I think this song is an insight into the relationship between a gay man and a straight woman, here Wainwright and his sister. He recognises, painfully and a little jealously, that she is weaving herself into domestic life and won't have as much time for him.
"I know how it goes, you gotta ring/Your little finger" - allusion to marriage here, I think. "Make the sun come out on Sunday afternoon" - the role of the wife in the family, keeping the whole thing together.
Against the backdrop of their mother's illness, "things are harder for her now", both Wainwrights are forced to confront their own mortality: "neither of us is really that much older than each other anymore". But while his sister is able to take comfort in the family that she has made, Rufus has to accept the fact that he will never be able to play the conventional happy homemaker, who "heats the plates/And serves a little wine". As their family has crumbled and there is "nobody in the room anymore", he reminds her of their relationship, making a desperate cry out for his sister to "call him back", to give him a sign that they are still connected somehow. The hollow echo behind his voice signals however that he is indeed alone, and talking to thin air.
I think this song is an insight into the relationship between a gay man and a straight woman, here Wainwright and his sister. He recognises, painfully and a little jealously, that she is weaving herself into domestic life and won't have as much time for him. "I know how it goes, you gotta ring/Your little finger" - allusion to marriage here, I think. "Make the sun come out on Sunday afternoon" - the role of the wife in the family, keeping the whole thing together.
Against the backdrop of their mother's illness, "things are harder for her now", both Wainwrights are forced to confront their own mortality: "neither of us is really that much older than each other anymore". But while his sister is able to take comfort in the family that she has made, Rufus has to accept the fact that he will never be able to play the conventional happy homemaker, who "heats the plates/And serves a little wine". As their family has crumbled and there is "nobody in the room anymore", he reminds her of their relationship, making a desperate cry out for his sister to "call him back", to give him a sign that they are still connected somehow. The hollow echo behind his voice signals however that he is indeed alone, and talking to thin air.