I could be completely wrong, but this is how I interpret the song.
A crow means many things in different cultures but one I am familiar with is that it brings a sense of foreboding, something bad is going to happen. So I take it that the crow is actually symbolism, he knows something is about to go down. With all the references to guitars I imagine that is really what the "16 shells from a thirty-ought-six" is referring to. Imagine carrying a rifle and holding a guitar. I think that what is really going on is something along the lines of the "Crossroads", selling your soul to be able to play. The more he gets into it the deeper he gets, and the crow is his sign that something is going on but instead of preventing it or doing something to change it he just traps this feeling in what he plays. The "whittle into kindlin" is using the impending eruption to fuel his music. Its torture when he hears what he plays, hence the "banging on the strings just to drive him crazy", and trapping this crow in the guitar, in what he creates musically. I could be completely off the mark, but that is how I take the song, and I love a song that can be listened to by a thousand different people and be taken a thousand different ways.
I could be completely wrong, but this is how I interpret the song.
A crow means many things in different cultures but one I am familiar with is that it brings a sense of foreboding, something bad is going to happen. So I take it that the crow is actually symbolism, he knows something is about to go down. With all the references to guitars I imagine that is really what the "16 shells from a thirty-ought-six" is referring to. Imagine carrying a rifle and holding a guitar. I think that what is really going on is something along the lines of the "Crossroads", selling your soul to be able to play. The more he gets into it the deeper he gets, and the crow is his sign that something is going on but instead of preventing it or doing something to change it he just traps this feeling in what he plays. The "whittle into kindlin" is using the impending eruption to fuel his music. Its torture when he hears what he plays, hence the "banging on the strings just to drive him crazy", and trapping this crow in the guitar, in what he creates musically. I could be completely off the mark, but that is how I take the song, and I love a song that can be listened to by a thousand different people and be taken a thousand different ways.