Seeing as the song just before this one is about the Elephant during her trial and sentencing, it would make sense that this one is about the Elephant awaiting the gallows in her prison cell.
The first two lines describe the Elephant's last meal:
"Sugar down the syrup in the Queen Anne's lace
Shining in the light of nightshade"
It's customary for a condemned prisoner to have a meal of their choice served to them the day of or before their execution. In some cases inmates are either too greif stricken or anxious to finish the meal once it's prepared for them. The second half of the stanza illustrates this:
"Grapes gone sour and the spinach went to seed
It was spindly and sick from the outset"
The rest of the song seems to adress the Elephant's struggle to accept her fate and her "wherewithal to leave" as she awaits her execution. The Labrador tries to assure her that "time is an illusion" and not worth fretting over, but this only seems trouble the Elephant more, causing her to think of Aubergine.
Now aubergine is another word for eggplant so I'm assuming the elephant admires a particular eggplant and that's what the chorus of the song is about. Perhaps an eggplant was part of her last meal request and the "Aubergine" she's referring to is in the cell with her...or maybe she is reminded of another Eggplant named Aubergine. Animals falling in love with other species seems to be a recurring theme throughout this album so the idea that the Elephant loves an Eggplant doesn't seem too farfetched. In either case, Aubergine speaks to her:
"You can be your body but please don't mind
if I don't fancy myself mine--you at 32 still tied to your poor mother's apron strings!"
Aubergine seems to be suggesting to the Elephant that one's own body is merely an illusion and their love for one another is an allegory. If an Elephant can fall in love with an Eggplant, does ones physical form really matter?
The final stanza has the Elephant waking up after traveling down a "solipsistic road" in the desert carrying a basket full of Eggplants who ask her about a bible passage on her wrists. This could either be describing an Epiphany the Elephant is having just before her execution or an actual journey through the afterlife. Solipsism is the belief that only one's own mind is certain to exist (very mewithoutYou) so perhaps the Eggplants inquiring about the scripture written on her wrists is just another illustration of how in order to truly believe that anything is real, you have to have faith.
Here's my very long winded interpretation...
Seeing as the song just before this one is about the Elephant during her trial and sentencing, it would make sense that this one is about the Elephant awaiting the gallows in her prison cell.
The first two lines describe the Elephant's last meal:
"Sugar down the syrup in the Queen Anne's lace Shining in the light of nightshade"
It's customary for a condemned prisoner to have a meal of their choice served to them the day of or before their execution. In some cases inmates are either too greif stricken or anxious to finish the meal once it's prepared for them. The second half of the stanza illustrates this:
"Grapes gone sour and the spinach went to seed It was spindly and sick from the outset"
The rest of the song seems to adress the Elephant's struggle to accept her fate and her "wherewithal to leave" as she awaits her execution. The Labrador tries to assure her that "time is an illusion" and not worth fretting over, but this only seems trouble the Elephant more, causing her to think of Aubergine.
Now aubergine is another word for eggplant so I'm assuming the elephant admires a particular eggplant and that's what the chorus of the song is about. Perhaps an eggplant was part of her last meal request and the "Aubergine" she's referring to is in the cell with her...or maybe she is reminded of another Eggplant named Aubergine. Animals falling in love with other species seems to be a recurring theme throughout this album so the idea that the Elephant loves an Eggplant doesn't seem too farfetched. In either case, Aubergine speaks to her:
"You can be your body but please don't mind if I don't fancy myself mine--you at 32 still tied to your poor mother's apron strings!"
Aubergine seems to be suggesting to the Elephant that one's own body is merely an illusion and their love for one another is an allegory. If an Elephant can fall in love with an Eggplant, does ones physical form really matter?
The final stanza has the Elephant waking up after traveling down a "solipsistic road" in the desert carrying a basket full of Eggplants who ask her about a bible passage on her wrists. This could either be describing an Epiphany the Elephant is having just before her execution or an actual journey through the afterlife. Solipsism is the belief that only one's own mind is certain to exist (very mewithoutYou) so perhaps the Eggplants inquiring about the scripture written on her wrists is just another illustration of how in order to truly believe that anything is real, you have to have faith.