Lyric discussion by sjtindustries 

Cover art for Moonland lyrics by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The start of the song seems to be from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The character Billy Pilgrim - and Vonnegut himself in world war two - are one of the few survivors of the fire-bombing of dresden, because they were in a meat locker. When they come up, after two days of burning, the city was destroyed and described desolate and covered in ash, looking like the moon.