larstangmark
Group: Members
Posts: 1767
Joined: Mar. 2005 |
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Posted: Sep. 08 2012, 16:30 |
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| Quote (Ugo @ Sep. 08 2012, 15:03) | | Quote (larstangmark @ Sep. 08 2012, 15:49) | But Mike told Barry Palmer that the lyrics were based on one of Mike's relatives, a girl who died at early age because of some sort of illness.
Either that's a lie or your friend is wrong! |
@ lars: I don't really know where my friend got the information she gave me, but I know that she's a university graduate and that she's done extensive research on the subject. The fact that what she told me is not the same as what Mike said doesn't mean that he was lying... it could also be that Mike actually wrote the song about Elizabeth Jane Sewell, then, when Barry Palmer asked him what the lyrics meant, he didn't remember at the moment what his inspiration has been, and made up another explanation.
Anyway, the legend says that Roger Sewell, a British nobleman from the 1850s, found out that his wife Elizabeth Jane had a lover, and challenged him to a gun duel - very like the one in the Moonlight Shadow video, except that this duel was in the early morning. Elizabeth found out about this, and just when her husband was about to shoot her lover, she ran in front of him, so her husband shot her instead. That night, Roger saw Elizabeth's ghost rising up from a bottle of wine (probably absinthe) and Elizabeth started tormenting him night after night for the next nineteen years. Roger eventually managed to somehow find a way to keep himself at peace with his guilt and with with Elizabeth, but he ended up killing himself. The veracity of all this has never been proved - as I said, it's a legend.
If the song is about someone dying of some illnesses, lyrics like "nineteen years with no reason or rhyme, taken away in a crime of passion" have very little sensible meaning, and the title is meaningless as well - while they both make perfect sense in light of the tale that I quoted above. |
Still, Mike should know because he wrote the lyrics. I just thought she was nineteen when she died and that she died around easter time...or something. Thoroughly researched lyrics about obscure legends doesn't sound like Mike anyway. And where does the "pictures and posters of times and fashion" fit into the legend? And what about the video?
I'm sure your friend's education helps her know more about the legend in question but it doesn't mean she knows what Mike wrote specific songs about.
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"There are twelve people in the world, the rest are paste"
Mark E Smith
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On my own side, regardless of what Alessandra (my virtual friend) told me, I still think that "Crime of Passion" is very unfit as a title for the story of someone who's dying from an illness, and it's way better as a title for the story of someone who wishes to kill his wife's lover. Down here we'd say crime of honour. 
If Mike had already read or got acquainted with the tale when he did the video for MS, he and the director would probably have developed the duel scenes more than they are now, and most probably they'd have included Elizabeth's ghost somewhere (although there indeed are a few ghostly presences in the MS video). Regarding sound vs. meaning, we all known that Mike is a master of that. "Northpoint" and "Innocent" are prime examples. 
