This is just a cool song, nothing more..I think. It's neat because of the title, which to me could mean something like psychedelics breaking language barriers, or failing to. Good stuff, with the lyrics being subjectable to more than one way of being looked at and understood - Will I Ever Be Coming Down - resonates like that. I really want to believe that the guy(s) in tool however just enjoy ufology as esoteric entertainment, and are not trying to convey an experience other than the imaginitive imaging one might go through while listening to the song. I think this song makes the second case I've personally heard about where someone was fairly high and also claiming to be abducted by aliens at the same time. The first being William Melvin Hicks. I think that's what Maynard's doing, is describing someone else's AWI. I don't believe this stuff. I like it, but I don't believe it. This shit makes me think of Ghosthunters. However great the band pulls off the 'overwhelming' that has been described in other mediums, I don't believe it. Drugs fuck you up. Your brain fucks up. You go through some things that convince you, to believe in God, to believe you've seen a ghost, to believe you've just interacted (telepathically!) with beings fortunate enough to have not only interstellar travel, but intersteller intent. Its just all too crazy not to be merely a great night. We like the way it feels to wax on, and it's concepts like Rosetta Stoned that may actually help to simply break the language barriers in our own minds and to get them connected and working as one. It's general tool.

Just an FYI, Maynard has said that this song was about his friend Dave. Or at least the influence for it. The song is basically pointing fun at the people who missed the point because they were too fucked up. It's either he could've missed the most important thing in the world because he was so fucked up or that he conjured it all up from being so fucked up. Nonetheless, the point is to not lose sight of the goal.

i've always felt this song was very fictional and non-personal for maynard, other than it may be loosely based off a friend that was tripping on LSD near Groom Lake and thought he got abducted by aliens. as IE stated... I'm pretty sure both Adam and Maynard have confirmed this in a few interviews.

But there is that part of the song where maynard sings "Overwhelmed as one would be, place in my position. Such a heavy burden now to be, "The One". Born to bare and bring to all the details of our ending. To write it down for all the world to see. But I forgot my pen, and shit the bed again. Typical"

I always felt like the song shifts to First person/Non-fiction for maynard... speaking directly to Tool fans that misconstrue his words to the point where they believe him to be prophetic. Maynard obviously write a lot about his views of the nature and behavior of society and what he would like to see change about it. And maybe he has become disgruntled that people have missed his hope (perhaps a fools hope) that people would listen to their music, take change into their own hands and grow and evolve on their own. It may be the case for some, but certainly not all. I sense some bitterness from Maynard in that regard... but at the same time I don't think he really cares if people don't "get it". Whatever that means.

make seven?

i think its about the whole pseudo-prophecies caused by psychedelics- also maynard said that he is tired of leading a horse to the water and expecting it to drink...in an interview he mentioned that he tried to help people a lot in the past and is now fed up...so i think that this song is indeed making fun of those things and i also think that because of this there are so many musical references to other tool-songs...(h., third eye, triad...)
on the other hand this song is like some freaked-out drug-pop-literature with the references to things from the media (for example e.t) which than again is a reference to the limitations of language to point out what we experience when under the influence or in a meditative state...in other words: there isn`t much more behind the song than what it basically, literally says...or not ?!?!?!

^ Would not disagree.

I don't see the humor in this song at all. Some people really, really swear they've been abducted, and I'll really really admit that sometimes, I wish I'd get abucted. But if this song, or the book, Communion, are any guides, it sounds like a bad night. I haven't come across any official comments about this song. But I don't want to ask the author, what were they thinking? What I'm left with is a metal song that is an experience. A good one, one that teases my inner Nemoy. Tool made a space song. This song, to me, is like the obelisk, and my ears are the apes.

Up Yours. Not you. Make 7-Up...Yours! To drink some time! A joke involving that catch phrase, and also, I'm keeping with the up the ass theme familiar to Tool song studiers.

I also want to say, this song catalizes within me, a nagging annoying question I have that is constantly oppressed by unanswer. IF, aliens exist, and IF, aliens of some varieties are attracted to signals emitted by a tripping brain, and IF any aliens sometimes come down to earth and communicate warnings or suck people up, is there enough math left to explain how this hasn't happened to enough people to produce evidence worthy of everday knowledge, and how all these claims (specifically, in the US) of UFOs and/or close encounters, seem to be kinda stupid and not ever endorsed by a credible person of truth? Are we as a nation, or as a world, that oppressed, that the truth about these experiences is held from us that easily, or is the information that goofy, that governments have no problems with all the movies, shows, books, art, events, legends, tales, actual government reports, and conspiracy theories that are produced to draw support and fanbases for people who make claims such as the ones involving Area 51's innards? Are we are own shadow makers at this point? Until the ACLU is suing Wal-Mart for low wages paid to E.T.'s, and I gotta deal with a dick riding down my street in one of those ID4 saucers with the muffler cut off, AND!, AND! I'm watching with a hung mouth a show called "Ghost Catchers", I'll give in to this songs meaning. Till then I'm just jamming. I hope you like jamming too.

lol u high?

Well I think it's good that the song has you thinking.... but uhhhh I'm thinking some detox might be good for a while? ;-)

lol...wow

I wholeheartedly agree....either that or slipping into one of those nice robes that get tied behind your back while you relax in a room made entirely of cushions

In another time, another place, where the light is different, but lumious enough to light up my lobes, and make my brain sneeze. I'm in a funk, my old soul is stirred, dejavu dejavu all over all over again again. Rivek, Inner_Eulogy, elusivEuphoria, and base metal, did you guys all just rosetta stone me? With those comments suggesting that I'm high and insane? Your answers to my question, which if you remember, contained a complaint about how my particular question is often unanswered, really don't seem to fit the discriptions of a deep thinker, but I guess you others are yappers..how 'bout, Dismissers and Dittoheads? That fits. Really tight. Break free!

Look... I don't speak for all, but I'd imagine most of us are coming from the same perspective. We've all had the flood gates burst open and gone down wild trains of thought and pondered big questions that are completely beyond the scope of our understanding... and more specifically, often with those of us here on this board... those trains of thought may have been sparked by a particular Tool song. Which is why i said that it's great that that the song got you thinking...

I too have had some wild trains of thought where i pondered the nature of the universe and how quantum physics claims that their are 3 spacial dimensions, one time dimension and then 7 other spacial dimensions that we have very little understanding of but are postulated by these theorys (string theory, etc.). I've thought about how perhaps one of these dimensions is like a "plane of consciousness" and is actually the physical, tangible and measurable unified consciousness and that all we are as humans and living beings are a vessel that creates a perturbation in this plane of consciousness and brings it into contact with our 4-D reality....

But at a certain point i have to stop and say to myself... "boy i really am just spewing out a bunch of bullshit that i know nothing about."

I mean let's face it, we're a bunch of fans of a rock band on a message board, posting our thoughts on the internet which is plagued by mis-information and trivial minutia.

I hope you don't take my comments as hostile, they were not meant to be.