Songfacts®:

• This song tells the story of Dorian Gray, the title character of Irish playwright and wit Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy explained to Mojo magazine September 2010 why it's his favorite novel: "It was the first book with real substance that I chose for myself. It's a story of great narcissism and esoteric interior, and brilliantly written. It's a window into this personality, this Oscar Wilde chap I'd heard about. The language is so opulent. It's a rock star's story, really."
• Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the most prominent personalities of his day. Though he was ridiculed for them, his paradoxes and witty sayings were quoted on all sides. An intense autobiographical novel, Dorian Gray achieved eternal youth by his portrait aging on his behalf but it was severely criticized by Wilde's Victorian peers as immoral. The writer himself tried to change his own birth date from 1854 to 1856 as he feared growing old.