¤ milky moon ¤

I always loved the imagery of the baboons and sows etc. groping at the gate of the looming lake, but I'd never understood what it really meant or considered that they could be describing types of people - now it all makes sense, with the "talk in town becoming downright sickening"! Thanks for that interpretation.

Since I think she said the song was some sort of letter to her sister, it makes me wonder to what extent her family and close friends have a better understanding of her lyrics. I'm sure they have much more insight than the average listener, but there still must be plenty of passages that only Joanna really knows the true meaning of... I wonder if she ever explains her lyrics to those close to her.

"The lines are fading in my kingdom
(though I have never known the way to border them in)"
- expression of a disintegration of order and frustration at the lack of knowledge how to maintain the order; i.e. the speaker's world is falling apart and she doesn't known how to stop it
"so the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen"
- muddy as in 'dirty'; baboons are aggressive, sows wallow in mud; both are muddy-mouthed - references to people indulging in scurrilous rumours
"grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen"
- there is also a comparison to a riot in a kingdom whose 'lines are fading': peasants clawing at the castle gates. "Looming lake" picks up the theme of inundation as disorder that runs through the album - what was once orderly and neat becomes an inundation (symbolising chaos) waiting to happen, and about to be released by the muddy-mouthed baboons and sows.
"And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from with in"
- more general symbols of disintegrating order: the mail is, in the popular imagination, the last service to remain in working order during a social collapse; the rich can no longer afford/access electricity/lamp oil.
"the talk in town's becoming downright sickening"
- the effect of all this disorder and decay: people are forgetting their manners, playing the blame game, and what have you.

Briefly, my reading of that stanza.

Jordan~ - that's a really enlightening post, thank you for adding yet more layers of meaning to a song that I'm liking more and more as the years go by.

I'd only really thought about the "muddy mouths" line in a literal sense (and even that is quite vivid), but your interpretation has opened my mind further.

"And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within" remains one of my favourite lines (not just in this song, but globally), and is a perfect demonstration that simple words can convey moving and precise descriptions. Your other comments help to put the other lines in this section into the same context.