After listening to both parts of this song I still don't know what the sound at the end is supposed to be. Could be the gates of heaven shutting. Seems to fit in the context of this composition. Of course after that, the title track starts, so I'm not truly sure of the intention of the aforementioned sound effect. May be the metaphorical door shutting on her life with the next song mostly chronicling her journey to the heaven that she spent all her life trying to get to. Of course, knowing Tool and their penchent for layered meanings in their songs, I could be completly wrong on both counts.

You mean the sound that’s also at the end of Merkaba?

yeah

sounds kind of like a gong being struck

you know.....it's probably just a big dramatic sound....it's a song memoralizing a dead woman....it's just a chilling sound.

yea, i also thought about that. it seems to make sense in a way

Well, At the end of WFM it makes me think of a coffin closing. The actual sound can be achieved with a detuned bass.

A friend of mine suggested that it could be a de-tuned bass string flopping around after (possibly a b string on a 5 string bass... though i don't know if Justin plays one of those) being struck. I've always thought while listening to it that it didn't sound booming enough to be a drum. AND, if you listen very closely, you can hear some sort of vibration in repetition, like a very very loose string would do against the frets.

Essentially, what fatbags said above me.

They are wings flapping of course

Could possibly be a high floor-tom drum hit, with the drum mikes picking up a rattle from the snare drum. Of course it is echoed and otherwise processed as it appears throughout Wpt2. I also tend to agree with those above about the bass thing. Just trying to expand the options. The initial sound is almost (but not 100%) a drum hit, but the echoes are definitely a string or snare rattling. The only way I know to even come close to that sound otherwise is to put the boots to an amp that has spring reverb. Regardless of your volume setting, if you bang into such an amp, the result to your ears is nothing short of cataclysmic, but may sound different on tape/dat/digital, etc...

This sound is also at the end of No Quarter.

probably one of Danny's samples.

Exactly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5i-jtBmpSs

I think its a gong.

Ah there it is, at 1:56--- danny hits a drum and it makes the sound.

Have any of you who think it's a gong actually heard a gong in person?

the song is a eulogy, imagine maynard sitting in a dark corner of a hospital room writing while his mother sleeps in her deathbed. he then reads the euolgy and they are putting a casket in the ground. the bang at the end is just the thump as the casket hits the ground and the sparkly sound is dirt being thrown over it.

thats not what the sound really, but its what it sounds like.

yeah its one of Danny's samples, saw it before my very eyes.

Yup, it's a sample. That explains it very well, kinda like describing a tiger like this-"Yup, it's a mammal!"

Although this question can be taken many ways, the 2 most relevant are this;

What does it represent?

What is the sound really?

Personally, my vote is that Danny, at the exact moments of Maynards mothers death, had his brand new (at the time) Leica-Sennheiser optical microphone pointed directly at the Gates of Heaven. (Being a member of the Illuminati, he is privy to such info..) The big booming sound is St. Peter shutting the gate, and the sound after it is a discretely let fart by aforementioned saint, as strict no-farting policies exist behind the pearly gates! Of course, in order to confuse us stupid monkeys, Danny plays them in reverse order in the sample, as well as adds a bit of pitch de-tuning and echo. Gives new meaning to "Divine Wind", doesn't it?

hahahaha. yeah...yeah...i bet thats it, why didnt any one else think of that?

Just kinda getting tired of these folks who seem to think that a sampler is some sort of miracle machine that can fabricate sounds out of thin air, or that the guys from TOOL, or NIN,(or Stinikin' Park for that matter) just think of sounds, and they magically appear. Or they think a gong makes a "thumping" sound, or that Danny is the only other guy in the band besides Maynard. Now, as anyone who knows modern musical equipment knows, samples can be triggered by ANY instrument, pedal, sequencer, etc...Saying-"Yup, it's a sample", and taking some kind of smug stance 'cuz you saw Danny hit something with a drumstick doesn't exactly inform ANYBODY of ANYTHING! A sampler is only different from your digital voicemail system in sound quality! And both need original sounds to "Sample" for playback. Saying "It's a sample." is like saying, "I'm pretty sure Maynard says something in the chorus..."

Hey geniuses, try this little query out- WHAT THE FUCK IS IT A SAMPLE OF?

...people are idiots.

no one praise justin chancellor. i hear stuff about danny or adam and especially maynard all the time, but never "justin chancellor is my hero!" hell, he was better than paul d'armour. justin is still part of tool, but he doesnt get credit for anything. ...poor justin.

