Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
 |
Posted: June 21 2003, 06:22 |
 |
You're not the first one to wonder this!
One of the first things that's usually mentioned in connection with this song, is the connection to Mary, Queen of Scots, whose life story supposedly inspired the song. It's probably the case, but as you've probably already noticed, the song doesn't really contain any kind of historically accurate description of events, but instead just has a historical feel to it. The song seems to suggest that Mary is fleeing Britain ('the islands' by sea, 'searching for sanctuary' as people are looking for her ('Mary Queen of chance will they find you?'. This certainly never happened in her life - her time in France was while she was a girl, and as far as I know she never attempted to return there when pursued later in her life.
Really, it can be interpreted as being all kinds of things - there are all sorts of layers of meaning in there, most of which have little to do with the apparent subject matter. Mike often liked to make the meaning of a song more unclear, and it seems he'd often not write about one specific thing in a song, but rather fit a number of different ideas together.
There have been discussions on this in the past - you might find them helpful...
http://tubular.net/cgi-bin....1;t=576
http://tubular.net/cgi-bin....7;t=869
|
