7th song on the album THE QUEEN IS DEAD:
THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE
The parallel beginnings to the only two verses in this song provide a combination of these three
elements:
1. "thorn in his side"
2. "murderous desire"
3. "plundering desire" ("plunder" means robbery)
THE BOY WITH THE THORN
IN HIS SIDE
The boy with the thorn in his side
behind the hatred there lies
a murderous desire for love
how can they look into
my eyes
and still they don't believe me
how can they hear me say those words
and still they don't believe me
and if they don't believe me now
will they ever believe me?
and if they don't believe me now
will they ever believe me?
The boy with the thorn in his side
behind the hatred there lies
a plundering desire for love
how can they see the
Love in our eyes
and still they don't believe us
and after all this time
they don't want to believe us
and if they don't believe us now
will they ever believe us?
and when you want to Live
how do you start?
where do you go?
who do you need to know?
A combination of those same three elements appears in this passage
from Arthur Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel,
THE SIGN OF THE FOUR:
THE SIGN OF THE FOUR
Chapter 5: The Tragedy of
Pondicherry Lodge
... In the light of the
lantern I read with a thrill of horror, "The sign of the four."
"In God's name, what
does it all mean?" I asked.
"It
means murder," said he, stooping over
the dead man. "Ah! I expected it. Look here!"
He pointed to what looked
like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin
just above the ear.
"It
looks like a thorn," said I.
"It
is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is poisoned."
I took it up between my
finger and thumb. It came away from the skin so readily that hardly any mark was
left behind. One tiny speck of blood showed where the puncture had been.
"This is all an
insoluble mystery to me," said I. "It grows darker instead of
clearer."
"On the contrary,"
he answered, "it clears every instant. I only require a few missing links
to have an entirely connected case."
We had almost forgotten our
companion's presence since we entered the chamber. He was still standing in the
doorway, the very picture of terror, wringing his hands and moaning to him-self. Suddenly, however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.
"The treasure is
gone!" he said. "They have
robbed him of the treasure!” ...
- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE SIGN OF THE FOUR:
At the Paris hospital where emergency treatment failed to save her life, Princess Diana's time of death was officially listed as being exactly 4:00 a.m.
After hours of emergency treatment, Diana was declared dead at 4:00 a.m., the result of a car crash that occurred after a hotel dinner on the night of August 30th.
"On August 30, 1889,
Philadelphia publisher Joseph M. Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott’s
Monthly Magazine, invited a few guests to dinner at the Langham Hotel in
London. Among them were two promising young writers: Arthur Conan Doyle and
Oscar Wilde. Doyle recounts the events of what he calls “a golden evening”
in his autobiographical Memories and Adventures (1924). Stoddart was
considering an English publication of Lippincott’s with a British
editor and British contributors. As a result of that evening, Doyle contributed
to Lippincott’s his second Sherlock Holmes story, “The Sign of The Four.”
- CLIFF'S NOTES: THE PICTURE
OF DORIAN GRAY Book Summary and Study Guide.
Source:
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-144,pageNum-2.html
Oscar Wilde was the writer with Arthur Conan Doyle at the hotel dinner on the night of August 30th. Wilde would die in Paris.
See song 5 on "THE QUEEN IS DEAD" for another "Wilde" clue.