Songfacts®:

• In "The Curse Of Millhaven," Nick Cave takes the role of a murderous 15-year-old girl gleefully recounting her crimes from the snug confines of a mental asylum. Her name is Loretta, but she prefers "Lottie" – and you'll respect her preference, if you're wise. With each verse, Lottie relishes in another crime. They start with individual killings and graduate to a group of 20 children sent plunging through ice and an unspecified count killed in a fire. As Lottie, Cave reveals that his only regret is getting caught before he could murder more.
• Cave isn't trying to make a grand statement here. He has called it "a pure comical song."
• Since I was no bigger than a weevil they’ve been saying I was evil
  
  A boll weevil is a beetle that eats cotton plants. They used to pop up often in early blues songs such as "The Boll Weevil Song."
• Cave asked his onetime romantic partner PJ Harvey if she wanted to sing this song. Harvey preferred to do a duet on "Henry Lee" instead. That collaboration is also found on Murder Ballads, the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' ninth studio album.
• The name Millhaven was lifted from a fictional town from the novel The Throat, part of the Blue Rose Trilogy by horror author Peter Straub. The connection has led to a claim circulating the internet that there's a real town named Mill Haven somewhere between Chicago and the Illinois/Wisconsin border. AI often repeats this claim, but there's no town in Illinois or Wisconsin named Millhaven. However, there is a historical site for a ghost town named Millville.
  
  Cave is a big fan of Straub's books and also draws from his writing in "Do You Love Me (Part 2)" on Let Love In, the Seeds' eighth studio album.
• The Seeds frequently play "The Curse Of Millhaven" during live shows.