotation again - crow/panther/night combined with sun/cream/white hat moon. All the black/white imagery makes sense, as he would often paint or do his ink drawings in black and white.
There is a bit of Crow in all of us - that part of our spirit that is attached to the other side, so to speak. Don may be suggesting in this song that some of his rituals for both creating art and music tap into Crow (or as Jung said the Shadow side) for inspiration.
These are powerful forces not to be tampered with. Hence - "scare crow, YOU answer". I love the video for this where he does the pointing thing at the camera when he lip syncs that line.
The "two tears in a haystack" could symbolize the two sides of his art - the music and painting - that can get lost in the big business of those two worlds.
After thinking about it a bit, I think that one possible meaning for "light the fire piano" could refer to an electric guitar. Don often referred to guitars and basses as "upright pianos". Lighting the "fire piano" could mean plugging in the electric guitar - and getting ready to rock.
Again, I feel like there is a lot going on within this song - which is often the case with his lyrics. On the one hand, it evokes obvious Crow Dance imagery. Native Americans of various tribes in North America would have crow dances, celebrating Crow. Crow Spirit meant various things to different tribes, but a common element was mortality, from a spiritual perspective - not a negative thing. When dancing, they would sometimes dress up as different powerful animals, including panther - "crow dance ah panther". And of course there is the black/white connotation again - crow/panther/night combined with sun/cream/white hat moon. All the black/white imagery makes sense, as he would often paint or do his ink drawings in black and white.
There is a bit of Crow in all of us - that part of our spirit that is attached to the other side, so to speak. Don may be suggesting in this song that some of his rituals for both creating art and music tap into Crow (or as Jung said the Shadow side) for inspiration.
These are powerful forces not to be tampered with. Hence - "scare crow, YOU answer". I love the video for this where he does the pointing thing at the camera when he lip syncs that line.
The "two tears in a haystack" could symbolize the two sides of his art - the music and painting - that can get lost in the big business of those two worlds.