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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