Sat in Your Lap

The more you know the more you see you don't know.

I think this song is about our search for knowledge and trying to hold on to it. I quickly understood the ( just when I think I'm king part ), the high we get from knowledge, just when we think we're on top of the world, and the min you get something wrong or told that you're wrong you've only just begined.

"...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...

I think this song is about how no one really knows anything. The singer expresses a yearning to know everything, and is upset by the fact that they cannot. They think that if they have certain knowledge then they'll be happy, but because no one has this then the singer is dissatisfied.

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!"

Kate Bush is amazing.

Personally, the song is in accordance to how I sometimes feel; it's about wanting to be successful and be as knowledgeable or talented as those around you, but not wanting to do the work necessary for it. The most evident lines for me are these:

"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."

"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."

The 'King' parts are about doing the work and getting it all done so there's that feeling of accomplishment and wanting to relax/be rewarded, only to find there's more to do and it feels never-ending.

Give me the title of a degree and I can fake it. Later I think as she accepts learning and later she seeks it out. There is something sort of occult about this song I can't lay my hands on. Crowley always claimed to seek out hidden knowledge and enough was never enough. He was also a poet. The drums and the stalacto beat of the song lyrics combined with Kate's vocals.

This is really just my personal view. If I wanted light and knowledge I would search it from God.

I wonder is there anything behind the misheard lyric? If it's intentional, the song takes on a whole new promiscuous meaning.