| Isis – Stone to Wake a Serpent Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| And the guitar screaming after that silence. I can't find any words to describe what I feel there. | |
| Mastodon – Creature Lives Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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"The swamp" in this song may represent the ignorance and close mindedness of the people. There are some unusual and different creatures that look outside, maybe who want to explore and experience different things. Most of the creatures are happy in that swamp and are afraid to go outside, thus they shun those who want to do so. The creature somehow fails to put his ambitions in real life and the others are happy about it. "Who is he to think and act differently? He got what he deserved." But you know, the creature lives so there is always hope. On second thought, "the swamp" may represent the unfriendly, self centered, ignorant, selfish or corrupted state of today's society. (Basically everything wrong with this world right now.) |
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| Dredg – Scissor Lock Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Think of it like "get caught" or "think organised". "Sleep paralyzed" simply means sleeping in a paralyzed state. |
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| Tool – The Grudge Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song is obviously about the failure of men to let go. Every person has things she likes or dislikes. She wants to get what she likes, and struggles to change what she doesn't like. Almost everyone must have probably heard the definition "control freak". Those people can't stand anything happening outside their grasp. I think every person has this to a certain degree. This song is about our struggle to control and change everything. I smell Buddhism all over this album and this song is no exception. Gautama Buddha says there are no errors or no flaws in anything. Everything is perfect and everything is just what it is supposed to be. Everything is in perfect harmony. It is our "ego" which interprets them as good or bad. The ego is formed because we want to identify ourselves. If you are neutral about everything, then you are no one. So driven by this instinct, we form something called "ego" which is no more than a dirty glass we wear. It makes us perceive things according to some components (a very simple example : you ate a stale apple in childhood which caused a serious nausea you still don't like apples) which are formed during our experiences, mainly in childhood. So to summarise, we are not "programmed" from the start to like or dislike things, it is just a struggle of our consciousness trying to identify itself. So to go one step further, we try to change or erase things we find faulty. Or we try to control things we like because of the fear that they can go astray. What we must do is to accept everything as themselves and make peace with the things we don't like. |
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| Tool – Schism Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I am really amazed by the similarities between Tool's "Lateralus" and Pain of Salvation's "Be". Be is all about the source of existence and more on mortal issues while Lateralus is more spiritual and doesn't care about the mundane matters. But still there are some songs that build up the progression which give the same message. In the opening of Be, an entity talks to itself, wondering how did he come alive and what was before he became to "be". So he devises a way to learn himself better. By dividing himself in countless forms and observing them all while calling himself "god". This is pretty similar with parabol¶bola. In parabol, we see the mind thinking to itself as a part of that "god", wondering when he started to "exist" and looks forward for this new experience. (this god is not necessarily one of the gods in known religions. it is rather the infinity or the perfect unity) In Be, that entity enjoys this different form of unity at first but then things go wrong as those small aspects of his get separated from each other. Their motives, their opinions or their actions collide with each other so the "schism" occurs. In the song "Diffidentia" , that entity talks to himself again : "Man is shattered I am shattered My shards have become shards of their own Pieces of pieces, impossible to put back together Spending their lives seeking a context they were always a part of" and "Searching for yourself is like looking for the house you stand in How could you possibly find it? It's everywhere It's all you know And there are no other points of reference" So in Be, the "god" fails to learn about himself as his shards collide with each other endlessly, and he starts to fade as that unity is broken now. But in Schism, and thus Lateralus, this unity is unshakeable. Whatever the shards do to each other, eventually they will fit again. So all the conflicts are meaningless and we should try to communicate with each other and support that unity. Conflicting with each other is like rowing your boat against a strong flow. Meaningless and painful and eventually you will be forced to stay in harmony with the flow. |
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| Tool – Parabol Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this song is about when the body gains consciousness. (Or to interpret it better, then the "consciousness" [or maybe soul] enters the body) "So familiar and overwhelmingly warm This one, this form I hold now. Embracing you, this reality here, This one, this form I hold now" The mind is awake and aware of the situation. He is in a very familiar and comforting shell, a form. It embraces it as it feels good to exist, to be separated from infinity. "Wide eyed and hopeful. Wide eyed and hopefully wild." The mind opens the ways of perceiving the reality that surrounds it, eager to learn, to feel, to get whatever it can from this reality. It is hopeful about the future as this is a completely new experience and he can't wait to live through it. Definitely one can not know when exactly the placenta or fetus gains consciousness. (Quoting a Pain of Salvation song : "To become is just like falling asleep. You will never know exactly when it happens. The transition, the magic...) So in this song, a rough equivalent is here : "We barely remember what came before this precious moment, choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside" It maybe wonders if he chose this, or it happened outside his will, but definitely can not remember what was it like before he found himself in this form. "This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in This body makes me feel eternal. All this pain is an illusion." So this comes close to the pantheism theory. Everyone and everything are actually parts of a single being (or single consciousness). (Some call this infinity, others call it God) and all beings that seem to be different are actually the different aspects of that unity. The mind feels that way and thinks that even if there are separate forms outside of his, he is not alone in his body because (Quote from Reflection) "...we are all one mind". That makes it feel eternal even though he lives in a mortal shell. This "material" reality is different than where our consciousness comes from, so all this experience is some kind of an illusion and when we join that unity again, all the pain and suffering will be insignificant. |
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