I first signed up here back in April, I think, but never posted, just wanted to hear any info that was coming in. Came back here on and off since, and besides a few people who had something very interesting to add I found that most of you don't have a clue... Some look too deep (I guess I could be included there), some don't look deep enough, and some (more like most) try to attribute every lyric to something in their own lives (like those who broke up with a significant other and listen to Schism on repeat while weeping into a pillow... You know who you are). But, whatever... One of my favorite quotes, although I don't recall who originally said it, is "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink." And of course, some assholes stink more than others. So, sniff my asshole and let me know what you think. I won't respond though unless you're going to add something insightful or bring my house of cards crashing down. And I'm gonna try to be as brief as possible in expressing my opinion, because the proof is in the lyrics, you just need to read them right...


10,000 Years is within 10,000 Days. Intension is early man, nomadic, and using tools like stones and fire. Right in Two introduces man to religion. Man starts living in communities by dividing up the land, and starts using tools like clubs and blades. The tools mentioned in these two songs can have two uses, one to help and one to hurt. Then we come to modern times, Vicarious, where the tool is television. Television could be used for so much more than it is. Instead of disseminating information to better man we are fed propaganda and commercials day in and day out. What starts out as something pure (man in Intension) slowly starts going downhill with concepts like organized religion and government, all ruled by the end of a sword (Right in Two). Vicarious paints man as nothing more than a product, constantly being sold and sold to. But it's not all gloom, because then comes Jambi. The end of Jambi brings it all together, where Right in Two keeps repeating "Cut it all right in two", Jambi boldly begs the Sun to "Shine until the two become one". "10,000 Years" comes full circle with Jambi, and coming round full circle is a major theme of 10,000 Days in my opinion, where the starting point of the album is not Vicarious but Intension, or maybe even Lipan if it's moved in front of Intension. I'm still playing around with different track listings, and aside from rearranging the segues, the way it is is fine.

Another major theme of the album is cutting things in two. Six songs on the album are essentially three cut in two; Wings 1 & 2 (17:25), LK and Rosetta Stoned (14:57), Intension and Right in Two (16:17). These songs each tell a distinct story and cannot be seperated from each other because of the way they flow into each other, just like D/R/T, Parabol/a, and even Opiate/Flood. So 10,000 Days has 8 tracks total, and clocking in at about 76 minutes this is one truly epic album.

Viginiti Tres:
23... How many of you are familiar with the 17 breaths of Merkabah? How about the 23 breaths in Third Eye? Or how about the relationship between 17 and 23? 17 = 8 by 1 + 7 = 8. 8 is 2 cubed or 2 x 2 x 2. The difference between 17 and 23 is 6, or 2 x 3. Connecting dots in the dark? Ask yourself, do you believe in coincidence? What is coincidence? Coincidence is nothing but synchronicity ignored, and if you don't think synchronicity plays a major role in the music Tool creates then I would ask you to please share whatever it is you're smoking. I could continue down this path but I'm getting off topic, but if you want to know more about the number 23 hit up wikipedia, or go to the source and pick up The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. But back to Viginiti Tres... This song is pretty much a blank slate, something you can add to other songs to add an extra layer to it. Try listening to the Pot with it, making sure that Viginiti starts exactly 1:20 into the Pot. Another song you can put this to is Wings 1 & 2, which has been mentioned on these boards before. I'm still playing around with the timing, but a friend of mine gave me an MP3 back in May of VT and Wings 1 over Wings 2 and it sounded nearly perfect. Once Wings 1 starts to kick in with lyrics about 6 minutes in it starts to sound wrong, but once you get to 9:14 everything syncs up perfectly. So ask yourself this; is it just a "coincidence" that VR and Wings 1 = Wings 2? 9 + 14 = 23


I could keep going but I'm tired and bored, but I might come back later with some more.

Pax vobiscum.

"bordom's not a burden anyone should bare..."
also, gotta love the latin. i'm all about "pax"in' people.

