I know a mouse...

I've been thinking about the lyrics to Bike... and this is kind of a silly question/discussion but anybody have any thoughts as to how this line should be interpreted:

"I know a mouse and he hasn't got a house I don't know why I call him Gerald"

Is it either

a) I know a mouse and he hasn't got a house
I don't know why I call him Gerald

OR

b) I know a mouse and he hasn't got a house, I don't know why
I call him Gerald

Notice the divisions in the lines, the first implies that Syd doesn't know why he calls him Gerald. And the second implies that Syd doesn't know why he hasn't got a house.

WHICH ONE IS IT?!

I think it's 'I don't know why I call him Gerald.'

I always thought the opposite. "...I don't know why/I call him Gerald".

This is the one I was leaning toward, but then a friend brought it up. And then we had a pretty funny discussion about it, so I was just wondering what others thought. Since, you know, we can't exactly phone up Syd and ask him

Well, there seems to be a full stop at ...and he hasn't got a house[.], so the next line would be about his unknown reason for calling the mouse Gerald. To me, it seems.

But on another point in this song, before I had ever read the lyrics, I wondered whether the cloak he borrowed with the tear up its front, the red and black one was had for months or four months.

V true.

Another interesting point!
But, that would actually be printed.

It wasn't printed on my vinyl copy of A NICE PAIR which is how I first heard Bike, and was a long time before I'd seen the lyrics written.

Assuming Syd knows his grammar, he's saying that he doesn't know why he calls the mouse Gerald. Also if you look at other lines from the same song that lie in the same metrical position as the lyric in question (e.g. 'It's got a basket, a bell that rings, and things to make it look good,' & c.) the trend seems to agree.

There he is! In the flesh!

I figured YOU'd know, of all people . . .

But why, just because his nickname is the subject, and since he's echoed what I and others before me have said, is his opinion the final authority?

He's an addle-pated brawler anyway. What's he know?

I'm the authority on everything. I thought you knew that by now.

Yeah, Gerald's the center of the universe remember?

Duh.

Ha. I think he doesn't know why he calls him Gerald, but the other option is interesting too. About the cloak, it has nearly the same meaning "for months" or "four months".

I think Syd diliberately put that phrase in that particular place in that particular order to mean both meanings...and have people like us debate over it.