Suislide

Quoting DisgracedEffigy
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Flood

In this song, he is released from rehab - "Here comes the water." tells us that. I am guessing that water is a metaphor for freedom here. "All I knew and all I believed, are crumbling images, that no longer comfort me." is basically saying that rehab wasn't completely honest. The world isn't so easy and fun now that he left a utopia, like rehab. When he says "I scramble to reach higher ground, some order and sanity, or something to comfort me." he basically is in disbelief. The world seems to be overbearing and difficult. He isn't used to having obligations. "So I take what is mine, and hold what is mine, suffocate what is mine, and bury what's mine." is basically him saving what he is. Preserving what rehab has taught him. He is trying to make himself invulnerable. "Soon the water will come, and claim what is mine." is him saying that it is of no use. It doesn't work in the real world. "I must leave it behind, and climb to a new place now." is him disregarding the knowledge he departed from rehab with. He realizes that he'll have to do this on his own. "This ground is not the rock I thought it to be." refers to the same thing. The knowledge that he thought would help doesn't. "Thought I was high, and free, I thought I was there, divine destiny" is another phase of disbelief. He thought he was over addiction. But, as he puts it "I was wrong, this changes everything." Its not over. Its still there, all rehab did was delay it. He is about to fold under the pressure - "The water is rising up on me." He thought that he would be immune to the temptations but then realizes his strength is no match: "thought the sun would come deliver me, but the truth has come to punish me instead." He knows he wasted his time and that his addiction is too extreme. It is innevitable. "The ground is breaking down right under me." - rehab failed and he knows it. The truth he believed was a lie. The final line in the story "Cleanse and purge me in the water.", he succumbs once again and is pulled down into the undertow.
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What made Undertow the most meaningful album to me are the interperetations made by DisgracedEffigy. In ways, I am an opiate to his preachings of opinions, but in ways it feels so damned good. I was just released from 2 years of rehab, and the same occurance of events are coming to me in waves; in the light of DisgracedEffigy's opinion of Flood. I'm relapsing so hard. The song has helped me understand, although also has helped me slip back into the gap again in a light of justification.

"thought the sun would come deliver me, but the truth has come to punish me instead."

As far as song description, and recapping DisgracedEffigy (you're the man, bro) and ultimately, the exact same recapping of my experiences. I wonder how Maynard was able to relate so heavily to realistic experiences if he had not been an addict himself. Life is full of addictions to me. My meaning in life has all spawned from addictions, sexual, drug, and others.
I entered rehab, because I was caught beneath the undertow. I survived too, .. euphoria. Then in rehab I let myself open up completely and fully to the extention of all of my problems, in hopes of finding a cure or something to fight for in life, instead of settling to find something to fight against, as explained in four degrees.
If you're not looking to be depressed about how most addicts who try to help themselves turn out, it's best you don't listen to Flood with interperative means. It truly has been the best Tool song to me so far, and that says a lot.

again quoting Flood
"thought the sun would come deliver me, but the truth has come to punish me instead."

Those words mean too much to me.

Follow up on "undertow as a whole," because DisgracedEffigy did a hell of a job on opening me up to this album. I never respected the album as much as I do now.

Going to go lay down a bit, too hung over.

Thanks for your reading time.