AND KEEP GOING, DAMNIT! SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!!!

after reading this post, i'm kinda VERY FUCKIN' PISSED that no one has cared to comment on this thread today (well, now it's 12:08am here, sooo - you know what i mean). WTF?! anyways, i'll give you my time, this thread is definitely worth communication.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvery interesting thoughts here.
allow me to differ on a few points, though. 10,000 years? another timeline?! i love it. this is good stuff. MAYBE it shows our history - the evolution of humans (from pure beings) ...the properties of "human" are very much seperate from our light bodies (merkaba). somehow, somewhere ...we fucked this up. initially, i've taken these songs as if they are with us now ...in the present (not so much as a timeline). like, the angels are wondering about us now. "intention" refers BACK to a time when we were pure, true. as innocent as a baby (at birth, you are said to be a pure being). but your intention, as i've stated elsewhere, (although, it could and probably does mean a lot of things) is 100 percent. pure love. pure will. merkaba. 100%. it's the only way we can leave our bodies and safely move our being throughout the universe. without that 100%, fear will exist. and "there's no love in fear". this track, as i've come to know, doesn't bring you back in time, it shows you what it was to live in the beginning ...and what is possible today (now); and i feel tool wants to show that to us. "jambi" WANTS us to "breathe in union", but listening to the complicated rhythms, we're not there today. begging for the "sun" to fix our ways is something to arrive (if it ever happens) in the future. rearranging tracks, huh? considering your 10,000 years theory, i would LOVE to hear a new version of this album. it's possible. it'd definitely take you throughout our history. lipan would be great as the beginning track. or the end, haha!

and yeah, i've been OBSESSED with the breathing in tool songs. "third eye", "disposition", "jambi", etc... studying the length of breaths has been with me ever since aenima came out. definitely for meditation. i'm so fuckin' happy someone else realized this before i mentioned it! :):):):):):)):):)):) ad nausea >>>

so, i guess your asshole smells amazing and sweet. like a child at a candy store, the smell seems to even lingers in the back of my throat ...enough to taste.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
i want more, 83%. MORE!!!


p.s. d/r/t doesn't fit together. it just doesn't. triad fits into the end of the grudge, and eon starts off reflection. parabol(a) works, lost/rosetta works. but not 10/11/12. check out THOSE pieces fitting... also, the bass in ticks starts at the end smack of schism. gotta love, so perfect... coincidences have never been this apparently thought out. wake the fuck up, people!


PAX!

I like these ideas too, good thinking 83%... that's all for now as it's way too early in the morning for me to comment more intelligently. Think on.

You make a very good point. It's very easy to force synchronicity. But it's important to have an open mind, but not open enough that makes it essentially closed. Gotta walk a fine line when it comes to this stuff, look into all the possibilities from many different sources, and come to your own conclusion after you have acquired an adequate amount of information to satisfy your natural skepticism. So I'll point you to a good starting point for the numbers I was talking about (I didn't make this shit up, but I wish I did... and I didn't even scratch the surface with what I mentioned):

23 (number)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_%28number%29

23 (enigma)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_23_enigma

And iAMtheMA!, I have a much longer reply for you since you covered so many good topics, but I'm not done typing it up (I have a whole lot of nothing to say...) I'm working on something else at the moment (took a break and decided to see how this topic was going... I share your disappointment). I might not be able to finish it tonight, so I'll most likely post it tomorrow.

Pax vobiscum

Sorry I couldn’t post this sooner, but I couldn’t get online this past weekend. It’s a bit longer than I expected it would be, but, whatever. I get a bit redundant at times, but, whatever… I didn’t have enough time to include my thoughts on LK/Rosetta Stoned, but whatever… And thanks for the compliments, my asshole appreciates it. Enjoy my unnecessarily long theories of nothing about nothing.

