Last update: 9 July 1998
Introduction
John Bergin - Bergin is a friend and collaborator of O'Barr's. His band, Trust Obey (actually Bergin's one-man industrial music project) performed and recorded the music which accompany O'Barr's lyrics for the CD Fear and Bullets: Music to Accompany the Crow, which was initially released as part of a limited-edition deluxe run of the graphic novel, and which can now be purchased through Grinder Records.
Lament - Pain and Fear
Inertia
Toshiba - a reference to the VCR Jones Transfer is carrying, apparently made by Toshiba Corp. Evidently either the VCR in general or a Toshiba model in general commands a good price on the black market.
"the rock" - most likely refers to crack, a cheap, concentrated, smokable, and highly addictive solid form of cocaine that became a popular street drug in the '80s. Any scan of big-city newspapers for that period will reveal that much worse than breaking and entering and petty (or even grand) theft has been done in order to support a crack habit.
"dusted" - "dust" is a street name for the drug PCP, which makes the user extremely aggressive and resistant to pain (among other things).
"...Tom Tom's down on Gratiot and Ten. Top has a place at the Hotel Reno on Shaefer..." - Gratiot and Schaefer refer to streets in Detroit. "Ten" probably means Ten Mile Road, also in Detroit. O'Barr grew up in the Detroit area, which made the city a natural choice for the diseased urban sprawl of The Crow.
Shattered In the Head
John DeSpirito offers an analysis of this sequence:
I believe this represents a sort of dream sequence to Eric. At first he is sitting very comfortably, happy with his life, gazing at the beautiful horse (perhaps directly representing Shelly). As the train ride progresses, the horse goes from being a beautiful thing, to a horrible nightmare, tangled in barb wire, as Eric is powerless to stop it, he can only watch (just like when Shelly was killed). I may be going too far here, I don't remember how many wires there are, but you might even say that each barb wire represents one of the gang members who killed Shelly. [There are in fact five wires in the fence, the same number as the gang members - Scott] At this point, the skull guy and the Crow show up and ask for tickets, indicating that Eric must now pay up for or leave this life of happiness he had.
Book One - Pain
White Heat
Aaron Laufman-Walker notes that the phrase “shapeless in the dark” from the intro to this section is a quote from “The Hanging Garden” by the Cure. “Under a street light”, “voodoo smile”, and “flesh and blood” may be taken from “Siamese Twins”, also by the Cure.
Eric stands at the window: Aaron Laufman-Walker observes that the line “sounds sink into his heart like ice” comes from the Cure song “Cold”.
"'member that bad pony you stuck me with?" - "Pony" may refer to
heroin, also known by its street names "horse" and "smack".
Steve Silber offers this alternative view:
The guy handing T-Bird the gun was a gun runner, yes? So I'm
thinking the "bad pony" comment refers to a Colt handgun--perhaps the
gun didn't work, or it was traceable, whatever. But I'm thinking he was
referring to a gun, not a drug.
Mitchell Glucroft points out that the line "but when the city drops into the night, things so very wrong seem oh so right..." is similar to the refrain from “City Drops Into Night” by the Jim Carroll Band.
Shadowplay
"The floor is now open for opposing view points..." May be a reference to Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV (channel 4), which since time out of mind has ended its weekly editorials from the general manager of the station with the words "WDIV welcomes opposing viewpoints."
Aaron Laufman-Walker observes that Eric’s line “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand” is a quote from Joy Division’s “Disorder.”
...Like A Concave Scream
Opening page - note the Detroit News vending machine in the middleground. O'Barr takes pains to introduce small atmospheric elements such as this to more firmly establish the Detroit setting.
Book Two: Fear
Dead Souls - probably a reference to the Joy Division song of the same title, covered by Nine Inch Nails for the movie soundtrack to The Crow.
"T Bird always sold that stuff down on Gratiot..." - another reference to the Detroit street.
"How wonderful is death. Death and his brother Sleep." - In Greek mythology, Death (Thanatos) and Sleep (Morpheus, or perhaps Oneiros) are brothers. Neil Gaiman expanded and modified this idea in his highly successful Sandman comic (DC/Vertigo). The quote here is taken from the opening of Percy Bysse Shelley’s poem ”Queen Mab” (thanks to wanderly for this one).
