Julia Holter sings here of a woman that wakes up on a Balearic island, badly wounded and strewn with cactus leaves. As the song proceeds, she explores the woman's flickering consciousness.
The song is based on a minor character from a Colette short story. Holter explained to Mojo: "Lucette is just this side character – she runs away with a Russian Prince and they have this affair, and they are on this cruise and he ends up stealing her jewels and hitting her and then leaves her on this island. She dies of blood poisoning, it's really awful – but it's part of this kind of funny short story by Colette, which is not supposed to be gruesome." "I was interested in the state of waking up from being unconscious in an unknown place. I wanted to make a song that was kind of grotesque that captures that moment of confusion and gradually the mind gets to remember what happens, and you start to see things emerge more clearly."
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) was a French novelist, whose best known work, the 1944 novella Gigi, was the basis for the Leslie Caron-starring musical film and Lerner and Loewe stage production of the same name. Julia Holter's 2013 album Loud City Song was her own loose interpretation of Gigi - both the musical and the original novella.
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