I partially agree with elements in the three comments preceding mine, but want to add a touch or two.
He's talking about a woman with whom he wants to maintain a relationship, but knows he'll never really get along with; typifying her as a kind of overly-carnal type, with pauperized values. he's obsessed. It's as though, beside being someone not really worthy of an idealistic type like him, she's also some kind of immutable ideal, even in that degraded state; like Pythagoras's Theorem..
And this serves to highlight something about Costello that might partially explain why he has only a cult following: Sometimes he lavishes an amazing amount of craft on squinky subjects like this that arguably aren't worthy of such exertions.
It's nice to imagine a redemptive angle, like he's reaching out to the guys out there who suffer from being stuck in these places. Only I question the efficacy of this approach to interpersonal, emotional truth.
I partially agree with elements in the three comments preceding mine, but want to add a touch or two.
He's talking about a woman with whom he wants to maintain a relationship, but knows he'll never really get along with; typifying her as a kind of overly-carnal type, with pauperized values. he's obsessed. It's as though, beside being someone not really worthy of an idealistic type like him, she's also some kind of immutable ideal, even in that degraded state; like Pythagoras's Theorem..
And this serves to highlight something about Costello that might partially explain why he has only a cult following: Sometimes he lavishes an amazing amount of craft on squinky subjects like this that arguably aren't worthy of such exertions.
It's nice to imagine a redemptive angle, like he's reaching out to the guys out there who suffer from being stuck in these places. Only I question the efficacy of this approach to interpersonal, emotional truth.