"Why Mr. Gideon, you've completely forgotten about your Walther..." - note that two frames later, Eric fires six shots (six "BOOM"s), but we only see five bullet holes in Gideon's body.
"Captain Hook" - as in Peter Pan's nemesis. No wonder the good detective doesn't like to be addressed this way.
"Say Yes to M!ch!gan!" - a rather annoying ad campaign in the '80s used this slogan as its banner.
Note that when Hook takes Eric's file out of the cabinet, he removes it from the C-D folder, but that his thumb obscures all of Eric's last name but a terminating "s". We never do find out his last name; the name "Draven" given to Brandon Lee's character is obviously a play on "D-raven", just as "Corven" (Vincent Perez's character in City of Angels) is a modified version of Corvus, the name of the avian genus that includes both the crow and the raven.
Both Croww and Gross2001 point out that the sentence “Ou’ sont les neiges d’antan” translates to “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”
Velocity
"It's a Raymond Chandler evening..." - from the Robyn Hitchcock song entitled "Raymond Chandler Evening."
Mike Worden notes that "Stiff Kittens" (see the poster above Funboy's bed) was the original name of the band Joy Division.
Mitchell Glucroft observes that Eric’s line "Are the bones of your sins sharp enough to cut through your excuses?" is nearly identical to a line from “I Want the Angel” by the Jim Carroll Band.
"There's a gun under his pillow." - note the next panel, in which the crow is gone. Does it appear only to Eric? Looks that way, at least for the moment.
"Track marks and yellow eyes...." - The there/not-there crow again.
"...and Funboy, don't be happy...worry." - It's amusing to note that O'Barr probably wrote this line before Bobby McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was released. (My memory isn't too reliable on this point, but I think that song was big in '87 or so.)
Watching Forever
"I love thee with..." - These lines make up the last 2 lines of Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnet XLIII from Sonnets from the Portuguese, which starts "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
Note that Eric has a black tube of lipstick, but no white face paint. Either he's naturally (or unnaturally) pale-complected, or O'Barr never had the white color as part of his concept of the character. My vote is for the former - your average corpse gets pretty pale.
MD and Crow fan Sean Wormuth points out that the bottle which supposedly contains morphine is clearly labelled “Solu-Medrol”, which is “an anti-inflammatorysteroid that would be totally useless to a narcotic addict.” Anyone have an idea why O’Barr might make this substitution?
Book Three - Irony
Immolation
The obvious visual parallels between Eric's preparation and the Mass in the opening pages of this section underscore our impression that Eric's mission of vengeance is something holy - that he is a priest of blood, come to oversee the sacrifice. The stylized "P"-figures on the candles are ornamented chi-rho symbols - the chi-rho (composed of the Greek letters "chi" and "rho", which are the first two letters in Christ's name in Greek, and which look like an "x" and a "p" respectively) was an early symbol used by the Christian Church, and can be found in, for example, the illustrated manuscripts produced by the Celts in the early centuries following their conversion to Christianity (see the Book of Kells, which has a magnificent chi-rho page).
Aaron Laufman-Walker mentions that the word “zerstorung” on the door of the Gin Mill is the German word for “destruction”.
"Yes, I've come to kneel and worship..." - "worship" here intended in its sense of "to participate in a ritual" - a rather bloody ritual of sacrifice. The placement of the the thorn-crowned head and Eric's posture suggests that Eric is here a Christ-figure...more about that later.
"Seven blackbirds in a tree..." - This rhyme, or variations on it, is known in both the United States and Great Britain, and may be a remnant of pre-Christian divination through observing the flight of birds.
"Because I could not stop for Death..." - the opening stanza to Emily Dickinson's poem 712 (according to the numbering system used by Thomas Johnson, who edited The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, published by Little, Brown in 1960).
"Kilt this whole family up in Bloomfield Hills..." - Bloomfield Hills is a posh suburb north of Detroit.
"Who ever fights monsters should..." - a quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Eric's behavior is becoming more and more psychotic - he murdered Gideon, whose guilt is only that of association (the guns he had pointed at Eric notwithstanding), and he invited Funboy to bring his pals so that they could be slaughtered. Eric's statement here shows that he recognizes both that movement towards madness and his inability to stop it completely.
