A Crow Looked At Me Analysis

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Recommended: Music has the power to heal

Using music in heavily cathartic, self-healing ways is no new concept for Phil Elverum, but his 2017 release A Crow Looked at Me took this part of him to the next level. It didn’t hold back from delving into every crushing detail of the loss of his wife and its detriment on his emotional health. This level of honesty is something I expect to hear more in art, but artists tend to dance around the topic or water down their pain since it tends to feel like a private thing to so many people. But delivering the devastating facts about dealing with something as life-shattering as this is a rarely genuine moment and comes across as more relatable than the artist might expect, making a project like this one to pay close attention to.
While A Crow …show more content…

He expresses feeling uncertain about the future and lost in the world, but believes it doesn’t matter because she is too, and they have each other. A majority of the time, the people involved know deep down that it’s insane and foolish and unrealistic, but soaking in the moment where life isn’t disappointing them for once is the only thing that feels natural. Recollection of what would happen down the line serves as a reminder of fate’s terrifying control over our …show more content…

Its tedious length reveals that it’s slightly underwritten, but nevertheless, moments like the car ride home after Geneviève’s burial where Phil had nothing but her ashes and necklace as comfort advance these depictions of vivid despair. This transition from human being you see in your daily life to nothing more than a memory is illustrated in Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup as well. His future plans were built alongside her, and now that he’s being forced to move forward without her, nothing feels right. He imagines what new focus he could possibly form and struggles to imagine when his life won’t be based on her

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