On a typical day in my busy city I read a tiny story in a free paper 'Elephant killed by landmine'. It was about an incident in Burma, the deeply troubled nation ruled by a vicious military junta. The pathos and absurdity of this struck me, the innocent Elephant killed by one of mankind's most malicious inventions, trapped in a war it does not understand.
This song uses that as a symbol, to convey frustration and resignation at absurdity and being trapped within something one can't change, be it the world at large, a relationship or one's own self.