"God, you bastard...." - a classic statement of the paradox of evil: how can a loving, all-powerful God permit - or orchestrate - such gross acts of injustice? Despite the efforts of Christian theologians throughout the centuries, this question seems answerable only through faith, a faith which Eric has lost by staring into the face of atrocity. "Atrocity has that effect on me."
Note that Eric, in the following flashback, holds a toolbox. This is one of two points which suggests that he may be an auto mechanic - such a profession is certainly more likely to develop at least the basics of Eric's physique than the life of, say, a rock musician.
Book Four - Despair
The Atrocity Exhibition: One Year Ago
"Damn! I think it threw a rod...." - The exchange suggests that Eric, under better circumstances, could certainly fix the car, implying an above-average knowledge of and skill with cars. This is our other Eric-as-mechanic clue.
"Eat this." - note the shadows on Eric's face. Foreshadowing is a wonderful thing, even after the fact.
Aaron Laufman-Walker suggests that the “Albini Medical Supplies” inscription on the side of Eric’s hospital bed is a reference to Steve Albini of the band Big Black.
Angel, All Fire
Reader Mike Worden notes that the angel beneath the picture of Eric and Shelly is taken from the cover of the Joy Division single “Love Will Tear Us Apart”.
The pin on Eric's jacket is a stylized "TLA", for "True Love Always."
Book Five - Death
Note that the junk on Sherri's floor includes a glass Mountain Dew bottle (thus putting us firmly in the '80s - when was the last time you saw a glass soda bottle?) and an open copy of The Cat In the Hat.
Gravity
Opening scene - Ugly Patrick's attire includes a Black Flag t-shirt and a Misfits jacket. Both groups were big in the underground music scene of the mid-80s. Incidentally, both have come to be popularly known mostly for the later work of their charismatic singers (Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig, respectively).
"I am morphine for a wooden leg." - Meaning, perhaps, that Eric brings relief to those who can, by nature, neither feel it nor desire it.
"Hhmpp! Chemical monster...." - Is the crow there or isn't it? It wasn't there two frames earlier, but it still seems to be there after Eric has cut down Ugly Patrick (albeit on the opposite shoulder). Maybe it manifests only in the sight of the dead or dying.
"Out off I-75?" - Interstate 75 is the principal highway through Detroit, running north to the Upper Peninsula and south to, ultimately, the Florida Keys.
The brief vision in T Bird's kitchen has sparked considerable discussion among Crow fans. The kneeling figure is Eric; who is the robed figure with its back to us? Shelly? Funboy? Someone else? My initial interpretation (which is completely unsupported but felt right at the time) is that this is John the Baptist; Eric parallels Christ in asking for a baptism before he goes out to begin his ministry. Better late than never, maybe. Other readers have made these suggestions:
"Have you read Milton?..." - John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, the story of Lucifer's fall from Heaven. Lethe is the river whose waters bring forgetfulness to the dead. Eric offers Funboy passage to Hell (well, where else?), where he may (eventually...) be allowed to forget his deeds on Earth.
Eric says that T Bird placed the crown of thorns on his head. Again, this is a reference to the death of Christ - the Roman soldiers mocked his title "King of the Jews" by making him wear a crown of thorns. In this case, however, the resurrected god is a bit less benign.
"I know why Jesus wept, motherfucker" - The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, which reads "Jesus wept." This was occasioned by the sight of the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Eric knows why Jesus wept because he knows the loss of one deeply loved.
The Fishbone Room - may be an offhanded reference to the punk-funk-ska band Fishbone.
"How you doin', Shelby?" - Remember Shelby and his fingers?
Looking Down the Cross
"...This isn't Calvary Hill." - Calvary Hill is another name for Golgotha, the place where Christ was crucified. Calvary Hill crops up a lot in Christian hymns - maybe because it's damn difficult to rhyme "Golgotha".
Steel Tide On An Asphalt Beach
"...got some brothers up in Flint..." - Flint is a city about an hour or two north of Detroit on - you guessed it - I-75.
Croww suggests this translation of the German stanza in the back of the graphic novel:
I must hang with Jesus Christ
My Immortal Soul Weeps
Wasteland, Battleground, Way of Life
Inertia, Depth, Radius, Velocity
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