To me, this song is an ironic view on love. You know, that whole "soul mate" stuff, about there is one person that is exactly the one that will make your life complete
Just think about it. There are over 6 billions of people in the world... if only one of them is supposed to be your soul mate, you are in deep trouble
IMHO, Ana Ng is about it. He has found his soul mate, but she lives just across the globe! We can see it in the following verse:
Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desk-top globe
We can also see that he says how Ana Ng is his soulmate:
Showing the home of the one this was written for
After that, he talks about the coriolis force and other metaphors to show again that Ana Ng lives across the globe
My apartment looks upside down from there
Water spirals the wrong way out the sink
But the chorus is the most important part for me:
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you
I find this part really amusing. Notice how he has accepted that they won't ever meet. I really like that line: "they're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you". In other words: She doesn't even know he exists. However, he is deeply convincend that she is the woman of his life
The rest of the song I don't understand. :)
I think it is just to show that he loves her, and throw some clever jokes in the middle (like the broken record one).
In the overall, I find the lyrics to these music just awesome. The only problem is the voice of the vocalist. Although I'm already used to it, everyone that I show this music just start screaming: "Please, stop it! I can't stand his voice"
That's really too bad. I hope Elliott Smith you record this song some day...