Here's my take. It might be 20 years late, but still.    
      
   Well, the smart money's on Harlow* and the moon is in the street   
   And the shadow boys are breaking all the laws   
   And you're east of East Saint Louis and the wind is making speeches   
   And the rain sounds like a round of applause   
      
   //Harry Harlow* was an American psychologist best known for his    
   aternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on   
   rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregiving and   
   companionship to social and cognitive development.   
   //This first bit is about Needing love and care. The shadow boys havn't got   
   that care. Rain and wind are ways to paint up a gloomy mood.    
      
   And Napoleon is weeping in a carnival saloon   
   His invisible fiancee's in the mirror   
   And the band is going home, it's raining hammers, it's raining nails   
   And it's true there's nothing left for him down here   
      
   // I don't know the significance of the name Napoleon. It appears severeal   
   times during Waits's career. But I read this bit to be an enhancer of the   
   lonely man. Another lonenly man is missing his love, maybe he never had one or   
   maybe she's been lost.    
   More rain. More gloom.    
      
   And it's time, time, time   
   And it's time, time, time   
   And it's time, time, time, that you love   
   And it's time, time, time   
      
   //It's tricky to tell if it's time that he loves, or if it's time TO love. I   
   honestly can't tell what fit the narrative best.    
      
   And they all pretend they're orphans and their memory's like a train   
   You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away   
   And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget   
   That history puts a saint in every dream   
   Well, she said she'd stick around until the bandages came off   
   But these mama's boys just don't know when to quit   
   And Mathilda asks the sailors "are those dreams or are those prayers?"   
   So close your eyes, son, and this won't hurt a bit   
      
   //This bit is probably about drinking (because of the lack of love). They   
   _pretending_ to be orphans are self pity in their loneliness/lack of mother   
   figure (Read C.G. Jung for some of that deep stuff). Memories di   
   inishing/dissapearing meaning they    
   drink their brains to mush. Cant remember tell the things you cant forget   
   MIGHT be about idolizing the good parts of a previous love, and forgetting the   
   bad stuff. Ergo History puts a saint in every dream (mind you theese dreams   
   seem to be spirit-fueld    
   remembrances of lost/lack of love, right?). Also. Mathilda is Tom's name for   
   Booze in Tom Traubert's Blues.    
      
   Well, things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl   
   The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street   
   And when they're on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot   
   And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet   
      
   // This bit is tricky. The Calendar Girl might be Mathilda, or perhaps the   
   calendar girl is a representation of time watching from the walls, IE. The   
   eyes on the girls on the calendars see everything the men do in their   
   delirium. The diving of cars and    
   splash in to the streets might mean falling over in the rain, or plainly   
   speaking in their misery. And when they're on a roll, when the drinking men   
   indulge in misery, the watchfull eyes of the calendar girls get broken hearted   
   over seeing is so that she    
   use the razorblade on hersel, and a thousand pidgeons fall at her feet.   
   Pidgeons representing innocence. Something like that, or maybe not.   
      
   //Alternative idea: Maybe The calendar girl is the unrelated women on the   
   street that the drunken men help themselves to/catcall to a degree that the   
   calander girl find uncomfortable and she uses a razor to protect herself. The   
   loss of innocense idea    
   translates.    
      
   So put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips   
   As the dish outside the window fills with rain   
   Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart   
   And pay the fiddler off 'til I come back again   
      
   //the candle and the kiss surely is a way of caring for someone in a bad   
   state, even though gloomy times are upon you/them (dish filling with rain puts   
   a time dimension on the gloom which might indicate that it's a long suffering   
   and not just a shower).    
   A stranger with the weeds in your heart might be that you/she/they dont   
   recognize the passed out drunk man, but they know they love him when he's   
   sober. Pay the fiddler of = face the concequences of the actions (the careres   
   or the carees?)   
      
      
   ERGO: Men drink because they lack love. This has causes and effects upon   
   strangers and those close to them. The drinking men need love and care so that   
   they can stop drinking. A disease is not cured with blame.    
      
   BUT That's just my quick analysis. And what do I know, really?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)