Amen brother/sister! I think that people kinda forget that it, (TOOL) is a band of 4 individuals. When they get together, magic happens. I honestly cannot think of a song, segue, etc...that would benefit from them doing anything different. What you hear on the CDs and live is what they meant! Could Adam be more technically proficient as a guitar player? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares? He does what is right for the song, and the mood/ambience THEY are trying project. Same with all of them. I know that each member has their fans, and they usually are very vocal about who says or does what, but you are listening to TOOL, not Justin, Adam, Maynard, and Danny! The whole is greater than the 4 parts. Can anyone imagine any TOOL song where Adam does a Yngwie Malmsteem style classical guitar shredfest would make it a better song? Or Justin ripping out some Billy Sheehan riffs on his bass? Completely unnecessary! Even in his most furious drum pounding, Danny still plays to the song he's playing. Some people like to compare Danny to Neal Peart of Rush, but I kinda find Peart's drumming overdone, almost masturbatory.

The short answer is this- I know the pieces fit, because TOOL does. They do what's right for their music, instead of showboating. All this, and another thing some folks need to keep in mind is that they're still "just" humans.

im a sister
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i205/IcaLynn222/Ica07resized02.jpg

im kinda sick of hearing that "maynard is God" if you go to songmeanings.net, theres people there who think he is a prophet. kinda sickening.
one of the best things about these guys is that they know they are talented and people do worship them, but they make use of that. they arent always in the public eye and they probably never will be. they hide from that, and its a beautiful thing that they do. its endearing in a way.

Well sis, (and a nice looking one at that!) did you know that Maynard invented the mohawk? Just kidding. That's my whole point!

In my above post, I may have been a little rough on the guys talking about seeing Danny trigger the sample. Now, as I've stated before, I think it's a drum hit with some extra ambient noise. The extra noise is the sample, and if they used it live, I sure didn't hear it, but that's irrelevant. What I saw at the Mpls. show was Danny hitting something, (certainly not a gong btw!) that sounded exactly like a really hard floor-tom hit, and no rattling echoing sound afterwards, but that doesn't matter, as live, you can't always hear everything. Just wanted to get back on topic, we kinda wandered a little.

Wasn't it already said to be a gong drum?

Lynn, I'm sorry to hear about your mom! As far as what the sound means (ie, the abstract sense), I prefer the whole "Gates of Heaven" thing. It lends the song and sentiment closure, but with a more positive twist, and it doesn't matter what religion you do or do not follow, pretty much all beliefs incorporate such a place. When I first heard the song, it reminded me of of my grandmother.(Marie also, btw) Some people deserve access, some don't, and some of us might have to work at it....

Gong =/= Gong drum.

I think it's a "Liger", oh wait, a Liger actually exists!

Gong drum= Science Fiction!

the sounds comes around to a "coil"-like action. could this be the release of judith marie's mortal coil?

sounds more twinkly to me

"Hey geniuses, try this little query out- WHAT THE FUCK IS IT A SAMPLE OF?"

Ok, so. I saw a video on youtube of Maynard in a studio shooting a piano. The boom could be the gunfire, and the coiling could be the piano wire. He had alread shot it several times, and Danny was beating the shit out of it, so the other wires may have been broken or de-tuned, causing the lower tone of vibration. It was an older video, but as others said, they've used the sample before, so could be it.

Does this make me a genius?

That reminds me. . .

Okay, picture this if you will.

People should know that snare drums have little metal chains stretched across them. When you hit the snare directly, you really don't hear the rattle, it just produces a more pundgent sound all together. Well, when you hit another drum piece, sometimes it'll produce a frequency that makes those chains rattle. Therefor, you don't even hit the drum head that produces the sound. It's produced by the tiny chains over the snare rattling due to a massive hit from another drum.

^^hes not lying
its especially true if you have your snares really loose
or if you broke and have a shitty snare drum like me
i dont think the seconds the case with DC

has anyone noticed that when you hear the "slam" in the song, it happens on the 11th beat after the riff starts?

It's a coffin closing.

I might be going out on a limb here but just hear me out. This video i noticed that maynard, adam and justin are all surrounding danny like they are becoming close for this emotional moment...Obviously playing WFM. When danny hits his drumkit to make the "Coffin closing" sound, maynard then says "we'll see you on the other side" Do you think that he is referring to his mother after playing Wings and that he will see judith again on the other side/after death? I dont know maybe im just "over thinking" this but it came to my mind. He also says "we'll see you on the other side" during the intro to pushit on salival. Or maybe maynard is just speaking to the fans that he will see them on the other side after lateralus like he did on pushit? i dont know maybe im just crazy. haha Cheers.

I've listened to this quite a bit in the past few months and I interpret the sound as a representation of the finality of death, end of life, or simply a coffin closing. When my grandfather died, the days between his death and the funeral were incredibly difficult as I was comming to terms with the fact that he was no longer here. When I hear that THUMP in the song, it evokes the emotions I was feeling during my grandfather's funeral. -Just my 2 cents.

you dont own undertow do you.


I always thought the sound was representive of the moment of death.