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Luna Galapogos
03-18-2004, 11:51 AM
My compassion is broken now. My will is eroded,
and my desire stolen and it makes me feel ugly.
I'm on my knees and burning.
My piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire.
So smell my soul burning.
I'm broken, looking up to see the enemy.
I have swallowed the poison you feed me ...
but I survive on it,
and it leaves me guilt fed, hatred fed, weakness fed..
and I feel ugly, and dead inside.

Shit adds up at the bottom.

You've left me no choice but to go inside and rebuild
what's broken.
Too much, too far, too late to lie down now.
I must arm myself to fight you
by making weapons out of my imperfections.
It's all I have left.
There's no other choice.
I'm shameless, nameless, nothing, and noone now.
But my soul must be iron for my fear is naked.
I'm naked and fearless.
But I'm dead inside.
You see.. shit adds up, now I'm dead inside.
Hatred, weakness, and guilt keep me alive
at the bottom.

lost again
broken and weary
unable to find my way
tail in hand
dizzy and clearly unable to
just let this go

I am surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live

I fell again
like a baby unable to stand on my own
tail in hand
dizzy and clearly unable to just let this go
high and surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live, I choose to live, I choose to live

(catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
help me survive the bottom)

calm these hands before they
snare another pill and
drive another nail down another
meaty hole please release me

I am surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live, I choose to live

I was listening to Gravity (the last song on Thirteenth Step) and I thought that it had an interesting correlation to Bottom. In fact, I think that they are describing the same thing. You may fall and hit the bottom, but somehow, whether by your hatred/weakness/and guilt, or by surrendering yourself to the will of another (God/wife/girlfriend/bestfriend). I think it shows how much he has changed his perspective of life since Undertow.

AllforUnity
03-19-2004, 02:42 AM
Gravity...my favorite song on Thirteenth Step...aaahhh.

jpmanson
03-19-2004, 10:03 AM
ive always thought of gravity as a finality to the whole album, the character is finally giving in and praying to a higher power for help with a problem he has had..

if maynard writes his lyrics from personal experience, this idea seems like an eventuality. the whole progression of tool and apc's lyrics seem to go toward this idea.

Luna Galapogos
03-19-2004, 11:49 AM
ive always thought of gravity as a finality to the whole album, the character is finally giving in and praying to a higher power for help with a problem he has had..

if maynard writes his lyrics from personal experience, this idea seems like an eventuality. the whole progression of tool and apc's lyrics seem to go toward this idea.

That is what I think as well. I believe that the lyrics lately have shown his progression in the direction of giving in, praying, and even surrendering himself to another. I'm guessing that he writes from his own experiences.

boytoydotcom
03-20-2004, 04:00 AM
I agree as well, the Idea of being guided by your own reflection is trust in it's purest form. This relates to maynard stating "one and one, are one" . Eleven is a powerful number , (11) odd at a quick glance when divided by two.
But 1and1 are 2 thus creating an even balance between the lines. We spend every moment of our existance searching for the other one (addiction) wether it be through
work (money), sex, or drugs. More often than not, we end up in a bigger hole
than we woke up in. Forgetting what we were looking for in the first place. I guess you just have to live your life for the moment and not stare into the light to long.
Whenever you do, you lose sight of what's important, 11 = 1(faith) and 1 (honesty)

AllforUnity
03-23-2004, 07:39 PM
l don't know...one is about reaching the bottom and living off of it, one is about trying to survive it...maybe it's a sequal.

Luna Galapogos
03-24-2004, 09:56 AM
I think that they both are about surviving the bottom, I just think that they are two completely different ways in which to do so.

lost again
broken and weary
unable to find my way
tail in hand
dizzy and clearly unable to
just let this go

He's at the bottom again "lost again" and he can't seem to find his way out, he's fed off of guilt and hate and resentment, his own weaknesses. He never let these things go. He just kept feeding. And now he realizes this, "tail in hand" is the embarassed visual to show that he has come to this realization.

I am surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live

He finally gives himself up, he allows himself to fall back into another's care and love, he wants to live, he is tired of fighting and feeding.

I fell again
like a baby unable to stand on my own
tail in hand
dizzy and clearly unable to just let this go
high and surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live, I choose to live, I choose to live

This seems to be just a union of the first two stanzas into one, connecting them to show that he is surrendering his futile attempts mentioned in the first stanza.

(catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
help me survive the bottom)

This is the most obvious connection between the songs. Now he is praying for another's help to survive the bottom, before he was praying to his hate and weakness.... to survive the bottom.

calm these hands before they
snare another pill and
drive another nail down another
meaty hole please release me

This could be/seems to be more of a connection to Eulogy where he has finally stopped taking sedatives "another pill" to make it alright for him to crucify "drive another nail down another meaty hole" his idols that let him down, his step-father, God

I am surrendering to the gravity and the unknown
catch me heal me lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live, I choose to live

I got these lyrics from lyrics.com, perhaps "sun" should be "son" in which case he is praying to Jesus to help him


I don't claim to know what the intentions were. This makes a lot of sense to me though.

AllforUnity
03-25-2004, 07:54 AM
Yeah l think they're both about surviving the bottom too, l just think the tone of the songs are different...in Bottom it's about using his hatred and stuff to survive and in Gravity it sems more about being freed from the bottom, like it's bothering. lnstead of how in Bottom, it seems that since he lives off the bottom he's used to it and content with it.

Luna Galapogos
03-25-2004, 09:59 AM
Of course the tones of the songs are going to be different. They have a completely different approach to solving the same problem. In any case, I would say that he doesn't sound very content to be at the bottom in both songs, otherwise he wouldn't be trying to get out, and I believe that he is trying in both songs, just in different ways.

AllforUnity
03-25-2004, 04:35 PM
Hmmm...perhaps.

Luna Galapogos
03-26-2004, 09:46 AM
Hmmm...perhaps.

If you give me a concrete argument about what I think then I will read it and consider it, and then I may just change my opinion if what you say has that much bearing.

AllforUnity
03-29-2004, 01:03 PM
Well in Bottom l'm not sure if he's trying to get out of it...he's claiming how he lives in the bottom, and how he lives off of his hatred...he DOES seem content with being here, where he is...because he says "My piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire...so smell my soul burning...And l have swallowed the poison you feed me, but l survive on the poison you feed me." lt seems to me that without this "poison" he wouldn't be able to live, because he some-what states that in the song...therefore he must find a sort of contentment with where he is, or he will not survive. Just as we all must find a kind of content with our own lives...or we will not survive. l think Bottom is just about life itself...because we all get alot of poison in our lives.

Luna Galapogos
03-30-2004, 09:44 AM
Well in Bottom l'm not sure if he's trying to get out of it...he's claiming how he lives in the bottom, and how he lives off of his hatred...he DOES seem content with being here, where he is...because he says "My piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire...so smell my soul burning...And l have swallowed the poison you feed me, but l survive on the poison you feed me." lt seems to me that without this "poison" he wouldn't be able to live, because he some-what states that in the song...therefore he must find a sort of contentment with where he is, or he will not survive. Just as we all must find a kind of content with our own lives...or we will not survive. l think Bottom is just about life itself...because we all get alot of poison in our lives.

That makes sense. I must say that I don't like to sleep, but I have to. It is something that must be done for me to live. I find it to be a poison to getting things done. It kills possibilities. I want to get out of having to do it, but I know I never will. I accept it, I am not content with it. I ask for it to get it over with. I survive because of it. That doesn't mean I don't want to escape it. I think that is what Maynard was talking about in Bottom.

I think that Maynard is hoping that someone or something will be able to save him (perhaps a woman, God, music, .....) in Gravity. He has finally found a way that he is going to try and escape, it took him a long time, but he finally decided that he doesn't want to eat the poison of the world anymore.

AllforUnity
03-31-2004, 12:27 PM
Yes...but once you get sleep, even though you dread it so much, when you awake, you're refreshed aren't you? You're well rested and ready for another day, aren't you? So if you could choose to stay up forever instead of sleep, that would probably last about a week before you realized how boring actually having all 24 hours in a day would be...without sleep we would run out of things to occupy us. lt's like a friend l knew...he got cancer, and when he got cancer he wasn't able to attend school anymore, and he could rarely sleep. And l remember him telling me before he died that you never realize how much you really want something until you don't have it anymore. Because he hated school like most people do...and then when he couldn't go he wanted it back, he would just sit at home alone bored all the time. l think Bottom is some-what like that...l think that since he knows he can't live without it, he doesn't want to escape it anymore.


l think Gravity is just a cry for help. l think this because it reminds me of that friend l was speaking of...because l remember the day he was supposed to die he stayed up for 2 days trying to breath and stuff and trying to keep himself alive, fighting. Like in Gravity when he says "Catch me...heal me...lift me back onto the sun/son...help me survive the bottom." l think this is him realizing he's about to lose it all, and he wants it back...like, if anything he misses even the poison that was fed to him.


l like your theory though, if you don't mind, l'm going to adopt it as my second theory.