Tool - 10,000 Days

I was told to check out the album 10,000 Days by Tool when I told a friend about "Aenema" being my favorite song by the band. What can I say? It's another great album with another captivating album cover. And the equivalent to Aenema would be Vicarious.

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Vicarious is a must hear and a must read. I had to put the entire lyrics:

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Eye on [or I own?] the TV

'cause tragedy thrills me

Whatever flavor it happens to be like

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"Killed by the husband.."

"Drowned by the ocean..."

"Shot by his own son.."

"She used a poison in his tea..

then she kissed him goodbye"

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That's my kind of story

It's no fun 'til someone dies.

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Don't look at me like I am a monster

Frown out your one face, but with the other

Stare like a junkie into the TV

Stare like a zombie

While the mother holds her child

Watches him die

Hands to the sky, cryin' "why, oh why?"

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'Cause I need to watch things die from a distance

Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies

You all need it too - don't lie

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Why can't we just admit it?

We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'

Neither the brave nor bold

Nor brightest of stories told

We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'

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Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies

You all feel the same so why can't we just admit it?

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Blood like rain falling down

Drum on grave and ground

part vampire, part warrior

carnivore and voyeur

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stare at the transmittal

sing to the death rattle

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la, la, la, la, la-lie

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Credulous at best

you desire to believe in

angels in the hearts of men.

but pull your head on out of your hippie haze

and give a listen

shouldnt have to say it all again

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the universe is hostile

so impersonal

devour to survive

so it is, so it's always been

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we all feed on tragedy

it's like blood to a vampire

vicariously, i live while the whole world dies

much better you than i.

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The lyrics are very bold, upfront, and terribly realistic. One word: Television. I once noticed someone wearing a t-shirt that read "Kill Your TV", how necessary to publicly don as a way of getting a very important message across and I think this song does just that. To live vicariously means to live as if you were in the place of another person, to experience somethiing by reading or hearing about or seeing it happen to someone else, and not actually experiencing it directly. We vicariously live infront of our television screens or computer screens when we see, or read about, crimes and other failings of people and society that the media chooses to portray as "reality". The media reports to us what's going on in the world in a carefully selective manner that keeps people in fear. Some of us live our lives based off of the way we interpret what we're exposed to in the news. That is how some of us vicariously live. It's really sick especially knowing that a lot of people don't and can't seem to snap out of this haze. I like how the lyrics confront the listener in saying "you all need it too don't lie" and "why can't we just admit it?" It's like we're all in denial or fearful of stepping out of the comfort zone of our thoughts and questioning the way our lives are being lived and by what standards. There's so much shit going on in the world, unnecessary wars that are deceptivily justified, and we all know this, we're told about it in the media yet we continue to stare silently, and mindlessly, like "zombies". But wait, there are people who do snap out of this haze and those are the folks (aside from people who think critically and logically) who actually experience something harmful and threatening first hand, while the rest of the world remains an audience to their experience. Sure there are crimes and other shits happening in the world that we see, hear, and read about on a daily basis but we're somewhat numb to it so long as it's "happening from a distance", so long as it's not something we, or someone near and dear to us, experience(s).

The next track is Jambi, which is another great piece both lyrically and musically; however, the songs that truly makes this album the best that it is are Wings for Marie Pt 1 and Pt 2. I have never heard anything like those two songs, they're hauntingly beautiful and touching. What makes it touching is how Maynard wrote the song in dedication to his mother who died after being paralyzed for "10,000" days. Part 2 sort of made me want to cry because the words reminded me of my own mother and how I would feel after she was gone.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief ('03)

I always thought that albums or artists with profound and thought-provoking lyrics latent with some call for a mass civil disobedience were not billboard chart-toppers or were purposely not given much exposure to the mainstream masses. Isn't it uncommon for the media to feed people anything that's going to spark any query that might threaten the status quo? But then how do I explain mainstream musicians such as Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Pink Floyd and Neil Young who have written rebellious songs? What am I complaining about? I didn't come to this realization until listening to Radiohead's album, Hail to the Thief, which came at #3 in the billboards.

