LYRICS:

I have saddened myself
With the world and all its sickness
I pray upon the wasted word
That you said
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I have bothered my mind
With the words and all their meanings
I waste upon the words you said
To me
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I know everyone
I know everything
I know everyone
Except myself
Except myself
Except myself
⠀
I have fallen to pride
With the world and all its measure
I pray upon the wasted word
That you said
⠀
I know everyone
I know everything
I know everyone
Except myself
Except myself
Except myself
⠀
I have saddened myself
With the world and all its sickness
I pray upon the wasted word
That you said
⠀
I know everyone
I know everything
I know everyone
Except myself
Except myself
Except myself
⠀
Except myself
Except myself
Except myself
⠀
I couldn't leave it
⠀
I pray upon the wasted word


SONG MEANING:

This reflects my intended meaning behind the song, but the song is still open to individual interpretation.

The song is about being overwhelmed by the world and by other people’s words while realizing that the person the speaker understands least is himself.
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“I have saddened myself / With the world and all its sickness” suggests that the speaker has absorbed too much of the suffering, corruption, and ugliness he sees around him. “Sickness” works in both a literal and spiritual sense: the physical sickness and suffering that exist in the world, but also the moral and spiritual sickness of humanity. Importantly, he says “I have saddened myself”—the world provides the material, but his own attention to it is what creates the inner sadness.
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“I pray upon the wasted word / That you said” carries a specifically spiritual meaning. The “wasted word” is God’s word—the truth left in scripture, but “wasted” because humanity so often fails to live by it or use it to make the world better. The speaker is praying upon that neglected truth.
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“I have bothered my mind / With the words and all their meanings” shifts from God’s word to the words of other people. The speaker overthinks language—what people said, what they meant, and what might be hidden underneath it.
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“I waste upon the words you said / To me” suggests that this fixation itself becomes draining. Unlike the earlier “wasted word,” which points toward God’s neglected truth, these are the words of another person. The speaker spends himself on them, giving them too much mental and emotional power.
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“I know everyone / I know everything / I know everyone / Except myself” is the central contradiction of the song. The speaker claims enormous understanding while admitting that self-knowledge is missing. He can analyze other people, the world, meanings, behavior, and perhaps even truth itself, while remaining a mystery to himself.
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The repetition of “except myself” makes that realization increasingly stark.
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“I have fallen to pride / With the world and all its measure” adds another layer. The speaker has begun measuring himself through worldly standards—comparison, judgment, status, knowledge, achievement, or whatever the world uses to assign value.
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Pride also connects naturally to the chorus. Believing you understand everyone and everything can itself become a form of pride, while genuine self-understanding remains absent.
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“I couldn’t leave it / I pray upon the wasted word” leaves the song intentionally unresolved. Even after recognizing the problem, the speaker still cannot completely escape the world, its judgments, or his own fixation. What he returns to is the wasted word—God’s truth, still present even though humanity continually fails to live by it.
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The song recognizes the trap without pretending that recognizing it immediately frees the speaker from it.
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The arc of the song is:
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absorbing the physical and spiritual sickness of the world → turning toward God’s neglected word → obsessing over the words of other people → believing you understand everything around you → recognizing that you do not understand yourself → confronting pride → returning again to God’s word.
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The central idea is the contradiction in “I know everyone / I know everything / Except myself.” The speaker directs enormous attention outward—to the world, other people, their words, and their meanings—while the real unknown has been inside him the entire time.