The Grobe

Ween - White Pepper - The Grobe

[Sometimes the ones you hold so close can make you cry]

Seeing someone you love have an addiction really hurts [But it's a pain in the ass to let 'em go] but ending your relationship with them sucks [With a battered wish you hoped that the monkey wore a tie] Monkey on your back, refers to opioid addiction, this means wishing withdrawals weren't so bad [But it's no surprise to find he don't] Not being surprised to find that you get withdrawal symptoms when using heroin daily

[Put the pointy pencil in the pepper-po]

Putting a needle attached to a syringe into the cooker [And take a little sniff of the things below] Smelling the smell of vinegar from heroin being 'cooked' i.e. dissolved in water to prepare it for injection [Bring it to a boil and simmer low] Using a lighter to heat up the heroin solution to get it to boil to dissolve. Too much heat causes heroin to degrade back into morphine, and also to splatter and boil over and spill out of the spoon or cooker. So boil low means, using just enough heat, to get it to start bubbling and to get the powder to dissolve

[Put the noodle on the griddle as it climbs the Grobe]

An old anti drug propaganda TV advert showed an egg with the words, "This is your brain", then it showed the egg being fried in the pan with the words, "This is your brain on drugs". So put the noodle (your brain) on the griddle (a griddle is a hot metal surface for cooking food), refers to taking drugs, in this case heroin, as the monkey on your back is a clear opioid addiction reference.

[Watch the worker shield his heart from the world outside]

Heroin and other opioids are substances, that people use to feel better, and protect themselves from the pain of living. For centuries opium has been used to help poor people cope with hard manual labour. [Didn't get a chance to let him know] [Alsace is spinning fast and wine mixed with the tide] Alsace is a wine growing region in France. Red wine is a red colour, the same colour as blood. Alsace spinning fast means your blood is pumping around your body fast, because of the anxiety and stress that people feel, when they're in the process of administering an injection.

"Wine mixed with the tide", means blood getting sucked into the syringe, which indicates the needle is correctly placed inside the vein. "Getting mixed with the tide", the tide being the heroin solution, which will cause a warm wave of sensation washing over you, when the heroin rush kicks in shortly after the injection. [Please don't let my brain explode] I hope this heroin injection doesn't kill me.

[Put the pointy pencil in the pepper-po]
[And take a little sniff of the things below]
[Bring it to a boil and simmer low]
[Put the noodle on the griddle as it climbs the Grobe]

Repetition of previous.

I love this Ween song. There's a lot of really intelligent people, who do the same life experience arc, teenage drug use, then getting into psychedelics, then getting into heroin, usually because of experimentation, but having trauma either current or past, causing a need to stop your pain, which leads to years of needing to use heroin or other opioids daily.

Then with age people get into psychedelics again, as they can help heal the trauma, that causes the need for the pain relief from opioids. After recovering from opioid addiction, it's extremely common for people to go back to opioid use again, but on a more infrequent basis, and being able to hold it together, because you don't need so much pain relief, as you've healed from the trauma. It's trauma that causes people to develop a need for pain relief, and with age and experience, people grow out of their addiction.

it's about working in a person who works in an office.

and how he has no way of taking out any of his aggressions...

"the grobe" could be a synonym for the corporate latter

it's about heroin. freeman said so himself.

ones you hold so close can make you cry - but it's a pain in the ass to let 'em go: addiction. wanting to quit, but can't.

pointed pencil in the pepper-po: shooting up.

bring it to a boil and simmer low: cooking smack in a spoon.

wine mixed with the tide: pulling blood up into the syringe.

pretty transparent - killer riff, though.