When I first heard the album back in April I was confused by the album because of how disjointed it felt and sounded, but I learned long ago never to go into a Tool album with expectations. When I first heard Intension and Right in Two I thought what you are saying here, that everything dealt with the here and now, especially since Vicarious was on my mind because of it being the opener and the first single. After many listens (I think I've heard the album in it's entirety a hundred times now) I kept picking up more and more little hints that brought the album back together from its semblance of disconnection. If you look at the lyrics to this album, not just the ones here on TDN (which have way too many errors that I care to list), but when you compare lyrics for Intension and Right in Two specifically with lyrics found all over the internet you'll get a better picture of what's being told. For example, these lines are from here on TDN, "Light the way or warm this Hope we occupy". That should be home instead of hope.

There is also a connection to this 10,000 Years I propose and a previous Tool song, which I understand is your favorite one, Forty-Six & 2. Intension describes aboriginal man, 42 & 2 (if you read the section in the FAQ on here for Forty-six & 2 or Bob Frissell's book you know what I'm talking about). The line "Pure as light, return to one" supports this claim, because 42 & 2 man believes everything is one. Right in Two is modern man, 44 & 2, troubled by wars in the name of god and government. I say modern man, but I don't mean taking place now, but in the last 2000 years. The clues to the timeline here are the weapons they manufacture, clubs and blades, and the perspective of angels which would be attributed to the three major religions of the last 1500 years, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Vicarious brings it to modern times, and with an incredibly pessimistic view. I should mention that besides Wings 1 & 2, every song on this album is sung from a different perspective and a different narrator, none of which are MJK himself. We are living in a time where there have never been so many humans on the planet at once, over six billion. We are also living in a time where there has never been so many “non-believers”, atheists and agnostics, which many hold a pessimistic view on reality, or to quote Reflection, “living in a self-indulgent pitiful hole.” So the narrator of Vicarious is very much one of these pessimistic little assholes, telling it the way it is, but without hope. These lines sum it up well, “Credulous at best your desire to believe in Angels in the hearts of men. But pull your head on out your head please and give a listen, shouldn't have to say it all again. The universe is hostile, so impersonal. Devour to survive… So it is, so it's always been.” That last sentence I feel harkens back to Disgustipated, “Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life, etc.”. Also, the line “shouldn't have to say it all again” I think is a clue to the constant references to past songs, which I believe Paraflux covered on here before. There isn’t much to this song, it’s pretty straight forward, but understanding it from the perspective of the narrator changes the meaning a bit, although I think that my hypothesis on the narrators motives for this song are oversimplified and most likely dead wrong. I don’t feel like focusing too much on this song at the moment.

Jambi represents man reaching 46 & 2. When I first heard this song it was my least favorite on the album because I couldn’t understand where MJK was going with it. Until recently this song still perplexed me (actually, it still does, but it’s one of my favorites now). I went through many theories for what it was about; from the genie on Pee Wee’s Playhouse (for the constant references to wishing, and MJK mentioning live that the show was one of his son’s favorite), which then led me to think that the song was about his son, after losing his mother MJK maybe wanted to express how much he cared for his son. All of this was too simple for me, and the final verses to this song didn’t match up with my two previous thoughts. The song may be from the perspective of god, looking after the return of his “benevolent son” (which the return of “Jesus” may not be an actual return of an actual being, but the return to the way of life of Jesus, pure being, “The Way”, Tao). Or the references to king and sultan might be metaphors for where MJK is at in his career right now… I honestly don’t know. Any of these theories could be correct, or all of them could be wrong. I think once the official lyrics come out we’ll be able to get a better understanding of it (cozened in The Pot changed the meaning quite a bit in my opinion). But the one thing that gets me on Jambi is still those last verses, healing what has been cut in two.

