What does The Crow & The Butterfly mean?

Shinedown: The Crow & The Butterfly Meaning

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Album cover for The Crow & The Butterfly album cover

Song Released: 2010


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The Crow & The Butterfly Lyrics

I painted your room at
Midnight, so I'd know
Yesterday was over
I put all your books on the top shelf,
Even the one with the four leaf clover
Man, I'm getting older
I took all your pictures off the wall
and wrapped them in a news...

  1. TandemFrost
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    Apr 5th 2023 !⃝

    "I painted your room at midnight, so I'd know yesterday was over," because she died/or is out of touch/or out of loving him, black like him, a crow... And, he's left with the memory.

    She's a butterfly. Fragile, delicate, beautiful. He's a predator, a threat, highly adaptable, but he flies like her. They both get high, with each other.

    The video shows a boy, scaring a woman who is at a party. She's disturbed and distressed. He didn't mean her harm, just a kind word and to say,

    "I'm just a little too late." Maybe he died becoming a man. Maybe when he loved her, she didn't love him. They're both out of synch.

    Maybe, he's her son. Either way, she needed to hear his kind words. He needed to cherish the memory. She stands there at the end, surrounded by flowers, and roses at that: romantic and deeply v felt. Maybe everyone at the party was dead.

    Maybe she's dead, in Heaven.

    Either way... Love. An unusual pairing.

    Yeah... Reminded me of someone.

    I'll be the crow. Hope that butterfly is okay. Really, really do.

  2. anonymous
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    Dec 30th 2021 !⃝

    Ok this song means more than shinedown could ever know for I get the lyrics of all there songs but this one is my light even in the dark For my last name is Crow and I have two tattoos which a simple butterfly on my left breast and dandelion on my right calf and I think for the time me and a friend had as we were split apart from the chaotic events that have still not ceased today I know life will never be the same but this song makes the pain more bare able and grief of so many lives lost along the way much easier every and the human radio I am !

  3. anonymous
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    Oct 31st 2020 !⃝

    I think this is about a mother who unexpectedly lost her child; whom she was very close to. And this song is about her trying to deal with it and live an every day life.

  4. anonymous
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    Jan 29th 2020 !⃝

    Sounds like a close friend's overdose.

  5. anonymous
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    Oct 18th 2018 !⃝

    Balls

  6. anonymous
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    Jul 26th 2018 !⃝

    I think this is about a guy (crow) who is chasing a beautiful girl (butterfly). The guy here is like a crow. His beauty was unappreciated, but really we know the worth of a crow and its capabilities. The girl here is beautiful. Just beautiful. Nothing more.

  7. anonymous
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    Jul 7th 2018 !⃝

    Watch the video!!!

  8. anonymous
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    Mar 30th 2018 !⃝

    You can definitely feel the loss as Brent sings. He conveys the sadness and really makes you feel. I view the song as nostalgic and it does bring up my own feelings of time gone by. The song has feeling and brings tears to the listener. I know he wrote it after a dream he had about the loss a mother has for her son. Honestly it can mean different things for everyone

  9. anonymous
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    Oct 26th 2017 !⃝

    I think this song is about a guy who is chasing a beautiful girl. Metaphorically, she's the butterfly and he's the crow.

  10. anonymous
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    Apr 23rd 2017 !⃝

    I think the mom was fighting a battle of the worlds exsistance and in the battle she looses sight of the future and losses the connection that ties her to the world and looses herself until one day she hears a little girl crying and looks out and sees her sitting on a swing the child was crying for her mom and at first she thinks its her past self that shes seeing and walks over and looks at the child and instantly the women knew that this little beatiful child was hers she was her child in the future her name is jolyne the connection was made and there was no doubt in her mind and so there was a future Being as she just saw something that hadn't even come into exsistance yet the child's the crow because it's free and strong and it's a bird that's been around since the beginning of time and it survives through time

  11. anonymous
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    Apr 23rd 2017 !⃝

    I think the song is about more then a mother and her daughter the daughter its about life and light and the worlds exsistance.You see there was a time that there was a king of darkness and the queen of light the king of light was said to be put in a beatiful bird being the crow and the mother the butterfly.Both Being 2 flying animals that are rarley kept in a cage, so there free which makes them the most beautiful birds of all.

  12. anonymous
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    Sep 24th 2016 !⃝

    It's about a mom who is completely going off the deep end because her son died somehow.
    She can't sleep and is trying to deal with accepting his death.

  13. anonymous
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    Jun 26th 2014 !⃝

    As a personal translation of the song I view the crow as me, chasing the women of my dreams, the butterfly. I think of the butterfly as beautiful and perfect. The crow is, well what do u think of when u think of a crow? Generally bad things. I want to be perfect and I chase after the one I love who is. Tho my problems chase her away, I can't give up...

  14. anonymous
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    Apr 30th 2013 !⃝

    The first post is right. Brent had a dream about a mother loosing her son, and he felt compelled to right a song about it, thinking it would be a hit. It sure was!

  15. anonymous
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    May 11th 2012 !⃝

    the song actually tells about a mom loosing his son somehow... and moving away. but at first i thought it meant that a husband lost his wife and was moving far away out in the country. And i thought the crow is death, and chases wherever you go. And the butterfly is the victim/ wife.... and apparently the husband was too late helping or saving his wife...

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