The title of the album is what caught my attention along with the album cover. Hail to the Thief is, what I'm assuming, a reference to Bush "stealing" the elections. The lyrics are awesome in creatively talking about the bullshitness of society, or at least that's the way I've interpretated them. The lyrics are simple but not blatant. But aside from the lyrics, I think the way some of the songs have been instrumentally arranged and composed is brilliant. I like how songs like "2+2=5" and "Sit Down. Stand Up" build up in pace or tempo, so you hear the song start off slowly and then the sounds smoothly transition into something heavy. That build-up has a lot to do with the message behind the lyrics at the moment, it catches your attention at what's being sung while the pace changes. Another thing I've noticed about the lyrics is how certain phrases or words are consecutively repeated. Some of the lyrics are better understood when hearing the way it's sung and musically composed. Some of the lyrics are vague, but being the sociology-nerd I am I can't help but to interpret them from a sociological standpoint. That's the beauty of vagueness, your left to your imagination and to the best of your knowledge.


"I desperately tried not to write anything political, anything expressing the deep, profound terror I'm living with day to day. But it's just fucking there, and eventually you have to give it up and let it happen."
-Thom Yorke

Track one, "2+2 = 5", reflects George Orwell's 1984 book, which I haven't read but now am more eager to so I can understand the lyrics better. Could the repetitive chant of "paying attention" be any more emphasized?
...It's the devil's way now
There is no way out
You can scream and you can shout
It is too late now ...
...Because
You have not been
Paying attention...(repeat 3x)
Yeah, I'm not feeling it
Paying attention (repeat 3x)
Yeah, I need it
I needed attention (repeat 3x)
Yeah, I love it, the attention
Paying attention (repeat 3x)

Oh, hail to the thief
But I'm not

Don't question my authority or put me in the dock
Because I'm not
Oh, go and tell the king the sky if falling in
But it's not (x2)
Maybe not (x2) ...


The second track, "Sit Down. Stand Up", is another one with lyrics that speak from a power figures perspective:
Sit down, stand up
Sit down, stand up
Walk (sit down) into the jaws of hell ...
We can wipe you out anytime
We can wipe you out
Anytime
Anytime
Stand up
Sit down
Oh
The rain drops (repeat 47x)


The third track, "Sail to the Moon", is beautiful and what makes it so much more precious to hear is that Yorke wrote it for his son. Muscially, "Backdrifts" doesn't hit a spot for me but lyrically it's another critical message that depicts a poor condition of society. Are we moving forward or are we backdrifting?
We're rotten fruit
We're damaged goods
What the hell we've got nothing more to lose
One gust and we will probably crumble
We're backdrifters ...
...You fell into our arms
You fell into our arms
We tried hard but there was nothing we could do
Nothing we could do

All evidence has been buried
All tapes have been erased
But your footsteps give you away
So you're backdrifting

"Go to Sleep" lacks the same musical impact as "Backdrifter" does but the lyrics hit another spot for me:
Something for the rag and bone man
"Over my dead body"
Something big is going to happen
"Over my dead body"

Someone's son or someone's daughter
"Over my dead body"
This is how I end up getting sucked in
"Over my dead body"

I'm going to go to sleep
Let this wash all over me

We don't want to wake the monster
"Tip-toe around, tie him down"
We don't want the loonies taking over
"Tip-toe around, tie them down"

May pretty horses
Come to you as you sleep
I'm not going to sleep
Let this wash all over me

To sleep means to be unconscious, to be unaware of what's going on around you because your mind is off to some other dimension. Someone's son or someone's daughter is going to be impacted by the unconscious public of America today. Yorke said that he's concerned about the fate of his children judging by the conditions of society today. It could get worse. The monsters he mentions could be any of the power elites. Whether it's the president or multi-national corporations investing in the war. These folks are the loonies and the monsters taking over. As for the "rag and bone man"? The rag and bone folks are the poor who get "sucked into" joining the Navy, the Marines, the Army or the Air Forces through their presentations in showing the perks of being part of the service. And what does the average person do in the face of a messed up society? Turn the other cheek and a deaf ear. They escape by "going to sleep" in hopes that all the chaos will have been washed away.

"Where I End You Begin" is another one of my favorite tracks. It's dark and haunting with lyrics laying another creative attack on, or singing from the perspective of, some oppressive force of power. This time this powerful figure might be God:
There's a gap in between
There' s a gap where we meet
Where I end and you begin

And I'm sorry for us
The dinosaurs roam the earth
The sky turns green
Where I end and you begin

I'm up in the clouds
I'm up in the clouds
and I can't come down

I can watch and not take part
Where I end and where you start
Where you, you left me alone
You left me alone

X'll mark the place
Like the parting of the waves
Like a house falling in the sea
In the sea

I will eat you alive (3x)
And there'll be no more lies (3x)

Yeah, definitely has a religious tone to it. Where Jesus ended, man began and the crucification, or X, marks his spot. And Moses parted the waves of the Red Sea. Yet there's a gap between man and God. God doesn't intervene, He simply watches from the sky. The fate of all mankind has already been laid out, right? I don't know.

