Lyric discussion by wayne_ozacrot 

Cover art for My Old Flame lyrics by John Vanderslice

I agree, this song is amazing. Personally, I think that given JV's penchant for narrative, he means this song at face value: his wife is dead, he misses her. It does add a lot of strangeness to an already alienated song, but I enjoy it. This might be my favorite JV song, mostly because of the vocal harmonies.