This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
There she stands, this lovely creature
There she stands, there she stands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
So I asked this lovely creature
Yes, I asked
Yes, I asked
Would she walk with me a while
Through this night so vast
She took my hand, this lovely creature
"Yes", she said, "Yes", she said
"Yes, I'll walk with you a while"
It was a joyful man she led
Over hills, this lovely creature
Over mountains, over ranges
By great pyramids and sphinxes
We met drifters and strangers
Oh the sands, my lovely creature
And the mad, moaning winds
At night the deserts writhed
With diabolical things
Through the night, through the night
The wind lashed and it whipped me
When I got home, my creature
Was no longer with me
Somewhere she lies, this lovely creature
Beneath the slow drifting sands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
There she stands, there she stands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
So I asked this lovely creature
Yes, I asked
Yes, I asked
Would she walk with me a while
Through this night so vast
She took my hand, this lovely creature
"Yes", she said, "Yes", she said
"Yes, I'll walk with you a while"
It was a joyful man she led
Over hills, this lovely creature
Over mountains, over ranges
By great pyramids and sphinxes
We met drifters and strangers
Oh the sands, my lovely creature
And the mad, moaning winds
At night the deserts writhed
With diabolical things
Through the night, through the night
The wind lashed and it whipped me
When I got home, my creature
Was no longer with me
Somewhere she lies, this lovely creature
Beneath the slow drifting sands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
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He's a nutter. It's as simple as that.
It's as though his favourite persona is this lunatic who sees a woman as a delicate, pretty little flower, then is consumed by some insane rage that leads him to either chop her up into tiny little pieces, or stalk her until she asks the police for a new identity.
The whole song has a fantastic air of madness about it, though, and "oh, the sands, my lovely creature, and the mad moaning winds" verse brings up images that you'd be more likely to have after munching strange cactuses in the desert. Very trippy and engaging.
Very, very unsettling. All those light, girly la-la-las in the background that turn funereal towards the end, so you know it's not going to end well, & that disturbing image of the woman lying under the sands with her ribbons still in her hair & her green gloves still on... I always say that songs aren't always autobiographical & you can't read too much into them, & I love these murder ballads & Nick Cave's stuff generally, but he's not the kind of man you'd want to bump into in a dark alley!
Since this song is from the "Murder Ballads"-Album I guess it's pretty fair to assume the narrator meets a pretty girl, spends some time with her, then kills her and buries her body in the desert. My mind always set this "story" in Las Vegas - I guess because of "over mountains, over ranges / by great pyramids and sphinx / we met drifters and strangers" rather made me think of scenes I saw in CSI (now CSI Vegas) than of Egypt; also - and I hope that does not sound wrong - a "lovely creature" with "hair full of ribbons and green gloves on her hands" sounds like THAT kind of "exclusive company" you can find easily along the strip. So both go on a trip through Las Vegas, ending up somewhere outside in the desert - where something happens and he kills her.
But when I heard the song for the very first time (admidetally I was quite young back then and English is my second language, so it was far from being perfect) I thought it was about a vanishing hitchhiker. A guy sees that beautiful girl that is dressed a bit old-fashioned (I mean, ribbons in the hair and gloves made me think of Southern Belles) and he offers her a ride. She takes the offer and leads him very chaoticly around, even into a sand-storm, and when he finally makes it home - she's gone. Somewhere later he finds out that the "lovely creature" is dead, buried in the desert, and she probably tried to lead him there so that finally somebody discovers her body.
This is one of my favourites from this album, really creepy grunts and heavy breathing from Nick between verses.
This song is just amazing,, as we don't know really if he killed the woman ( in this case it's a Nick Cave's song like the others which are still amazing ) or if it's just like an abstract dream, about finding and losing love