juniortour
09-05-2003, 04:56 PM
For the past few months I have wondered what the lines "don't just call me a pessimist/try and read between the lines" meant. Not necesarilly (sp?) what they mean, I guess, but more of what is it that is "between the lines."
I was reading in another post on the Socialize board about a comparison of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maynard. Anyway, for some reason Timothy Leary and an analogy of his was brought up. I personally know very little about Timothy Leary, but I read the following and came up with a theory. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, I don't know Maynard.
"Not to mention Leary's analogy of the world as a ocean of chaos and confusion."
Maynard said in one of the interviews on this site (I'm not gonna venture for it, sorry, that it is not just philosophy that he is singing about. He said there is a need to personalize it, and this is a perfect example, in my mind.
Maynard wanted to write about this idea, the world being an ocean of chaos. Why not take a city that Maynard knows (LA) and right about it driving itself into the ground with the amount of chaos that takes place there. This "ocean" will "flush away" the city, "any fucking time, any fucking day," it could happen at any time. If you didn't catch that the first time, the city will be destroyed and uninhabitable due to chaos (created by people) destroying it.
This chaos is much like the "bullshit three-ring circus sideshow of freaks." People will move, because of this, to nearby Arizona, where those who have had the opportunity to "learn to swim" (realize what's going on and get the fuck out of there before it's too late) already reside.
"Stupid shit" refers to the objects people are "fretting" over, not name-calling, as I (and probably many others) initially thought. This is because these objects are what the "smiley glad-hands" and "hip gangster wannabes" are getting fucked over.
The reason Maynard wants to "see it all come down" is so that we can cleanse our certain lifestyles which create problems and move forward so that we can rebuild a better society. This follows the Undertow to Aenima to Lateralus progression. For those of you who don't know the progression goes like this:
Undertow is more negative both lyrically and musically. It brings up societal problems, such as child abuse in Prison Sex. This tends to drag people down, much like the undertow of a river will drag people under and drown them. Aenima is a mixture of the words anima (a Jungian term which involves the reflection of the self) and enema (a method of cleansing the body). If you haven't got it yet, it is about the reflection and cleansing, not only of society (like this song), but of the self (Pushit). Lateralus deals with gaining your feet, so to speak, (in relation to the leg muscle that you can't stand without that has the word Lateralus in it). Also, it is very close to the Latin word for moving forward. Overall, it is about moving on and trying to better yourself after the reflection and cleansing of the negativity.
By the way, if you didn't get it, everything in quotes was from the song.
I was reading in another post on the Socialize board about a comparison of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maynard. Anyway, for some reason Timothy Leary and an analogy of his was brought up. I personally know very little about Timothy Leary, but I read the following and came up with a theory. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, I don't know Maynard.
"Not to mention Leary's analogy of the world as a ocean of chaos and confusion."
Maynard said in one of the interviews on this site (I'm not gonna venture for it, sorry, that it is not just philosophy that he is singing about. He said there is a need to personalize it, and this is a perfect example, in my mind.
Maynard wanted to write about this idea, the world being an ocean of chaos. Why not take a city that Maynard knows (LA) and right about it driving itself into the ground with the amount of chaos that takes place there. This "ocean" will "flush away" the city, "any fucking time, any fucking day," it could happen at any time. If you didn't catch that the first time, the city will be destroyed and uninhabitable due to chaos (created by people) destroying it.
This chaos is much like the "bullshit three-ring circus sideshow of freaks." People will move, because of this, to nearby Arizona, where those who have had the opportunity to "learn to swim" (realize what's going on and get the fuck out of there before it's too late) already reside.
"Stupid shit" refers to the objects people are "fretting" over, not name-calling, as I (and probably many others) initially thought. This is because these objects are what the "smiley glad-hands" and "hip gangster wannabes" are getting fucked over.
The reason Maynard wants to "see it all come down" is so that we can cleanse our certain lifestyles which create problems and move forward so that we can rebuild a better society. This follows the Undertow to Aenima to Lateralus progression. For those of you who don't know the progression goes like this:
Undertow is more negative both lyrically and musically. It brings up societal problems, such as child abuse in Prison Sex. This tends to drag people down, much like the undertow of a river will drag people under and drown them. Aenima is a mixture of the words anima (a Jungian term which involves the reflection of the self) and enema (a method of cleansing the body). If you haven't got it yet, it is about the reflection and cleansing, not only of society (like this song), but of the self (Pushit). Lateralus deals with gaining your feet, so to speak, (in relation to the leg muscle that you can't stand without that has the word Lateralus in it). Also, it is very close to the Latin word for moving forward. Overall, it is about moving on and trying to better yourself after the reflection and cleansing of the negativity.
By the way, if you didn't get it, everything in quotes was from the song.