^^I dont want to upset anyone, but i think that i heard that too. That means 2 people said they heard the same thing = it MUST be true.

its all double meanings, pot, meaning marijuana "you must have been high"
pot calling the kettle black "piss all over my black kettle"
"foot in mouth, head up ass" u couldnt talk if u do either, and u'd look stupid but the turns f phrase get used so much
i doubt ita baout the melting pot
also i belive there was one historical case of a kangaroo going to court ,or something along those lines.
possibly has reference to bush, more than likely

i'm not sure its ganja police, could be, would make sense, iraq, home of opium and marijuana, i usppose bush and his administration were gnaja police

i'm listening to the song while i write this and my mind keeps changing fairly ambiguous really, i dont think they guy was right about the melting pit, all seems a bit pretentious to me

this is what i hear too.

maynard is just fantastic. he must read our silly quests to understanding his music and laugh it up. just the title of "the pot" makes it hard to place the meaning on any one of those interpretations...being pot (marijuana), the MELTING pot, and being the pot that calls the kettle black. it is still awkward on its own for each of those connotations. i just love it. "liar, lawyer, mirror for you...what's the difference? he's as guilty as the government." hahaha. it's just so funny.

i'm write on the pot calling the kettle black, cos there such an obvious refernce in there.
so the liar/lawyer lines sum tha tup perfectly, being guilty as the government and that, the lawyer is the pot calling the kettle of the governemtn black, seee what i mean.

sorry it appears i cant spell

I just don't see where people are getting this melting pot idea from.

I feel the song is about hypocricy, plain and simple.

There are a lot of double meaning in the lyrics but not all of the lyrics have double meanings.

Tool really doesnt make blatantly political songs so stop saying the song is about Bush or oil. Why would Maynard bring that shit into Tool when thats what APC has been doing. You see? it makes no sense.
Seperate what Maynard does for Tool from APC, b/c APC is most likely much more of a collaborative effort with Billy Howardel as far as lyrics go.

And for the sake of all that is unholy will you people look up the term
"Kangaroo Court" before you post another stupid inference about kangaroos.
Seriously. Wikipedi. It takes 2 minutes.

This song is about American impreialism.


And oil.

"ganja police" is retarded.

... and this song is obviously about fondue.

Quoted for truth.

the balls deep in muddy water, if the song is thought to be political, could be a reference to New Orleans and hurricane Katrina.. Per haps claiming that Bush thinks he can do all these miracles, but here are all the realities and how he fucked them up- you must have been high -- when you did this, or that

Always such an entertainment when people on the one hand argue that "Maynard wouldn't be obvious" and then turn around and say "Maynard is talking about <insert writer's favorite bashee here>" So the song is only about weed on the surface (which I buy) but is *really* about the dirty rotten evil hypocritical USA. Now this song's onion layers may very well end there, but this habit is especially evident in the Right in Two thread, where posters go to positively herculean efforts to take a song relating to the human condition in general and apply it to "Chimpy McBushitler" and Iraq. Sometimes a song can be more of a Rorschach than a specific message. I'm really looking forward to 2008 so I can find out what liberals believe in other than "the opposite of whatever Bush believes in" - it should be illuminating.

Certainelty more than the surface meaning of "the pot". The hypocracy of the American gov. is obviously attacked, but perhaps other Governments supporting Bush are as well. Does the reference to "kangaroo" perhaps have anything to do with the Oz gov.?

Id love it if maynard was taking a shot at our esteemed, ass licking excuse for a prime minister... or am i just talking with my head up my ass hole?

The title has multiple ambiguous meanings, no?

Favorite line in this song : Soapbox house of cards and glass, so don't be tossin' your stones around.

ok I've just listened to this song for the first time (awesome btw), and as far as the whole "ganja police" thing goes, I'd say it's this: all thru the song he's saying "you must've been high", then at the last line he says "you must been out your mind"...so I think he's saying something more like "Ganja? Puh-lease! You must been out your mind!". Sounds about right to me
And as for the whole kangaroo thing, I'm pretty sure there have been no kangaroos involved in hangings thus far. Do what someone has already suggested and look up "kangaroo court", you might think of something better
Cheers for the new album

To me, this sounds more like a Maynard thought. Seems like hypocricy would be a much more "toolish" song subject rather than takin' a stab at Bush. Sounds like the correct interpretation to me.

Agreed - great line.

Anyway, everyone else's take is here so I'll toss in my 2 pennies. I think, yes, the general theme is "hypocrisy", standard "pot calling the kettle black". That was the impression I got before I even heard the song/read the lyrics, strictly just from the title.

The "kangaroo court" reference was obvious to me, too. This one can go paired with the drug war or the war on terror. Sadly, it works in either context.

The "kangaroo be stoned/he's guilty as the government" line is interesting. I'm thinking that the guy that wastes his time only doing drugs and nothing productive is as bad as the police that want to put him away for doing them. Someone else something to that end above, and I think that's probably accurate - makes the song more multi-dimensional than just blaming one side of the equation.

The "chosen indigo/lemon juice" line has got me, though. I think henna is made with the two, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so I won't even try to speculate, but if someone has an idea, I'll hear it.