"We Suck Young Blood" is another haunting goody! Incredible! The sounds of the piano combined with the lyrics give it that haunting effect, it makes you think about how bleak truth and reality are. This song scares me, because I think it's talking about everyone! It speaks to me, it questions me. It makes me feel like a slave reading this. We definitely get sucked when we're young and this is what Yorke had to say about it: "We did this thing, I think we’ve had it in London here now as well, where we’re putting up these ads ‘Hungry? Sick? Begging for a break? Ring this number’. Someone I heard on the radio completely missed the point, or sort of did… or maybe they didn’t… where they kind of thought we were running some Radiohead talent show. Which is just genius - that would have been perfect. Sadly not. It’s a good idea, though.
I think it’s called ‘Your Time Is Up’ simply to take the piss out of the fact that we’re basically old gits now and that we need to suck young blood to keep young! It’s all very tied up with Hollywood as well and, you know, the constant desire to stay young and… fleece people, suck their energy. Corporations… Corporate media groups love to do that…blah, blah, blah. It’s not really about the music business as such, definitely much more about the glamorous world of Hollywood."
Are you hungry?
Are you sick?
Are you begging for a break?
Are you sweet?
Are you fresh?
Are you strung up by the wrists?
We want young blood.

Are you fracturing?
Are you torn at the seams?
Would you do anything?
Fleabitten motheaten?
We suck young blood.

Won't let the creeping ivy
Won't let the nervous bury me
Our veins are thin
Our rivers poisoned
We want the sweet meat
We want the young blood


"The Gloaming" is not that attractive musically, but, once again, the lyrics are. Yorke takes it a step further when saying "murderers, you're murderers/we are not the same as you" and where it says "When the walls bend/with your breathing" I picture the big black wolf from The Three Little Pigs fairy tale huffing and puffing at one of the pig's house, demolishing their niche. Much like the lives and homes of third world victims of wars by America have been, and are being, demolished.

I love Yorke's voice in "I Will (No Man's Land)" along with the lyrics. He's very concerned about what his children, and all other children, will grow up being exposed to in a war-driven culture:
I will
Lay me down
In a bunker
Underground
I won't let this happen to my children
meet the real world coming out of your shell
with white elephants
sitting ducks
i will
rise up
Little baby's eyes eyes eyes eyes (3x)

And here's Yorke's story behind "Myxomatosis" (Myxomatosis is a virus that kills rabbits):
"I remember my parents pointing out all these dead rabbits on the road when I was a kid," Yorke says. "I didn't know that much about the virus, or even how to spell it. But I loved the word. I loved the way it sounded. The song is actually about mind control. I'm sure you've experienced situations where you've had your ideas edited or rewritten when they didn't conveniently fit into somebody else's agenda. And then--when someone asks you about those ideas later--you can't even argue with them, because now your idea exists in that edited form.

"It's hard to remember how things actually happen anymore, because there's so much mind control and so many media agendas," he continues. "There's a line in that song that goes, 'My thoughts are misguided and a little naive.' That's the snarly look you get from an expert when they accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist. In America, they still use the 'conspiracy theorist' accusation as the ultimate condemnation. I've been reading this Gore Vidal book [Dreaming War], and I know Vidal is always accused of being a conspiracy theorist. But the evidence he uses is very similar to the evidence used by a lot of well-respected British historians. Yet they still call him crazy. To me, that's part of what 'Myxomatosis' is about--it's about wishing that all the people who tell you that you're crazy were actually right. That would make life so much easier."


"Scatterbrain" :
...Yesterday's headlines blown by the wind
Yesterday's people end up scatterbrain
Any fool can easily pick a hole (I only wish I could fall in)

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King ('69)

Every single track on this album is a keeper. This is one of those rare albums where I won't dare to skip a track, nor do I get the urge to do so. An album with brilliant words sung to beautifully composed melodies that elicit serenity. My words don't do justice and only underestimate the sheer lyrical, musical, and artistic aesthetic of this album. I should also add that the cover of the album was painted by a man named Barry Godber who died after the album release. That was the only painting he ever did:
"...The face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it's the Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music."
-Robert Fripp

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1. 21st Century Schizoid Man
Cat's foot, iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more,
At paranoia's poison door
Twenty-first century schizoid man

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Blood rack, barbed wire,
Politicians funeral pyre,
Innocents raped with napalm fire,
Twenty-first century schizoid man

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Death seed, blind man's greed,
Poet's starving, children bleed,
Nothing he's got he really needs,
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Regardless of your volume settings, this song still retains that noise which is loud, discordant, and predominately filled with screeching saxophones all madly being played as if momentarily keeping pace with the racing heart beat of a paranoid man.

