Hi,

after hearing the 'holy gift' version of Lateralus and after starring at the tracklisting of 10, 000 Days (specifically the lengths of time of the songs) for a long, long time I was convinced that Tool may have done a similar thing on this album. Anyway, after a lot of thought I figured out a mathematical method to reorder the tracklisting based on the lengths of the songs and the time signatures used in them. Once I figured out the pattern to rearranging the tracks I stuck them all together, cut out the gaps, overlayed a couple tracks where appropriate and much like the 'holy gift' it forms one long continuous song/story. Before going into too much detail about how I figured it out, this is the tracklist I came up with:

1. Lipan Conjuring (1:11)
2. Intension (7:21)
3. Vicarious (7:07)
4. Jambi (7:28)
5. Wings pt 1 (6:11)
6. Right in Two (8:55)
7. Wings pt 2 (11:14)
8. The Pot (6:21)
9. Viginti Tres (5:02)
10. The Lost Keys (3:46)
11. Rosetta Stoned (11:11)

NB: The durations of the songs can vary by a couple seconds depending on your ripping program etc, but you need to use these durations for my interpretation to work.

Essentially this rearrangement has a lot to do with the number 11 (the number of 'coincidence') and adding the numbers in the minutes or seconds to order the tracks. There are 11 tracks, 4 songs with the number 11 in the duration, and most intriguingly the the durations of Lipan Conjuring (1:11) and Rosetta Stoned (11:11). (Also a the time signatures 11/4 and 11/8 are featured heavily in Right in Two and Rosetta Stoned.) This seemed to me to be more than just coincidence.

I have interpreted the "11's" in the song durations as divisions or 'chapters', just looking at the length of time it would seem obvious to place Lipan Conjuring as track number 1 (duration of 1:11) and Rosetta Stoned as the track 11 (duration 11:11). As cliche as it might seem, Right in Two fits perfectly into the middle of the album - splitting both the album into 'two' as well as splitting Wings for Marie into 2 parts as well. The seconds in this track (55) is also a multiple of 11 (55/11 = 5). This places Lipan conjuring, wings1, right in two, wings 2 an rosetta stoned as tracks 1, 5, 6, 7 and 11 respectively.

This next bit is the tricky part; fitting all the other songs into the gaps. Ultimately this is achieved by adding the minutes or seconds of these tracks to order them.

Vicarious, Jambi and Intension all go for 7 mins x secs, interestingly the x seconds in each of these tracks is also a multiple of 7 (which to me seems as if these 3 songs form a trio linked by the number 7). If you place intension, vicarious and jambi in that order (with intension following on from lipan conjuring) you notice the lengths of time add up. To place intension as track number 2, you can either add the minutes of these 3 songs or multiply them by 3 to get the number 21 (which is the seconds in Intension [7:21]) - putting this as the first track in this 'trio', placing Vicarious after this [7:07] followed by Jambi [7:28], you will note that 21 + 7 = 28 - ie. adding the seconds of these songs places them into order (making them tracks 2, 3 and 4).

To arrange the tracks viginiti tres, lost keys and the pot correctly between Wings 2 and Rosetta stoned, you simply need to add the times again, however the can be ordered logically first. As lost keys is clearly the intro track to rosetta it would seem logical for this track to still preclude rosetta (making it track 10). Similarly as the pot follows wings 2 in the original track list (the breathing sound segues the 2 tracks nicely in the original tracklist) it seems reasonable for this track to follow wings 2 in my arrangement, making it track number 8. This leaves the only place for Viginiti Tres as track 9 between the pot and the lost keys. I never really paid much attention to that track before, and it seems a rather dull ending to an awesome album, however placing it after the pot also segues nicely (a slightly different 'breathing' sound is present at the start of viginiti - although still in the same rhythm as the breathing sound in the pot). After listening to viginiti tres, you notice how 'alien' it sounds (to me it sounds like space ships and aliens talking for a few minutes) - which would ultimately make a lot of sense for this track to preclude lost keys and rosetta stoned (which pretty vividly describes an alien encounter and being told a 'message'). If you apply the time additions the seconds of the Pot [6:21] plus the seconds in vigintis tres [5:02] is 21+2 = 23 (Viginiti tres means 23 in Latin), also if u divide the seconds of lost keys [3:46] by the seconds of viginiti tres 46/2= 23 (or maybe if u stick with adding you get 46 + 2...). This places these 3 tracks in that order.

If you're still not entirely convinced...

Now if you add the minutes of Wings 1 [6:11] and Right in Two [8:55] you get 6 + 8 = 14, which is the number of seconds in Wings 2 [11:14], also if u add up the minutes in the pot, viginiti and lost keys you get 6 + 5 + 3 = 14, again the seconds in Wings 2. This forms a 'mirror' image of the album (in terms of the direction you add up the times in the songs) - notice how the 11's flip from the seconds on the first half of the album to the minutes on the second half.

That's pretty much how I worked this out, I wasn't really sure at first but when you put the songs in that order with no gaps they just 'flow' - Lipan conjuring blends right into intension and the track change is unnoticeable when you slightly overlap them. the ending of intension builds up right into the start of vicarious (with no gap it's even better than it does to right in two) and cutting the gap out between vicarious and jambi (overlaying the last snare hit on vic with the first note jambi works nicely) blends the songs right together. Also if u listen to the end of wings 1 you hear the 'gate opening' sound - this happens to perfectly synch with the first 2 bars of right in two (play them both at the same time) - this couldn't be a coincidence as the time signature for right in two is 11/4 and wings 1 is 12/16, so to make the the gate sound match the length of the first 2 bars of right in two there would need to have been a random time signature change for the gate sound so they would synch up - why else would they do that? I also really think that viginiti tres fits in nicely before lost keys (makes it feel more like part of the album in my opinion) - it would also make sense that this is the alien encounter maynard is describing (and perhaps their message?) - “One infinity. The horror begins in autumn. This is your trial, which tries your (power, might, ability; efficacy, potency). Twenty three steps to total power.(Or: 23 ranks to the highest power.)” - the translation of the words in viginiti tres., maybe he didn't forget to write it down after all ;)

To me this just seems like waaaay too many coincidences to mean nothing,although one last coincidence is when u look at the track numbers for rosetta stoned for my arrangement and the original you get 11, 8 and 11/8 is the dominant time signature in Rosetta stoned.. Also if u read the lyrics of the songs in that order it seems to tell a continuous story.

Of course, I might just be over thinking and over analysing, but this is my interpretation of it none the less, and it works too well in my opinion. I like to call it 11, 000 days :)

Please share your thoughts and feedback! it took me ages to come up with this lol. ps. I have a graphical representation of how to add up the times etc and a lot more notes on this is, but I couldn't get the image to upload .

Thanks for reading!
Grant :)

ill give you a hint it has more to do with the song names than math

look at the letters

though i could just spell it out for you and save you some time


your choice...

thanks, commander keen.

i got aenima done now too! and i got lateralus and 10,000 days perfectly done

which is why i came back

I can't wait to see your configurations

it wont let me post actual links so copy paste these

aenima - fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/318/7/b/secret_tool_track_list_for_aenima_by_noitcnuflam-d6uahcv.png

lateralus - fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/316/4/2/t_o_o_l_l_a_t_e_r_a_l_u_s_by_noitcnuflam-d57nhok.jpg

10,000 days - fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/320/a/f/how_to_do_10_000_days_by_tool_by_noitcnuflam-d6uieh7.png