I know that The Fool is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as that's a matter of public record, but that's never what the song was about to me.
To me, it was about scientific visionaries who saw the world a different way from the rest of us and advanced mankind as a result, but who were derided as fools or even persecuted for their assertions.
The line "The fool on the hill sees the sun going down / and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round" especially make me think of Copernicus, the most known proponent of the theory that the Sun was the centre of the solar system and the Earth revolved around it. I can imagine him standing on a hill watching the sunset, and realising that what was actually happening was the earth was rotating until the sun moved behind it, while the sun stayed still.
I also think of people such as Newton, Einstein and Galileo Galilei, and especially Richard Feynman, a man renowned for acting foolish to express complicated ideas to laymen.
I know that's not what the song is really about, but it's what comes to mind for me.
I know that The Fool is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as that's a matter of public record, but that's never what the song was about to me.
To me, it was about scientific visionaries who saw the world a different way from the rest of us and advanced mankind as a result, but who were derided as fools or even persecuted for their assertions.
The line "The fool on the hill sees the sun going down / and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round" especially make me think of Copernicus, the most known proponent of the theory that the Sun was the centre of the solar system and the Earth revolved around it. I can imagine him standing on a hill watching the sunset, and realising that what was actually happening was the earth was rotating until the sun moved behind it, while the sun stayed still.
I also think of people such as Newton, Einstein and Galileo Galilei, and especially Richard Feynman, a man renowned for acting foolish to express complicated ideas to laymen.
I know that's not what the song is really about, but it's what comes to mind for me.