Crow Jane [for Nora Joung]

2021

Artist: Seamus Harahan
Medium: Hi8 video


Please watch full screen

 
 

A magpie and rook, self-schooling, trading skills at play, mocking each other and maybe us. Cross-corvid muckerism.

 

Crow Jane - Skip James

Crow Jane, Crow Jane
Don't you hold your head high
Someday baby, you know
You got to die
You got to lay down an -
You got to die, you got to -

You know, I wanna buy me a pistol
Wants me forty rounds of ball
Shoot Crow Jane, just to see her fall
She got to fall, she got to -
She got to fall, she got to-

That's the reason I begged, Crow Jane
Not to hold her head, so high
Someday baby, you know
You got to die
You got to lay down an -

When I dug her grave
With a silver spade
Ain't nobody gon' take
My Crow Jane place
You can't take her place
No, you can't take her -

That's the reason I begged, Crow Jane
Not to hold her head, too high
Someday baby, you know
You got to die
You got to lay down an -

You know, I let her down
With a golden chain
An ev'ry link
I would call my, Crow Jane name
Crow Jane, Crow -
Crow Jane, Crow -

You know I never missed my water
'Till my well went dry
Didn't miss Crow Jane
Until the day she died
'Till the day-ay-ay-ay she -

That's the reason I begged, Crow Jane
Not to hold her head, too high
Someday baby, you know you got to die
You got to lay down and -
You got to die, you got to -

You know, I dug her grave
Eight feet in the ground
Didn't feel sorry
Until they let her down

They had to let her down
Had-a -
They had to let her down

That's the reason I begged, Crow Jane
Not to hold her head, too high
Someday baby, you know you got to die
You got to lay down and. -
(guitar to end)

And him playing it on film!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytVww5r4Nk0

Seamus Harahan has a unique ability to combine imagery and sound in deeply resonant and often ironic ways. His deceptively simple work engages with his surrounding environment, discovering a sensual poetics in everyday, marginal and overlooked subjects and peripheral details. His work was described by Adrian Wootton, Chief Executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, as: “challenging and experimental while also humorous and accessible.”

Harahan has exhibited widely internationally, including at Tate Britain, London, and representing Northern Ireland at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005. He received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2009, and won the 2015 Jarman Award. He is ex-director of Catalyst Arts Belfast. Harahan lives in Northern Ireland.

Visit Seamus Harahan's Vimeo page: www.vimeo.com/citygas

 

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