Originally Posted by Black

OK, I am entirely new to this forum, and I absolutley HATE internet arguments and the like. Therefore, I will not engage in any bashing or intense debates. My own mental health doesn't really allow for that. So if you disagree, please try to explain why in calm and rational terms, OK? I just wanted to throw a different take out there to see if anyone else sees what I have always seen in this song.

As a part of an introduction, I should say that I am a woman, living in America, though not born here, and that I am on the back side of 30. I don't think I want to share more info than that at this time, but I would like to try to discuss some of the ideas I have about the greatest music ever created............

I have been a huge Tool fan for a long time, and 46&2 is one of my favorite songs. As such, I have tried to see what others interpreted this song to mean. But I have always been kind of surprised by the chromosomal and evolutionary take that so many people have come up with.

I guess maybe I see everything different, but I find it difficult to read this interpretation into these lyrics. I have always felt a different idea coming through. I look at the lyrics more at face value, and the song seems to be talking from a personal perspective of someone who has been struggling with something very negative in his life, and he feels like he might be coming through it now.

The reference to picking scabs is common in psycholgical and therapist circles as a metaphor for digging back into one's psyche and opening old wounds in an effort to attempt to heal them. One has to "pick at the scabs" to get better......

There are a lot of other references in the song to pain and suffering and attempting to overcome these feelings through turning inward and working through them himself.

**********

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

******************

and:

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

****************

and:

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

************************

Taken at face value, rather than attempting to impose some level of metaphysical over-meaning to these lyrics, what it means to me is this is someone who has been dealing with a rather intense internal struggle, and he is searching for a way through it. It need not necessarily mean more than what it says, right? Perhaps the song is about exactly what Maynard was writing at the time. Perhaps????

Anyway, as I read and re-read the lyrics, the one reference that stands out as obscure has always been the "46 & 2 right in front of me"....

And what so many others have interpreted is a chromosomal reference, seems to me to mean something else. I have always seen (heard?) something altogether different here.

I read the lines about "choosing to live", and I can't help but relate them back to some of my own personal experiences when that choice could go either way, and I come to a conclusion (my own opinion, granted) that the song is about a PERSONAL thought process about dealing with a very hard and challenging time in his life, and not about chromosomal alterations.

So what does the line "46 & 2 right in front of me" mean???

What I think he is referring to is TIME. 46 years......and 2 months......of TIME.

Does anyone else see this? ANYONE?

Maynard was about 30 or so when he wrote the song, right? The average life expectancy of a man is somewhere around 76 years.......a man aged 30, and struggling through something really difficult just might be inclined to be looking out ahead of him ("right in front of me"), and seeing that getting through this hard stretch will yield to him the remainder of his life. And what is the remainder of his life, using a statistical average?

46 years and 2 months..........perhaps?

I don't know. I really don't. I am curious to know if Maynard himself has ever weighed in on exactly what he had in mind with the song, or if the chromosomal idea has ever had any kind of confirmation by the song's author. If not, who's to say the chromosomal explaination is correct.

Opinions anyone?

Thanks for your time,
Black