I think this song has multiple meanings/allusions--it's along the same stream as Vicarious. Has anyone noticed that some of the lyrics could be about the whole Michael Jackson pedophilia thing? I think it would be funny. The vocals at some point just seem to be a comical impersonation of Jackson.

[copied from the lyrics post so they might not be accurate]

Who are you to wave your finger (he does this alot in his stupid videos)
You musta been out your head
I hold deep in muddy waters (Dancing in puddles on one of his dumb videos)
you practically raised the dead (Thriller)

Rob the grave to snow the cradle (pedophilia)
then burn the evidence down
Soapbox house of cards and glass so
dont go tossing your stones around


difficult to dance round this one (yeah, obvious)
till you pull it out boy

I like this song a whole lot more now that I'm aware of these multiple meanings. I feel like dumbass now for originally thinking it was just about weed. Of course Tool is deeper than that!

Why did this get stickied? Regardless of whether it's right or not (and I really don't think it is), it's really no more profound than any other theory.

*smacks head against wall* Kangaroo court, duh.
Cheers for correcting me

certainly. this song is kinda like H. the drug reference is in the title, and a part of the song, but not an explanation fo the song like many other titles like eulogy and hooker with a penis

Very good, valid points, nice job

I really think this song is about the government's campaign against marijuana, the way the government has spent millions of dollars making ridiculous commercial spots to make pot heads look like the SCUMM of the earth. Think about it: the government has their head up their ass and can't approach the topic fairly, they wave their finger at pot heads, they show people fucking up--often times resulting in serious harm or death, then they say it was because they were HIGH, they must've been HIGH...and when they focus only on the foolish people who use marijuana who are idiots who hurt themselves and others and refuse to look at the benefits of medical marijuana they "hang the guilty with the innocent". That's the only meaning I can think of. If anyone has a line to disprove it, I'm interested in hearing.

As for the title, if you picture a square, or an old lady, or a republican talk about weed, I could hear them calling it "the POT". All those dopeheads, smoking THE POT and hurting each other, it's just terrible!!! It shows the lameness and lack of understanding that the government has toward marijuana.

Seems like you're kinda reaching for those meanings there.

I love how people always feel the need to point out the "real meaning" of Tool's music (as if they know for sure, 100%). Like the rest of us are just ignorant dipshits, incapable of seeing past things, like how "The Pot" really **isn't** all about weed...

man. I think you just blew my motherfucking mind..


::sighsss::

lol, do you really think MJK wrote "The Pot" *right* after Wings I&II, intentionally, to try and save face because he was worried people would be mad at him for singing about his mother? :O lols. Honestely, I don't think he could give a shit either way if some teenage fan-boys get their panties in a bunch because he sang about his dead mother... I think he wrote the song *for* his mother, and I'm sure he doesn't give a shit if people agree with his views, or believe him 100%, or not.

lol. Idk.

:D!!

a much more light hearted thread that the wings one for sure. maybe he wanted us think he was talking about grass so all you/us stoners would open those red eyes and look deeper, or maybe not, this congregation never seems to need tricks played to seek the deeper meaning. the wonder of the tool fan. if only we looked so closely and analytically at our own lives and took the meaning somewhere outside the forum and grew.

Stickied?

Not because of me of course. There's lots of interesting ideas embedded in here.

*applauds you all*

probably, oh well...everybody does it at some point on here
EDIT: i just like it, it's awesome.

I don't know why i didn't think any further on my 'maybe it's not about a jackass who was stoned' For a while i thought it was just Hooker With a Penis pt. 2. Now you kids went and made me have all kinds of other options in my head!

As far as the Jesus references go, Christian symbolism is all OVER this record, it's insane how often you get it. Which made me think about Lateralus and all the Judaism and Qabbalistic references that people called out. Maybe we'll ahve a trend for a few albums on major religions? That'd be neat. Hinduism and Buddhism would be sooo peaceful and Islam would probably be a lot like Christianity.

I agree with alot of you... I think this song is about the hypocrisies and bullshit going on in our society. I dont think it has much to do with marijuana... but its definetly referenced. I'm 99% sure he says "Ganja Police" at the end of the song. Id say the song is just about the general state of humanity... and the hypocrisies and corruptions man has had and always will have. I think alot of the album toys with this theme.

I've been listening to Maynard's lyrics long enough to know that he has used metaphor and distraction more than a couple of times. Here's an observation. This is my first time here and I notice that people explain lyrics and such as if they ARE Maynard. I believe that the beauty of art is what YOU find in it for yourself... not what preachers/teachers preach/teach on the subject (telling me what a song means, which is laughable at best). I like to think that I don't need any interperatation of meaning. -E.T. Love ya anyway

I can't believe this. This album is the most straightforward (seemingly) album Maynard has ever written lyrics for, and now we're debating whether or not this song has something to do with Marijuana? The song is called, "The Pot." One refrain is, "You must have been high." Is the song directly related to marijuana? No. Is there a description of what it's like to be high? No. But, to say the song has nothing to do with it is absolutely preposterous. That's like saying "Hooker with a Penis" has nothing to do with prostitution.

at lest once i thought he sed it lol

i talked to mj and told him that i was realy high the first time i listened prison sex and lamb and martyr souned like lemon water he liked that and disided to put somthing about being high and lemons on the new cd 1+1=3 and there you have it

LMAO... thanks for clearing that up. hah