I've always thought this song was heavily tragic. Shortly before I'd bought the album I'd taken a class on Aesthetics where we read a lot of theory on art and literature.. this included Aristotle's Poetics.. which includes his definitive interpretations of Classic Greek tragedy..

Just to give you a very basic and rudimentary rundown, essentially any epic involves a hero who ventures into unfamiliar territory, makes a valuable discovery, and brings it back to the familiar world where he is consequentially hailed a hero. You can see this from Gilgamesh to The Matrix. Tragedies normally have an embedded feature he called inversion of fortune, where originally the hero is sailing on high seas, and then realizes that things arn't exactly that peachy.. this is followed by the moment of catharsis.. (emotional outpour.. self realization .. whatever)

e.g. Oedipus realizes that the man he killed was actually his father, and that his wife was his birth mother.. *tough* so he blinds himself rendering the prophecy of the Sphinx true.

In Rosetta Stoned, we find the Hero in a hospital exam room, and he's coming back to the conscious realm.. the doctor asks him to speak, so he starts blurting out his whole tale. The first element is there, he ventures into an unfamiliar territory, call it the influence of psychedelics or an abduction experience.. whatever he's telling you about it.. so you'd better listen.

Notice how he can't keep a hold of himself, like he has just too much to say and too little time to say it so all the words are just spewing out of his mouth, and he's trying to recall every single detail and trying to communicate it to the best of his ability (even if that means using pop culture imagery etc.)

So he goes on about what he saw felt etc. and he's feeling all heroic n shit.. like he's gods gift to the world, until *BOOM* it hits him, he fucking can't remember the most important part...

..thats when the "Strapped down to my bed.." part kicks in. Thats when he realizes he "can't remember what they said".

But we already knew all this right? So did I.. but a few days ago I was wondering exactly where the moment of catharsis and the point of inversion occurs in the song. So surprisingly it turns out that that point is EXACTLY at the middle of the song.. and I mean right down to the second .. right at the 5:35 mark.. which essentially cuts the musical interlude into two..

He ends his last dialogged with "Then they showed me something.. I don't even know where to begin.." and "Can't Breath Right NOW!!"

probably passes out for a few seconds..

when he comes to he realizes he doesn't remember shit.

Another ingenious thing, perhaps we've all noticed. the H. solo packed into the song which emerges a little after the first Strapped down chorus. That is brilliant.. because just when he says can't remember what they said.. the solo starts and initially you're trying to figure out where you've heard that before.. talk about putting you in his place.. listen to the solo carefully and you can tell that it evolved from the initial riff and wasn't just plugged in to fill up disc space.



Notice the vocals towards the end when he's saying "can't remember what they said" he's almost crying.. incredible emotions being delivered by Maynard here..

So with respect to the whole tragedy thing, i think this fits the description pretty well.. but i think epic wise it's sort of inverted, because the hero actually dosen't bring anything new to the familiar world, he forgets it there..

Ladies and Gents appreicate the art thats delivered through this song.. What tool accomplish in this song is a rare deliverance (although not so rare for them).

PS.. if anyone knows more about tragedies and epics be my guest to elaborate on/ correct any of the points ive made..

PPS Apologies for wasting anyones time with a lot of old stuff you might not have wanted to read about.. but i just really felt like putting this out there