Carmensita

my take on the song is that he is speaking about a lover of his, who is passionate and fiery like the sun, but because she is also like alcohol, she is intoxicating and is known for volatile behavior. his love for her, is like a beard that grows on him, and becomes almost too uncontrollable, because though he tries to cut it off, it grows back. she attracts him because she is exotic and otherworldly, and because he feels her presence even when she leaves. he knows she is too much but stays with her. he beckons her to soften her ways, and tries to overpower her, but he is left damaged in trying to tame her. he likens her to a snake who constricts him and his love in her heart. the relationship is consuming him, and he is lost in the myriad colors in her eyes, and how they change with emotion. the end is ambiguous, it could mean that while the two separate, her a snake and him an elephant, and remain entwined at the very least in friendship or aquaintance, and that all is good, or that they remain together, consumed by each other in passion. beautiful stuff, i must say, and definitely about the passion of love and how it consumes us, inebriates us, entrances us. you can tell that a man like devendra is an emotional dude whose feminine side is an attractive quality, an artist's intuition so to speak which draws him to emotional, raw human beings. i think this song has much to do with his relationship with natalie portman as she is in the music video. portman is a powerful actress on screen and even at a young age had the power to elicit emotions even with just her eyes, a quality she has yet to forget. no doubt the two had an intense relationship, a fiery tryst that was meant to burn out, as its foundations were that of lust.