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Originally Posted by Alex in Chains
I think this song has to be about the War on Drugs (i.e. the War on Personal Freedom -- thank you, Bill Hicks). The song is clearly about hypocrisy -- I think we can all agree on that -- but why the double entendre? The pot calling the kettle black is pretty cliché, and I don’t see Tool doing that without actually relating the song to marijuana in some way.
Additionally, we all know how much Tool loves Bill Hicks, and this was one of his favorite topics (one of my all-time favorite Hicks quotes was “That’s an egg, that’s a frying pan, that’s a stove, you’re an alcoholic . . . Dude, I’m tripping right now, and I still see that’s a fucking egg”). I’m surprised no one has (to my knowledge) pointed this out yet.
(Side note: Did any other Bill Hicks fans love the “stealth banana” reference in “Rosetta Stoned”?)
The hypocrisy to which this song refers (and this is my opinion, but I’m personally convinced) is that of a government which allows and even participates in the everyday use of one drug -- alcohol* -- while condemning the use of several others, including marijuana. The kangaroo imagery probably does refer to a kangaroo court (look it up if you’re still unclear on this subject), which makes a lot of sense in a country that has mandatory minimum sentences. The kangaroo is the government, he’s as guilty as anyone else (how many politicians don’t drink?), and he’s stoned. “Stoned” can refer to drunkenness (not very often today), but I think that word was chosen (along with, of course, “high”) to show that there’s not really a lot of difference between alcohol and marijuana (many will make the argument that marijuana is actually safer, but that’s beside the point). This song, in my admittedly amateur opinion, is an attack on a twenty-plus-year government condemnation of “drugs” while practically endorsing alcohol.
*Okay, there’s tobacco, etc. But I think they’re principally concerned with booze here.
-A
PS - To anyone who thinks this is about Bush, you must be sooo hiiigh.
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There are definitely grounds to this interpretarion, but I think it also convolutes a bunch of lines' potential meaning.
If this is a good interpretation:
what is the significance of indigo?
Why is it alcohol in particular, there are no references to it?
'Steal, borrow, reap and save your shady inference' how is it a scandel?
Why is this administration and not others that a guilty?
There seems to be emphasis that it is a single event 'out of this one' etc. That doesn't make conceptual sense with the drug policy.
As I look at it more all the possible references are more to hypocracy in general. There is no reason to assume Pot means anything but a reference to the pot calling the kettle black. May be this interpretation has to do with the prevalence of the drug culture in Tool's fans. I dunno as I have written this and looked closer, I am not buying it anymore.