The first time I heard this song, it was being used as pre-show music for a college production of Vinegar Tom. I loved the way the song sounds and changes time signatures from the verse to the chorus. Also, it’s Kate Bush dude!
A couple of quotes about the song from SongMeanings:
“…a song about epistemology… This song is about how hard it is to obtain knowledge, and how when you get it, it often isn’t as satisfying as you thought it would be … ‘I hold a cup of wisdom, but there is nothing within’ … You achieve some intellectual goal, and you see that it’s just a foothill for a bigger mountain of knowledge behind … ‘I’ve been doing it for years. My goal is moving near. It says, “Look! I’m over here.”, Then it up and disappears’ … (perrific.com).
I must admit, just when I think I’m king (I just begin… to write THE DREAMING…
SAT IN YOUR LAP concerns alienation and the ‘blessing or curse’ to (want to) see deeper. The opening lines express exclusion from the ordered, functioning bourgeois world. Projecting ability onto others but not being able to fit into the “triviality of everydayness”. It ‘hurts’ because it is not real enough. Colin Wilson describes two types of Outsider: the one who feels excluded from knowledge; and the one who Knows (the godlike ‘…I’m King’). The song pendulates between these high and low mental states. (Go see ‘The Outsider’, Colin Wilson, 1956.)
‘When I’m king’ everything fits into place and you see knowledge is Sat In Your Lap. But ‘when I’m dunce’ (see video for SIYL), there is nothing there/within.
SIYL also highlights the dangers of (deluded) knowledge and the knowledge-quest… Adolf Hitler: ‘By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell - and hell, heaven … The greater the lie, the more readily will it be believed’ (Mein Kampf) …
Choose wisely your teachers!The song regards philosophical enquiry - The Longest Journey - as a religious experience… effort, balance, frustration, realisation…
It reminds me of ANNE SEXTON’S “GODS” …And maybe the search ends with:
“Ha, ha, ha
Ho, ho, ho
And a couple of tra - la - las
That’s how we laugh the day away
In the Merry Old Land of Oz!”
And of course, the lyrics:
I see the people working and see it working for them,
And so I want to join in, but then I find it hurts me.
Some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap
Some say that knowledge is something that you never have
I see the people happy, so can it happen for me?
‘Coz when I am unhappy, there is nothing that can move me.
Some say that knowledge is something that you never have
Some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap
Some say that heaven is hell, some say that hell is heaven.
I must admit, just when I think I’m king (I just begin)
Just when I think I’m king, I must admit (I just begin)
Just when I think I’m king
(I just begin.)
I h’ve been doing it for years, my goal is moving near,
I says “Look I am over here,” then it up and disappears.
Some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap
Some say that knowledge is ho ho ho ho.
I want to be a Lawyer, I want to be a scholar,
But I really can’t be bothered, ooh just
Gimme it quick, gimme it, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Some say that knowledge is ho ho ho ho
Some say that knowledge is ho ho ho ho
Some say that heaven is hell, some say that hell is heaven,
I must admit, just when I think I’m king (I just begin)
Just when I think I’m king, I must admit (I just begin)
Just when I think everything’s going great (I just begin)
Hey I get the break
Hey I’m gonna take it all, (I just begin,)
When I’m king, (just begin.)
In my dome of ivory, a home of activity,
I want the answers quickly, but I don’t have no energy,
I hold a cup of wisdom, but there is nothing within,
My cup she never overfloweth and ’tis I that moan and groaneth,
Some grey and white matter, (Give me the Karma Mama
a jet to Mecca, Tibet or Jeddah,
To Salisbury, A monastery,
The longest journey, across the desert,
Across the weather, acaross the elements.
Across the water)
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