From Her to Paternity

Interview from New Musical Express
April 2, 1994, pp. 28-30

by Mark Mordue
Transcribed by Lisa

...On 'Do You Love Me Part Two', the closing track, the approach of a child molester provides the focus point for the song's narrator, the molester's victim. Fearful, hopeful, quaking, its chilled wanderlust is an introduction to the act of love by way of corrupted innocent. Not surprisingly Cave finds it hard to talk about.

"There was some vague idea that your first experience of love dictates the capacity you have in later years to express your emotions. So the song was about many things - creative impotence, not being able to write, not being able to relate property to a woman."

Why did you write in the persona of a child being molested?

"Was I molested a child? Well, I have had those kind of experiences actually, as a child, though not the exact same one that I've written about here. But I believe this is a realistic idea [sorry, there's a hole in my copy, one word or so.., perhaps 'about']t things. It's the intensity of the initial experiences that are important rather than if they are good or bad, evil or immortal or whatever."

He trails off, mumbling.

"I think what I was trying to say - and I'll never be able to explain this property - the intensity of the experience, no matter whether it's fear or pain or joy or whatever, it's something that can't be repeated and consequently you're left inadequate or... I don't know."

"I took great pains to write this song. I went through hundreds of different transformations and I hoped I maintained a mystery to the song and at the same time gave it a kind of unnerving quality. I don't want to spoil that by trying to explain, what it's all about. I'm not even sure I know what it's all about myself"...

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