Now, onto the alternate track listing…
Start with Lipan, continue into Intension/Right in Two, Viginiti Tres, Vicarious, Jambi, Wings for Marie 1 & 2, The Pot, and LK/Rosetta Stoned, 8 tracks, 6 songs, 2 segues. Now you may be asking, why is this track list so special, especially since it’s essentially the same as the original except for a few minor differences? This list tells 3 distinct stories, and 1 message. I also see this album as a full circle, where it starts, it ends, and begins again. If you rip the CD into .wav and load them all into a wave editor (I prefer Nero WaveEditor personally) and listen to the ends and beginnings of the tracks you’ll notice little hints to how everything fits together. For example, at the end of Lipan you here a jingling sound as if somebody was gently shaking a tambourine. At the beginning of Intension you here what sounds like an echo of the same shaking tambourine (listen to it yourself and you’ll know what I mean). Another example is the end of Wings 2 and the beginning of The Pot. It sounds as if they recorded it in one take because of the background hiss that continues into The Pot (which isn’t found on any other track except Viginiti Tres) and because at the very end of Wings 2 there is this sound that keeps going back and forth between the left and right channels.

And while on the topic of alternate track listings, lets talk Lateralus. You mentioned that D/R/T doesn’t fit together, and you started to describe “The Holy Gift” tracklisting. First, D/R/T does fit together, as I’ll explain in a minute, and second, “The Holy Gift” is crap because it separates two songs that shouldn’t be separated, EBA/The Patient and D/R/T. The logic behind “The Holy Gift” is flawed for not mentioning why there needs to be 2 spirals, which from what I heard, MJK said that the album made “a” spiral on the album, not 2. And even when you draw a spiral over the tracks 1-13 you still break up those two songs that shouldn’t be separated. I spent a lot of time, and I seriously mean A LOT of time trying to find a much better tracklisting for Lateralus (not that it ever needed one in the first place). You know what I found? It doesn’t need an alternate tracklisting. There are so many permutations, it’s mind boggling. But, this didn’t stop me from making my own tracklisting using a spiral, and here it is: Parabol/a, Schism, Ticks & Leeches, Mantra, Lateralus, EBA/The Patient, D/R/T, The Grudge, and Faaip de Oiad. It starts off like “The Holy Gift” (which does sound nearly flawless) but doesn’t do the same mistake of separating that which shouldn’t be. And The Patient going into Disposition is fantastic and makes perfect sense in the context of the two songs. “Watching the weather change” in the context of Disposition is patience. And I don’t know where you got the idea that D/R/T should be separated, but whoever it was, slap them. The beginning of Reflection is at the end of Disposition, and the beginning of Triad is at the end of Reflection, just like the beginning of Parabola is at the end of Parabol, and the same with EBA and The Patient. They all flow perfectly, just like the tracks on 10,000 Days do.

Pax vobiscum.

alliance? this is good stuff, man. everything you've mentioned here more or less dances around or fortifies what i've come to know while digging. frissell, drunvalo melchizedek... i've read or am reading. and in their books, they describe two sets of spirals. 1. two types (or the fib and the golden mean spirals). 2. two genders/forces (male and female). so, this may have something to do with the two spirals in the "holy gift". the triad. two forces create one effect, the "holy gift"...

...the one spiral.

This has been discussed elsewhere and I believe it to be the true tracklist for Lateralus, however, I do not believe it was you who came up with it.



from http://toolnavy.com/showthread.php?t=38315

no one's taking credit for it, calm down with the linkage.

First of all, belief is the death of thought. For you to say that you believe it to be the true tracklisting for Lateralus you are dismissing all other possibilities, which is a mistake. "It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs." A wise, fictional man said that once. Second, I never claimed that I was the first and only to come up with it. I came up with it after a friend of mine introduced me to the Holy Gift, which I was enthralled with until I listened to the second half a few times and noticed how disconnected that order made it sound. I played around with a few listings, some of which I learned later already had names (like The Lateralus Prophecy or the straight Fibonacci Sequence). And I'm sure whoever you quoted from the previous post wasn't the first either. And that post had a link to a site with someone playing around with the listing as well, but only dating back to 2004. I'm sure that in the three years between the release of the album and the post from that site somebody else might of thought of the same thing... The thing is that there are many ways to rearrange the album. I've got at least 15-20 CD-R's each with a different track listing, half of which don't start with Parabol/a (I still wonder why the most popular arrangements always start with this, when you can easily start the spiral, or spirals, from the ends, and come up with something that sounds just as good), and the best way that I found was the one spiral that I mentioned. I personally have only seen three articles concerning alternate track listings:

