Possession

“Sleepless in the onyx night”

Uncle Jerry references A.S. Byatt's novel Possession when discussing the onyx imagery in the song. He describes how the characters in the novel go to Whitby and visit a jet shop, connecting jet (petrified black wood) and onyx to Victorian funerary jewelry and Queen Victoria's perpetual mourning after Prince Albert's death. This enriches the reading of 'onyx night' as carrying associations with mourning, darkness, and the Victorian tradition of grief jewelry.