Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns Lyrics

Lyric discussion by lelly 

Cover art for Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns lyrics by Mother Love Bone

I meant to post this as a general comment and not a reply. Sorry, I am new this site and how it works...apologies.

There is a great blog about Andy Wood and MLB that has a lot of wonderful stories and anecdotes by an author know as DKING. D met Andy in the mid 80's when Andy applied for a job at a store that D owned on the gulf coast of Texas. The two eventually became close friends and Andy ended up living with D for a period of time.

D had known a woman that he became close to. He was in a band and wanted this woman to be the lead guitarist of the band. She was murdered...and this left D with a huge void in his life. One day, Andy came walking through the door of the store, just like this woman had earlier, and D felt like he was having a "flashback". As the two became close to one another, the talk of this woman came up. D was having dreams at night where this woman was appearing to him. After talking with Andy, he was having similar dreams, with a woman of the same description. She was also contacting him with subjects such as an early and untimely demise. The two became convinced that Andy and the deceased woman were spiritual twins and Andy came into D's life to fulfill a purpose. Andy referred to this woman as his "Capricorn Sister"...his twin soul. When Andy wrote the song about this woman he used the name Chloe because it meant a woman of mystery in the Scripture. This song is not about a prostitute, a stripper, or a person that influenced Andy into drug addiction.

When the line says "Chloe danced the tables in the French Quarter..." it referred to something that D did to come in conatact with Chloe's spirit. He said that he would go to the nightclubs in Galveston, TX and look for Chloe's soul, and after a few drinks he would chase her from tabletop to tabletop (literally), trying to catch her. Andy actually told D one night that he could see her sprit jumping from table to table just ahead of him. D asked Andy why he changed the setting in the song from Galveston to New Orleans and Andy told him that Galveston already had a popular song and that New Orleans was "sexier".

The original draft of the song ended with "Dreams Like This Must Die". D told Andy that the song cannot end like that because Chloe is still alive in his heart...and that he could never forgive him if he let the song end like that. Andy added the line "Dreams Like This Must..." to the end of the song saying that the interpretation could be left up to the listener.

I hope that this clears up some meaning of the song.

Song Meaning

That's really beautiful. It made me tear up. Thanks for sharing.

@lelly interesting, i've read the blog about andrew and I wonder if everything is really true.

I may actually have written this song, back in 1987. When I, as a youth, was visiting Seattle, in connection with a visit to the Mother Love Bone group, organized by the music magazine "Okej". I then possibly met Chloe, at one of the "cafèbars" there, and thought that she was somewhat similar to a type like me. By the way, I'm somewhat dark blond, and may have a somewhat special appearance. Chloe was perhaps a girl/woman with a so-called French ethnicity, perhaps Germanic French. Maybe it was like that. Will possibly explain more later. Maybe it was like that....