The song describes an unhappy woman, using characteristically surreal images such as "Rain falls like Elvis tears" and "Just like a harpsichordist she moves".

The apparently meaningless title appears in the song's chorus: "Hobart paving, don't you think that's it's time, / On this platform with the drizzle in my eyes?"

The title may derive from a construction firm called Hobart Paving Company Limited[2] in the town of Croydon, where two of the band members grew up.

[9] Another Select editor, Andrew Harrison, wrote that it "recasts Sarah as a divorcee Julie Christie with the beautifully gauche lines 'Rain falls/Just like Elvis did'".

An alternative mix of "Hobart Paving", created for the single but ultimately not used, was eventually released on the Nice Price outtakes collection in 2006.