I first heard this song right after I had finished reading "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, and the song really reminded me of the novel. The line "in a colonial hotel we fucked up the sun" especially seems to allude to it; in the novel, Humbert Humbert travels across the nation, staying in hotels with young Lolita, who is most fond of the Colonial ones. The song matches the feelings of hopelessness and sorrow in the novel very well.
I thought it was all just a coincidence, and then I read that Cave named Lolita as one of the things that changed his life (http://www.bad-seed.org/cave/faq/influences.shtml... his father read it to him when he was twelve!). So I suppose it's possible that it could have been a slight influence on this song... neat!
I first heard this song right after I had finished reading "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, and the song really reminded me of the novel. The line "in a colonial hotel we fucked up the sun" especially seems to allude to it; in the novel, Humbert Humbert travels across the nation, staying in hotels with young Lolita, who is most fond of the Colonial ones. The song matches the feelings of hopelessness and sorrow in the novel very well.
I thought it was all just a coincidence, and then I read that Cave named Lolita as one of the things that changed his life (http://www.bad-seed.org/cave/faq/influences.shtml... his father read it to him when he was twelve!). So I suppose it's possible that it could have been a slight influence on this song... neat!