This is the one that got me started.
http://www.bofe.org/overthinking.htm

This is the only other one I found after seeing the first.
http://www.peteofthestreet.net/sayz/C1151806467/E1494764863/

And Wikipedia (where I found the names to Lateralus Prophecy and Fibonacci Sequence, two arrangements I found myself as well, but not the first and only)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralus

And when it comes to these alternate track listings I have heard two contradictory statements from MJK, one that there is no alternate tracklisting, and one where he says that the album creates a spiral (neither of which have I seen a direct quote). I don't think there is a true arrangement besides the way they put it out. The album is just so amazing that you can put it into any order you like and still come out with a great aural experience. I think I heard somewhere that the key to solving it is on the back of the case, right next to the track listing. I still haven't been able to crack it (I gave up trying a while ago), and I haven't seen anything suggesting anyone has either (although it wouldn't surprise me if anyone did). Carl Jung's collective unconscious has a place in this conversation... But all of this is way off topic already... I started this thread about 10,000 Days. What are your opinions on 10,000 Years? I'm shocked that this thread isn't doing better considering some of the crap floating around here.

Pax vobiscum.
(Please don't come back and say that I'm not the first to say "Peace be with you" in Latin, 'cause I'm not :)

OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAYING THAT. Now the rest not in caps. I recently read the first work of Frisell and well...it's still sitting next to my desk. Nothing too mind blowing, just eye opening. Anyway, I always felt that Lateralus was one peice of the merkaba and 10,000 Days was the other. But it was you, I needed you to say that. Thank you :)

As for alternate tracklistings brought forth by 83%, I think that LK/RS tells the beginning to the story of this track and then you might use your tracklist for the rest of it. Think of it like this, the aliens told me a message and I cant remember all of it. But I can remember this part: 10,000 Days itself. But and this is gonna be a stretch, I think Jambi is wrongly placed anywhere except at the end of the CD. It feels too...positive for the whole cd and I really think it belongs at the end. Call me a lover of abrupt endings, but I think that hits the message home harder. We can't let obstacles get in our way...We need to keep moving.

Some thoughts on Jambi. Yes I love this song, can't you tell?

Mayhaps the words king and sultan are used to symbollize both religions at war right now. We have kings and they have sultans, atleast back in the day we had kings. Not nessecarily the US, but anglo-saxon's in general.

Sad to say I have not had a chance to read much of Frissell or Melchizedek (trying to rectify that every opportunity I get), but I'm familiar with the two spirals you speak of through Paul Laffoley's work. A lot of his paintings show two spirals becoming one.

http://miqel.com/visionary_art/paul_laffoley_intro.html

http://www.myspace.com/paullaffoley

Lately I have been fascinated with the duality and trinity of the universe. For a while I fought against the dualistic nature of the universe, hoping that it wasn't as simple as one or the other, but I've come to embrace it, because of the trinity that it produces. 1 and 1 are 1, 11... I was talking to this Nietzsche scholar once because he posed this philosophical question to me about whether evil exists because you recognize something is good, whether ugly exists because you recognize something is beautiful, etc... I was high at the time (or drunk, or both), and I responded with this really far out concept using geometry as the basis. There's the line. Good (a) and evil (b) are two points on the line. Those are just points of measurement. There is no such thing as good or evil because they're both on the same line, and the line is infinite. And I ended up going on this rant about it for a while. I haven't heard from him since. I only mention this because I thought it was pretty funny. My train of thought derailed, which I take as a sign that I'm tired hell. Going to pass out now.

