Hi! Stinkfist is one of my favorite songs from tool but i have a few questions? What is stinkfist really about? I do have my interpretations of the song meanings: At first i thought it was about sex.....Hey i was young when i heard it!!! But then i really started to pay close attention to the words..Now i think it's about drugs and the relationship that Maynard formed with them. It sounded like he was a drug user and that's okay with me. I just want to know what other Tool fans think of Stinkfist's meaning.
G21. "Stinkfist" is great, but I don't see quite what it's about.
On the one hand, it could be taken literally, to be about fisting (hence all the penetration). It could also be taken more as a song about penetrating on another level, about one letting another in.
Jody Westmoreland ([email protected]) offered his take on the song: "It is using a fist up the ass metaphor for the desensitizing of the public. Saying that when (in the 50's for example) there was nothing shocking, in order for the public to be shocked / stimulated, they had to see something new. It was uncomfortable at first but soon we grew used to it. The process continues so that now it takes the whole damn arm for us to feel / be stimulated by something. The speaker would have it 'no other way' ...stressing that we must be stimulated...never allowing the mind to rest."
G22. What's the title supposed to mean, anyway? "Stinkfist"??
It likely ties in to the "knuckle / finger / elbow / shoulder getting deeper within the borderline" theme. Interesting side note: there is a 1986 Clint Ruin (Jim Thirlwell) / Lydia Lunch song by the same name.
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Re: Stinkfist: What does it mean?
My interpretation is this: We have to have information nowdays faster and more accessible than ever. All the media is forced up our asses daily everywhere we turn. The media puts its own little spin on everything and makes it what they want it to be. Watch the news in the morning and and 30 mins you will hear of probably 50 people being blown up, shot, burned, raped, etc... We feel that whenever we are not in constant contact with the world that we are bored and we cannot possibly bear that. People are fed the idea that our purpose in life is to go to school, get educated, get a job and make money, and you cannot survive without it, which is sadly true. People work two jobs to buy their kids the cool clothes, cars phones and all that bullshit until they become distant to what the world has to offer. Nothing saddens me more than to see my parents in this device that we call a life day in and day out and dont think nothing of it. And with all the bills that a normal family incurs, they are stuck. I hope you can make sense of this ramble, i know what im talking about, but hard to put into words.
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Re: Stinkfist: What does it mean?
I didnt elaborate much on how the song relates to what i said, but here it is:
Our fist, and by the end of the song, our whole arm, stinks because WE are the ones constantly shoving this overstimulating information up our asses.
"I can help you change
Tired moments into pleasure.
Say the word and we'll be
Well upon our way."
The "I" in this verse is referring to the media and the material idealist bullshit we ingest daily. It turns your "tired" moments ( tired moments being times when we dont know what the latest Iraqi war death toll, newest school gunman, fashon trends, bulemic method IS) into pleasure. Pleasure being the feeling of the familiar fistfull of garbage being inserted like so many suposatories.
If we say the "word" it will leave, and the word is to not pay attention to it. If we all would stop buying the Enquirer, watching depressing news etc..they would find something else to report on.
"What became of subtlety" - - The news shows some of the most graphic violence and disturbing images you can find and we think nothing of it, we even crave more. it's there for all to see, but you let a titty or a ass or something slip out and HOLD THE F UP!!! we cant have that. Censor it, sue the party involved and make them feel as if they did something wrong, I.e. janet jackson at the super bowl a couple years ago; they ragged her for a NIPPLE until she got on tv and apologized and shit for it. Something so natural and beautiful as the human body is made to be dirty and taboo in our culture (I can only speak of American culture), whereas a man getting shot with a .50 BMG machinegun, a parent not taking care of a child, a family torn apart by the absence of parents due to them working overtime two jobs to drive an Acura and have a shit-eating $2000 piece of a dog is perfectly fine.
I have kinda strayed a little, but i feel like rambling.
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I think it's generally about extremism/over reaction. People being "bored", "numb", and overstimulated from the, at this point, grossly manipulated "American consumerism way" (which includes the media) and finding ridiculous shit to entertain themselves, and waste their time with. All the vivid and grotesque sex metaphores, are an expression of Maynard's anger and frustration towards this, and a poetic way to grab your attention. It's also a stab at how so many people are so naieve and take things too literally, and buy what anyone sells them (including the media).
it is about what ever you want it to be, tool is suppose to be inspiring, helpful, you find your own meaning and let it help you, dont try to figure out what mj was thinking, that will just get you wanting to get close with him and meet him, then he has too many people at his fucking wine signing wearing tool shirts and wanting to know if prison sex is really about him being raped as a kid, plus you wont ever figure that out and then you'll end up on top of a building with a gun, just use the music to inspire you and make something positive, so i'll just say all of you are right but some will actually gain from it, you who say what you thing mj's meaning is you will just get a high ego and think that you know what he feels, pshh
__________________ "It starts with understanding of suffering, not by mere mind, but by the PURIFIED MIND."
