The Refusal of the Call (in the World)
“All I Ever Wanted”
performed by Amick Byram
and Linda Dee Shayne
from The Prince of Egypt
soundtrack
[Moses]:
Gleaming in the moonlight,
cool and clean and all I’ve ever known,
all I ever wanted.
Sweet perfumes of incense,
graceful rooms of alabaster stone,
all I ever wanted…This is my home!
With my father, mother, brother–
oh, so noble, oh, so strong!
Now I am home.
Here among my trappings and belongings
I belong.
And, if anybody doubts it,
they couldn’t be more wrong!I am a sovereign prince of Egypt,
a son of the proud history that’s shown,
etched on ev’ry wall!
Surely, this is all I ever wanted,
all I ever wanted,
all I ever wanted…[Queen]:
This is your home, my son.
Here the river brought you,
and it’s here the river meant..
to be your home.
Now you know the truth, love…
Now, forget and be content.
When the gods send you a blessing,
you don’t ask why it was sent…
I feel like this was a very good song to represent the refusal of the call. In the Prince of Egypt, Moses finds out that he is not the born son of the kingdom. At this point in the movie, Moses is refusing his call to go back to the family he actually came from. He is in denial and believes that he is where he belongs. Yes, the Gods may have saved Moses and it may have been his destiny to reach the kingdom in his small basket floating on the river, yet it turns out to also be his destiny to find out about his real family. Out of disbelief and anger, Moses is refusing to return to his original home because what he has at that moment, he believes it is all he ever wanted, although he wouldn’t have even had the choice of having those possessions to begin with.
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Moses thought that he had everything he ever wanted and he was content in his life. Moses could not understand why it was him that was chosen to be a prince. He was shocked to know that he was found in the Nile river and adopted into their family receiving a “good life” when he so easily could’ve had a hard life. He thought he had everything he wanted and now he is confused since he discovered his past. He is scared of the future and what this history means. He is telling himself that “this is my home” because he wants to believe that that is where he truly belongs.
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Another awesome movie… this song is so absolutely raw, I feel his pain as he is singing it. A really good song for the refusal of the call, as well. I think it really says something about our comfort zone, and how it can become so uncomfortable when we know what we are meant to do. Also, I think the way his mother talks to him suggests about the hero journey that not everyone will agree with our decisions. But, we know that Moses went on to become one of the greatest men on earth, so we also know that as young heroes, we sometimes must ignore the pain that we will cause others to truly fulfill our destiny. Oh and if you take spanish, you should totally look this up on Youtube when it is sung in Spanish. It’s even more beautiful.
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This movie is so filled with great music, it’s kind of hard to figure out where they came up with it all. I think that the lines which best show that it’s a refusal of the call are these:
This is your home, my son.
Here the river brought you,
and it’s here the river meant..
to be your home.
Now you know the truth, love…
Now, forget and be content.
When the gods send you a blessing,
you don’t ask why it was sent…
The queen is helping Moses refuse the call by telling him to be content with his home, not to go back to where he came from because it was a blessing to get to where he presently is. This is a really pretty song, and it goes well with the whole refusal of the call theme.
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This is the perfect example of refusing the call. Moses refuses his call because he is so shocked that he has been living a lie. He has grown accustomed to his extravagant lifestyle, and does not want his entire world to be changed. Deep down inside Moses knows he has a connection to the Israelites, but doesn’t want to accept the fact that he is the “illegitamate son” of the Pharoah.
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So I absolutly love this song and movie. I think it is a perfect fit for refusing the call. Moses is content with his life and the satus quo. When he first hears about his call and who he really is he has trouble accepting it. Looking at this song, it seems like Moses is just trying to convince himself that he doesnt want to embrace his call. His life has been one of privlage and it is not easy to leave that and embrace his journey. He keeps trying to tell himself that he has all he has ever wanted, but by the end of the song he begins to doubt himself.
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I think that this is perfect for the refusal of the call. The song represents the world and how Moses’s family is trying to prevent him from accepting his call. He is more likely to refuse the call when the only family he has ever known and trusted are telling him that where he is is the place that he belongs. He doesn’t want to accept his call, which subconsciously he knows he must. It is a great song and I really like the movie.
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This song is a great depiction of the belly of the whale. With the plagues that swept through Egypt during the exodus, it shows the difficult times and trials that the people in Egypt went through. It was hard for them God puts them through this, they lose their faith in God and truly fall into the belly of the whale, just like Jonah did in the biblical story where he questioned his faith in God. Just like in the hero jouney, the belly of the whale in this story made the people question whether the journey, or exodus, they were embarking on was actually the right thing to do. At this point in the hero journey, people begin to question whether the should continue the journey or not when they run into certain problem. I like this song as a represenatation of the belly of the hale and it really shows that when we goes through tough times in our own personal hero journey, we have to find the strength to rise above and continue for ourselves and for the good of others.
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this song is a good representation of refusing your call while you are still in the world. moses is so conflicted about what to do that he is just getting more confused the longer he thinks about it. he finally has all he could ask for (money, a good family, high social standing, good job, etc.) and yet he still feels like he doesn’t belong for whatever reason and like there is somewhere greater that he should be and something more meaningful that he should be doing with his life. I think he sort of feels a little ungrateful for feeling this way too. it seems like he feels guilty for wanting something more. this song also shows how the people in the world are trying to hold him back in the world to “protect” him. at one point his mom says:
“This is your home, my son.
Here the river brought you,
and it’s here the river meant..
to be your home.”
his mom is trying to keep him safe because he is her son, but she is also holding moses back from going on the journey he feels called to.
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