Pax vobiscum.

I used a selective, omission type of tracklisting for Lateralus.

1) Parabol/Parabola
2) Schism
3) The Grudge
4) The Patient
5) Lateralus
6) Disposition/Reflection/Triad
7) Faaip de Oiad



As for 10,000 Days and the "10,000 Years" interpretation, I definately take this concept as another possibility to deciphering this album, and just tonight I came up with an alternate 10,000 Days tracklisting and I had "Intension" and "Right In Two" as the first two tracks. Weird.

"the key to solving it is on the back of the case." if there's any truth to this... then maybe i'm right.

take off the outter case thinger and look at the back (the other side of the cd - "right next to the track listing"). now, take a pinecone (for example) to the image and notice the similarities. spirals. this is an image of what i notice the fib-seq to resemble throughout nature:

http://www.erclc.org/StaffPages/Davi.../pinecone0.jpg

two spirals are intersecting on each scale of the pinecone. nature has attempted god's movement by using the fib-seq (male and female spirals) in the scales to create the image and patterns you see in the pinecone (child). so, has tool attempted god's movement ("faaip de oiad" is "the voice of god" btw) by using the fib-seq in "lateralus" to create the re-arrangement of what is now called the "holy gift" tracklisting? it sure would explain a lot of alex grey's art and the end of the "parabol(a)" vid.

edit: but to keep things on topic, i'd have to mention that i'm not sure how much help i'd be in fortifying the 10,000 years theory. i love it! i think it's awesome, and i'm especially glad that someone has been able to express this one so thoroughly (still pissed at the lack of attention here). ...but, i'm not really a history buff, and haven't gotten into languages, cultures, empires, etc. i'm limited to the classics (greek, rome, some egyptian stuff, etc). the whole math in nature, nature is sacred, nature moves closer and closer to "the way", the spirals ...seems like "lateralus" is the album for me. this is still early, though, and i will contribute whenever possible - but i'm not too confident this time around. sorry. still...still pissed. let's go, people! heh.

Nice picture, and I just wanted to say that I've enjoyed reading some of your posts. A lot of it has been very thought-provoking and insightful. You know what I just realized just now? I remember about six months ago looking up my soul number, and I was oblivious to the fact that it was a part of numerology. Anyways, I was searching for 'soul numbers' again tonight, and I came across my soul number again which I remember was '9' and the whole meaning is parallel to how I am as a person and how I choose to live, and it was not like I was even concious to this numerology concept beforehand, so I definately find this occult material to be very eye opening, and theres definately something to it. Fuck superficial, mind warped practical, mall shoppers who are ignorant to the origins of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter!

9331,
see: "rodin coil"

Sorry, guys, I didn't mean to sound like such a hard-on, I was just pointing out that this has been discussed elsewhere and such. That is all. I meant nothing negative.

Thanks for the reference. I appreciate it.

First of all, the quote is, "Ambition is the death of thought," by Ludwig Wittgenstein, which has nothing to do with the topic.

The reason it starts at Parabol is because it is connected to Parabola, the title which has nothing to do with the song but rather is a piece of the puzzle for the tracklisting. It is not an arbitrary starting point. If you draw a line connecting Parabol and Parabola in the shape of a parabola it starts the spiral, from which you spiral out and find the pieces fit with the new track listing. Of course any order of the songs will rock because all of the songs on the album rock.


Don't get your panties all up in a bunch.

Actually, it does, see.

Where does the fact 10K Days deliberately recycles old riffs fit in?

i call 'em motifs. and i'm not sure if it has to fit. but who knows?

The part in Right in Two that is similar to the part in 46&2 is definitely a motif. As for other "recycled riffs", I don't know.

I think that actually kind of sums up the album in a way. It's a dig on all the fans that look too deep into the music and make the band out to be some kind of Gods or something.