The chair is a reference to the psychiatrist's chair. Diamond battled with this song for 6 months following a near-breakdown after divorce and a move from NY to LA. His failure to land the part of Lenny Bruce in the movie Lenny left him close to breaking point and Diamond was depressed. Diamond eventually took a 4 year sabbatical from performing after his landmark appearance at the Greek Theater in LA in 1972. I am I Said has a far deeper meaning than most casual listeners imagine. The song is a masterpiece by a great songwriter. By his own admission, Diamond spent months in psychotherapy and this song explains wonderfully his thoughts and feelings at the time. In Gestalt therapy, a patient projects his thoughts into an empty chair while a counsellor looks on making notes. This may well explain the meaning of the word chair. It is too easy to dismiss the 'chair' as a trite attempt to make a rhyme but Diamond is nothing but meticulous in his lyric writing and he has said that IAIS underwent countless rewrites until it said exactly what he wanted it to say. Diamond no doubt felt so alone and so alienated that he must have felt that no-one was listening to his tortured cries - not even the (psycho-analyst's) chair.
@shilo507 Very interesting, I didn't know that about Gestalt therapy. I always assumed the 'not even the chair' reference simply meant he was lonely and longing to talk to somebody but no matter how much he may cry out there was nobody to listen
@shilo507 Very interesting, I didn't know that about Gestalt therapy. I always assumed the 'not even the chair' reference simply meant he was lonely and longing to talk to somebody but no matter how much he may cry out there was nobody to listen
The chair is a reference to the psychiatrist's chair. Diamond battled with this song for 6 months following a near-breakdown after divorce and a move from NY to LA. His failure to land the part of Lenny Bruce in the movie Lenny left him close to breaking point and Diamond was depressed. Diamond eventually took a 4 year sabbatical from performing after his landmark appearance at the Greek Theater in LA in 1972. I am I Said has a far deeper meaning than most casual listeners imagine. The song is a masterpiece by a great songwriter. By his own admission, Diamond spent months in psychotherapy and this song explains wonderfully his thoughts and feelings at the time. In Gestalt therapy, a patient projects his thoughts into an empty chair while a counsellor looks on making notes. This may well explain the meaning of the word chair. It is too easy to dismiss the 'chair' as a trite attempt to make a rhyme but Diamond is nothing but meticulous in his lyric writing and he has said that IAIS underwent countless rewrites until it said exactly what he wanted it to say. Diamond no doubt felt so alone and so alienated that he must have felt that no-one was listening to his tortured cries - not even the (psycho-analyst's) chair.
@shilo507 Very interesting, I didn't know that about Gestalt therapy. I always assumed the 'not even the chair' reference simply meant he was lonely and longing to talk to somebody but no matter how much he may cry out there was nobody to listen
@shilo507 Very interesting, I didn't know that about Gestalt therapy. I always assumed the 'not even the chair' reference simply meant he was lonely and longing to talk to somebody but no matter how much he may cry out there was nobody to listen