Considering that this album is probably one of Cave's most personal ones, I'd go for the rehab interpretation. I honestly don't know who the girl in question is though.
She was probably helping him through his addiction problems, visiting him from time to time (see "clinical benches" where patients and visitors hang out) being some sort of hope (carrying the "missionary bell") among all the grimy imaginery of death that surrounded him at the moment ("grim reapers and skeletons").
My thought is that she probably got tired of the situation, got angry at him because of his difficulties trying to detox, so the one who was meant to soothe him turned against him: "The kitten that padded and purred on my lap
Now swipes at my face with the paw of a bear" and he couldn't react at all because he knew it was his fault after all "I turn the other cheek and you lay into that."
Images like the ones of the colonial hotel are probably just memories from a past that seemed promising for both of them, maybe at the peak of their love, when they dreamed of having a baby; the hope of the baby dies when their relationship starts to fall apart because of the addiction, and they become progressively consumed by it, that's why while they "have nothing to talk" about, " the bones of our child crumble like chalk", in a metaphorical way, like a dream that vanishes.
In my head, when he sings: "If I could relive one day of my life
If I could relive just a single one
You on the balcony, my future wife
O who could have known, but no one"
he's remembering the day the girl visited him to the clinic for the last time. Or maybe the old times at the "colonial" hotels, when they were happy and in love and he dreamed to marry her.
Maybe I got it all wrong. But I had to say something, I love the song.
Considering that this album is probably one of Cave's most personal ones, I'd go for the rehab interpretation. I honestly don't know who the girl in question is though.
She was probably helping him through his addiction problems, visiting him from time to time (see "clinical benches" where patients and visitors hang out) being some sort of hope (carrying the "missionary bell") among all the grimy imaginery of death that surrounded him at the moment ("grim reapers and skeletons").
My thought is that she probably got tired of the situation, got angry at him because of his difficulties trying to detox, so the one who was meant to soothe him turned against him: "The kitten that padded and purred on my lap Now swipes at my face with the paw of a bear" and he couldn't react at all because he knew it was his fault after all "I turn the other cheek and you lay into that."
Images like the ones of the colonial hotel are probably just memories from a past that seemed promising for both of them, maybe at the peak of their love, when they dreamed of having a baby; the hope of the baby dies when their relationship starts to fall apart because of the addiction, and they become progressively consumed by it, that's why while they "have nothing to talk" about, " the bones of our child crumble like chalk", in a metaphorical way, like a dream that vanishes.
In my head, when he sings: "If I could relive one day of my life If I could relive just a single one You on the balcony, my future wife O who could have known, but no one"
he's remembering the day the girl visited him to the clinic for the last time. Or maybe the old times at the "colonial" hotels, when they were happy and in love and he dreamed to marry her.
Maybe I got it all wrong. But I had to say something, I love the song.