""And after calming me down, with some orange slices, and some fetal spooning,
E.T. revealed to me his singular purpose, He said, "You are the Chosen One, the One who will deliver the message. A message of hope to those who choose to hear it, and a warning to those who do not." Me. The Chosen One?
They chose me, and I didn't even graduate from fuckin' high school.""

This part of the song leaps out at me everytime I listen to the album. Not quite sure why. Perhaps its due to the fact that I like fetal spooning, or that I didn't finish high school.(To which I have gotten my GED and gone to college since)

Whatever it is that bring this portion of the song out to me must have some sort of meaning.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

what's fetal spooning mean?

Spooning...Fetal Spooning in particular would be the act of cuddling and caressing, "belly to back". In this case, the speaker would be lying on his side in the fetal position whilst the alien lie with it's abdomen pressed into the speakers back and gently caressed him.

Spooning is a sensual (?)tantric position for copulation, but it is not necessarily sexual.

It is common practice for a trip sitter to use spooning techniques and proximity, physical contact and reassurance to calm someone who is having a particularly intense trip, 7th (crown) chakra or disassociation experience. Orance slices are also common as the citric acid and vitamin C supposedly assist LSD to bond with fatty tissues. I think that latter fact is touched on again in the "Sunkist and Sudafed" line later on the song (sunkist being a manufacturer of Vitamin C suppliments as well). Sudafed contains pseudoephedrine,which I believe may be used to heighten alertness in a stuporous person, though I have never used it in this way.

Weird

I learned so much about spooning today. THanks for making dreams come true.

While I suppose fetal spooning makes more sense than needle spooning, I hear needle, not fetal. I don't hear anything that sounds to me like the sound of an 'f'

i cant imagine the guy talking about aliens cuddling with him to calm him down. that would not calm me down at all. but i could be wrong. i don't hear "f" either. i hear a sound like "b" but beetle spooning makes no sense so i think maybe none of us have guessed those lyrics right yet.

It has to be fetal spooning, considering the context of the passage.

nothin like a little citrus and alien lovin to calm them nerves.

No matter how many times I listen to the song, I still don't hear fetal spooning. From the very first listen I've heard "needle spooning", possibly a nod to heroin to calm the nerves of this strung out close encounters of the third kind-type witness. Just my 2 cents.

Listen to some of the live bootlegs that have been on the web for a while. It's a lot easier to hear what Maynard says during Rosetta Stoned.

I suppose we'll just wait for the official lyrics to come out. However, I also hear "needle spooning" and considering the protagonist of the song is none too bright, I wouldn't put it past him to combine LSD and Heroin.

So if spooning helps calm someone whos having a trip...could the guy in the song be talking to the listener and thinks an alien is speaking to him when it was really the doctor asking whats going on?

Just a thought...

being beamed aboard a stealth banana sounds like it would be pretty traumatic.

locking yourself in the fetal position is instinctive during traumatic experiences. the intelligent aliens, as they were, would know this and comfort him with another tactic used to coax one out of a traumatic state: spooning.

behold fetal spooning.

And I suppose Jimi Hendrix must have sang, "excuse me while I kiss this guy".

C'mon guys, we all know that Maynard is not the most articulate singer...use your brains for this one.

No

:laughing audibly:

my thoughts exactly

suit yourself =P

I'm with needle spooning.....ie the use of a spoon to heat the drugs into a liquid and them the needle to administer it......some sort of narcotic soporifc was used to calm him down.

lol I agree with this guy...wtfh man!

its definately fetal spooning... and being one that has taken lsd several times before... people that have been close to me for years have come across as nothing less than aliens. I can rememer seeing up to 6 beings inside of my girlfriend while i was trying to tell her i didn't want to smoke out of her bong. I couldn't even deal with watching myself watch myself do that... And the time distortion was out of this world. I couldn't even remember who she was or why i was there because i would get soooo lost in other worlds. When i would come back to reality it had been a lifetime to me since i had been there so it took a while to remember.

the vitamin c in orange slices helps to reduce anxiety during an acid trip. hallucinating depletes certain vitamins leading to tension, which is often the cause for freaking out when tripping. the hypertension leads an altered mind to think that something wrong has happened.

I think that this whole song is just about freaking out on acid. anyone who's done over the top amounts of hallucinogens has probably had a trip in which they became megalomanical to the point of temporary schizophrenia. (i.e. thoughts of divination, delusions of grandeur, no regard for self preservation, etc.)

at the same time, hallucinating can bring out very primal childlike feelings, and something like being wrapped in a pink blanket, human contact (such as spooning), or petting an animal can calm you down.

"will I ever be coming down?"
"it's gotta be deadhead chemistry" - l.s.d. for sure

I know there's more to the song than that. I won't pretend to know for sure what the whole alien shit is about. It's entirely possible that this is Maynard hyppothesizing that L. Ron Hubbard came up with Scientology under these circumstances. unless Maynard is on the Sun Ra tip now or some shit, and thinks he is from another planet. (which I doubt, but would find humorous)

what if he just made up a word, like "E.T.-al" spooning? dumb, but thought i'd throw it out there.

Great Song.

i heard anal.... no idea why. i agree now though, there is a T in there.. :)

do any of you arguing for needle spooning know that cooking drugs in a spoon for IV injection isnt, nor has it ever been, called "needle spooning"...

do you think nard would just make up a term to fit the song that doesnt fit the song when something like "fetal spooning" makes perfect sense.

The local chinese place down the road gives you free orange slices for dessert.
No fetal spooning though. Should I complain?

I Fetal Spoon With McRogglez All the Time...

Remember when you took probably one too many blotters or a couple too many caps and you are subsequently ravaged by a torrent of ultra sonic light and sound waves and you try to maintain balance but the fucking ground below you wont stop twirling around in alternating spiral patterns, only later to be overcome by the deafening silent roar of some intangible alarm sounding somewhere between your cerebral cortex and the front of your fucking skull. you become powerless to intention and willfull action, and find yourself down in the dirt curled up in a fetal state, thrusting back in forth in an uncontrollable motion that could be acurately described as something like spooning?! it fits perfectly!

look...it's simple.

Fetal position is reverting back in a time of fear.

Spooning is a comforting position.

SIMPLE!

Yes, and i never wanna go back there again.

As someone who has never done acid, the lyrics make more sense now. But I still cant get over, "They chose me, and I didnt even graduate fucking high school." what the hell is that? Am I just missing a greater meaning here?

I agree, this makes no sense to me.

It makes total sense, at least my interpretation does to me. This person is blasted out of the universe on acid and he's being told the secrets of the universe and of humanity. He's being told he's the chosen one. He's going to be delivering a message of hope. And he didn't even graduate from fucking highschool.

Wouldn't you be a bit overwhelemed if you hadn't even finished school and were now being chosen to speak the end to the world?

I think he's pointing out that when you're on acid, even the non-sensical can make complete and utter sense at the time. And the fact that he was the chosen one of all the people in the world and wasn't even a highschool graduate struck him as disturbingly humorous.

Kinda like telling someone "Yeah, I'm making $25/hour now working as a personal consultant - and I didn't even graduate highschool." - it's just a statement of musing disbelief.

um

too many drugs = burnout

burnout = dropout

its not that complicated.

fetal spooning = baby porno

i always listened to it as ego spooning