Rain King Meaning

One of my favorite songs from Counting Crows. They do alternative lyrics on many different live version of Rain King. One of my favorite live performances can be found on New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall. 

Adam Duritz from during VH1 Storytellers on August 12, 1997:

"I read this book in college when I was at Berkeley called 'Henderson, the Rain King' 

and the main character in the book was kind of this big, open-wound of a person, Eugene Henderson, He just sort of bled all over everyone around him

For better or for worse, full of joy, full of sorrow

He just made a mess of everything

and when I wrote the song years later it didn't really have anything to do with the book 

except the book had kind of become a totem for how I felt about creativity and writing

that it was just this thing where you just took everything inside of you

and just sort of  sprayed it all over everything

and not to worry too much about it, I mean

You try and craft it but not to be self-conscious about it, in any case

And, it's sort of a song about everything that goes into writing, all the feelings

everything that makes you want to write, makes you want to maybe pick up a guitar and do it

and express yourself because it's full of all the doubts and the fears 

about how I felt about my life at that time

And also the feeling that I really deserved something better 

than what I had accomplished up to that point

I think it is sort of a religious song about the sort of undefinable thing inside you 

or out there somewhere that makes you write, makes you create, 

makes you do any kind of art form, you know

And makes me The Rain King"

To me, Rain King is about wanting to have more in your life. You can't help but feel down on your self because of how things are going, but you know you deserved better. You "belong in the service of the Queen." and  you "belong anywhere but in between."

But even in this situation, you admit at how bad things are. You're even proud of it and labeled yourself the "Rain King." Ultimately, if things are going to end, you are ready. When you "think of dying" you hope that you are delivered in the "belly of a black-winged bird."  For me that bird would be a Counted Crow.