The Patient

for me this song is about keeping faith, that you are on the right track and one day youll reach to the point of parabol/parabola. its about a special moment when u r as down as ever, but you have felt like this a million times before, and u are tired of still giving blood, givng your everything and getting nothing in return. and u remind yourself that u may allways walk away wich means killing yourself. you'll allways have that option and its the one thing you have, the only thing. and cuz the rewards are so tempting (parabol/parabola) then u remind yourself that you have got to be patient, you have to wait it out.

I have a lot of patience, but this weekend I lost my temper when I found out that all my CD's had been stolen. I ended up breaking a window and spending 4 hours in the emergency room getting 8 stitches. Anger is stupid.

At the Sydney show in july this year, before they played this, Maynard said something like this song is about the vampires that you come across in your life, who try to get you down. Hence the use of "giving blood" in the lyrics. It could be to do with the record companies and the industry.

ok, this may be a bit long but here goes what i think of this song. some of my interpretations may seem a bit random, cos when i read the lyrics of this song it totally worked on what i've been thinking about for ages now, so some of it is related to what i personally believe, but if you can bear with me, i'll try make you all see what my view is.

the vampire is society : in our world it is based on money, with too little thought to what is important to people..."drain vitality" -we are beaten down by the trials we have to go through everyday to get by in our cut-throat world. i think maynard is saying all the way through that he holds out hope that things will change(he's still giving blood, he has a desire to heal the damaged and broken-he's trying to help the world through his music) and that if he didnt have that hope, that belief that people appreciate what he's doing, and that it is doing some good (rewards reaped...) then he would have "walked away"...quit the music industry, given up on life...see that to mean what you want. so basically, he's saying he has to have patience and keep hope that things will change, that people will change...but that he still might give up if he doesn't see any difference occuring...

the "tedious path" that he has chosen is one of trying to help the world...he's still "giving blood, keeping faith" but it is tedious because there is so much opposition to it by society and people who do not want to change things for the better of mankind.

basically its a fight against the drain of society, a fight against the cruelty in this world : he's fighting it, but he needs us to fight it too so that he can see there are other people who want the change, and so a change can be made. he has to be patient and keep going or else there isnt any hope left for us. sorry if this is all a bit off track, i cant exlain it as well as i see it!

I kind of think this track is about the artistic process, especially in terms of creating for a wider audience. Maynard has said he wants the music to help people heal, or introspect or soul-search. The process of creating music and sharing it is draining, but it's because of his "desire to heal the damaged and broken met along" that he continues to do it in this manner.

I'm suggesting that he is a human being, just like you or I, who is very in touch with the seen and unseen reality of life. Either that or he's just wasted on drugs all the time, but I think that the music is to sophisticated for that possibility.

No matter how deep the future seems. Sorry.

the most EXCELLENT thing about all tool and APC songs (pointed out by headon earlier) Is that they're so heavily layered in metaphors that they can apply to anyone - and any situation.

Almost every song I listen to by them really sums up my "love life" at the moment.

I'm desperately in love with the most fantastic girl, and i've had a fair few chances with her in the past - and I have made progress with her.

In The Patient, Maynard sings about devoting himself, keeping faith.

In my situation, I think of how I keep putting time and effort into making this relationship with this girl, thinking someday it'll all fall into place for me.

And the loving embrace to see me through - I usually think of my very close friends who have always comforted me in the situation etc ;)

..... But ...... I'm gonna wait it out ;)

this guy was going to kill himself and is just kinda' toying with the pistol a bit more. to really think this thing through. but this time with some self empathy and not such harshness. the universe is pretty chaotic and harsh, as is, why throw even more weight on your shoulders with a personal cross. but he's gonna wait it out. hopefully it just doesn't become one of those platitude's like, "this too shall pass." cos that wears thin real quick.

Tool Synclist (complete) 7,8,1,2,5,6,9,10,3,4 - 6,7,5,8,4,9,13,1,12,2,11,3,10 – 15,14 (or 14,15) + 33(23)