1. “Forty-Six & 2” (from Aenima)
“My shadow’s shedding skin
I’ve been picking Scabs again
I’m down, digging through
My old muscles looking for a clue.”
If you’ve ever wondered what happens to the shadow that is spoken of in “Forty-six and two,” it’s a nod to a concept conceived by the philosopher Carl Jung, who referred to our deepest subconscious as our “shadow. “. If you need to convince even more that this is the true meaning of the song, the title also reflects Jung’s theory that humanity can eventually evolve to have two additional chromosomes, finally achieving our maximum potential.
2. “Rosetta Stoned” (from 10,000 Days)
“Strapped down my bed
Feet cold and eyes red
Sunkist and Sudafed
gyroscopes and infrared.”
This 10,000-day distant court seems to focus on someone who ended up institutionalized after having a very strange encounter with an alien who fed him with orange slices and nicknamed him “the chosen one.” However, the question arises if there was ever really an alien or if it was just a DMT trip that went wrong.
3. “Sweat” (from Opiate)
“The sun is setting cool again
I’m the thinker and the fisherman
and I’m trying to remember when.”
The meaning behind this song from Tool’s early days is certainly debatable. Is it witty poetry or just pointless wanderings? Perhaps it is another interpretation of a drug-induced journey and how one can lose his sense of identity and yet have several identities at the same time while in a hallucinogenic experience.
4. “Lateralus” (from Lateralus)
“Black
Then
White are
All I see
In my infancy
Red and yellow then came to be
Reaching out to me
Lets me see.”
This intricate lyrical pattern is designed after the Fibonacci sequence, which adds each pair of subsequent numbers to generate the next digits of the series, and finally becomes a spiral. It is assumed that the meaning of this line is representative of the evolution of the senses during the stages of a psychedelic drug experience.
5. “Fear Inoculum” (from Fear Inoculum)
“Immunity, long overdue
Contagion, I exhale you
Naive, I opened up to you
Venom in mania
Now, contagion, I exhale you.”
Maybe it’s because we haven’t had so much time to digest the lyrics of the new single long-awaited and expected by Tool, but the lyric direction is not entirely clear. However, during the current press tour of the band, they have suggested that the overall concept of the album focuses mainly on the wisdom and evolution that aging brings.
6. “H.” (from Aenima)
“What’s coming through is alive
What’s holding up is a mirror
But what’s singing songs is a snake, it is
Lookin’ to turn my piss to wine
They’re both totally void of hate, and
Killin’ me just the same.”
The meaning behind this song is generally misunderstood as heroin due to the dubious nature of the title’s only initial and the vague metaphors within the lyrics. However, during the presentation of Tool in Lollapalooza in 1997, Maynard announced that the song was about having children.
7. “Third Eye” (from Aenima)
“Dreaming of that face again
It’s bright and blue and shimmering
Grinning wide
And comforting me with it’s three warm and wild eyes.”
While it is obvious that “Third Eye” is about enlightening oneself through the use of psychedelics, this particular line goes a little deeper and mentions a blue face with three eyes, possibly in reference to Shiva, the blue Hindu god bright with a third eye that emits incinerating flames.
8. “Eulogy” (from Aenima)
“Don’t cry here
Or feel too down
Not all martyrs see divinity
But at least you tried.”
From a superficial perspective, “Eulogy” is simply about remembering someone who died but was not very dear. However, this particular song is dripping with satire, ultimately bombarding what appears to be an extreme religious figure, as evidenced by the line “not all martyrs see divinity.” Some speculate that it could have been in reference to the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, which would not be surprising, since Maynard has blatantly expressed his disdain for him before.
9. “Reflection” (from Lateralus)
“So crucify the ego before it’s far too late
And leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical
And you will come to find that we are all one mind
Capable of all that’s imagined and all conceivable
So let the light touch you so that the words spill through
And let the past break through, bringing out our hope and reason.”
This Lateralus cut uses the moon as a metaphor for the ego and explores how selfishness can give someone a false sense of trust due to their own voluntary ignorance. Without opening the mind and letting go of that ego, true knowledge will never be truly attainable.
10. “Die Eier Von Satan” (from Aenima)
“In eine Schüssel geben
Butter einrühren
gemahlene Nüsse zugeben und den Teig verkneten.”
The German gibberish pronounced emphatically and with authority in “Die Eier Von Satan” is really just a cookie recipe. It is likely that there is no really deep explanation for this beyond Maynard exercising his famous sense of humor.