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There's a broad message behind the song which covers different aspects of society that have driven (or will drive, according to the year the song was written) man to an oblivious state of insanity. I'm not too sure about the specifics (cat's foot, blood rack, etc.) but the 21st century schizoid man is the product of a society (notably, Western) that plunders beauty from its belonging, dissociate's man from his nature, and provokes an incessant consumation of items absolutely unessential to the survival of man. This is just my partial interpretation, perhaps far from Sinfield's underlying message. It could also be that this so titled schizoid is not the average citizen but the "fools who have the fate of all mankind" in control. Nonetheless, the less specific the song, the more prolific its assumptions but I can generalize and decipher on how this entire album revolves around the cause and effects of a corrupt society spinning in a downward spiral.

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The chaotic outro of "21st Century Schizoid Man" carries us into "I Talk to the Wind". With a beginning so light and tranquil, "I Talk to the Wind" is a beautiful piece with simple lyrics heavy with meaning. I consider this one of those clever songs where it wont let you listen without deep thought. While your mind transcneds to a dimension of utter relaxation, your frontal lobe remains at deep thought when taking in the words of this song:

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2. I Talk to the Wind
Said the straight man to the late man
"Where have you been?"
I've been here and I've been there
and I've been in between

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear

I'm on the outside, looking inside
What do I see?
Much confusion, disillusion
All around me.

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You don't possess me
Don't impress me
Can't instruct me, or conduct me
Just use up my time.

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear

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This song, along with Moonchild, is hauntingly beautiful.

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3. Epitaph
The wall on which the prophets wrote

Is cracking at the seams.

Upon the instruments of death

The sunlight brightly gleams.

When every man is torn apart

With nightmares and with dreams,

Will no one lay the laurel wreath

As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,

The seeds of time were sown,

And watered by the deeds of those

Who know and who are known;

Knowledge is a deadly friend

if no one sets the rules.

The fate of all mankind I see

is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.

As I crawl a cracked and broken path

If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh.

But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,

Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Epitaph is my favorite track, both instrumentally and lyrically. It's genius, it's depressing, and it's pessimistic but it gives me an ounce of hope just to hear and read this from them.

The general idea I get here is that people are numb and/or apathetic to parts of society that need to be fixed and paid more attention to. The relationship between society and individuals is ironic. People conform to pop culture to fit in yet at the same time they're only concerned about themselves. No one cares about what's written on the "prophet's wall" which is why it's deconstructing and "cracking at the seams". We make our cries known and complain about our issues with the government but on a larger scale we don't put enough effort to be that change which Gandhi once said we wanted to see. We're passive activists and we really can't blame ourselves because of the amount of power from politicians and other elite bastards constraining us.

Everything in life always seems to me a paradox. My skeptical senses are always on the look-out for contradictions and they're not hard to catch. It's all around and it's confusing and it breeds uncertainty which in turn breeds hopelessness; but that's only if you're the 'schizoid man', then you are doomed if you continue to live life lifelessly and you easily suffer, at most obliviously, leading a mainstream life. And the people at the top are schizoid as well, they are the fools which hold our fate. But we also hold our own fate too, and we too are fools for tolerating the ways society raises us. There needs to be a change. People need to stop thinking technocratically, stop accepting "facts" at face value and start questioning. People need to abandon their fear of challenging the system and of challenging theirselves. We need to dig deep and scratch layer after layer off the surface of socialization. Once you arrive to some understanding of all your "why's" you start to live life, and you're only alive when you're aware and attentive. And most of us do get to that point where we understand how screwed up this world is and why; and when we reflect on the ways we sheepishly followed, we laugh, we laugh at our own stupidity but we cry for the unpredictable dawn of tomorrow.

Society is the court of Crimson King. When I see the words Crimson King I think of Satan. So being in Satan's court is another way of saying that we're living in hell, but Sartre always said that "hell is other people" and indeed these lonely intellects were, and are, right.