"Floodland"s two-part opening track, "Dominion" / "Mother Russia", was inspired by "Ozymandias" (1818), a Shelley sonnet about a tyrant whose legacy of conquest diminishes as time passes by, from which one line is lifted. Bonner noted that the song seemed to have been inspired by geopolitics of the Cold War as well. Eldritch additionally took inspiration from his time in Central Europe during the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. He considered the song to be about "the prostitution of Europe by the Americans," adding that this was a part of his "hate/hate relationship with America. I just had the idea of all them huddled in their mobile homes while Mother Russia rained down on them." "Flood I" and "Flood II" both use the word "flood" as a metaphor for sex. Eldritch felt that a flood could be something stimulating, adding: "most people [...] only get wet under certain circumstances." He called "Lucretia My Reflection" his "Welcome on board, Patricia" song, saying that he had always thought of her as a "Lucretia-type person." "1959" is a partially-autobiographical song, which takes its title from Eldritch's birth year. He thought that the song regards "innocence–inherited as opposed to environmental."