I understand the meaning of this song except for the words scarlet lettermen, I know that scarlet is red, but what do the letterman have to do with the rest of the song?
__________________ Although I can't be sure of anything I still leave by the door and not the window.
I understand the meaning of this song except for the words scarlet lettermen, I know that scarlet is red, but what do the letterman have to do with the rest of the song?
Scarlet lettermen are the people you have a grudge against? thats just me im probally wrong but that is my take on it. its the obvious answer.
in the book the main character had a child out of wedlock, so she was forced to wear the scarlet letter "A" so everyone knew she was an adulteress.
yeah this is true, its about the novel Scarlet Lettermen.
when i first listened to this song i didnt get it either. so i researched it quickly and was pleased to discover it was actually something that relates to the song so well. foolish to think that anything in Tool just happens, rather than it all being linked and purposeful. i think anyway.
__________________ A Groan Of Tedium Escapes Me
Don't get big ideas, they are not going to happen.
Wearing a scarlet letter as punishment for adultery was around before the book!! That's where the book got it's name from!! Way back when (the pilgrims I think) it was actually a thing that they did. The reason Maynard says it, is in reference to the "grudge" every man holds.
It's the grudge. The only one that's important. The one that Freud endorsed. The one that is the antithisis of The Patient!
I've posted this somewhere...
Peace.
__________________ stop trying to pull me out of my self indulgant pitifull hole
Last edited by benjamin; 03-23-2007 at 04:15 PM..
Reason: :nosae
Wearing a scarlet letter as punishment for adultery was around before the book!! That's where the book got it's name from!! Way back when (the pilgrims I think) it was actually a thing that they did. The reason Maynard says it, is in reference to the "grudge" every man holds.
It's the grudge. The only one that's important. The one that Freud endorsed. The one that is the antithisis of The Patient!
Think...if a woman is an adultress and all's one has to see is the letter "A" to know what she is...
How deep are you really thinking?
"Unable to forgive these scarlet lettermen"---now I've never read the book so two possible interpretations may apply:
The ones made to wear the letter or the ones who enforce the wearing of the letter.
Probably the ones made to wear the scarlet letter is my guess.
To believe in your heart that you have identified something completely unacceptable.
To label it.
To hold a grudge against it and to "Clutch it like a cornerstone, otherwise it all comes down".
Whole societies are based on this type of stupidity. Would the USA be what it is today, this "land of opportunity, liberty, and all that good stuff" if we didn't build up these structures on the cornerstones of grudges in their essence? Like everyone who was uncivilized, like the Native American Indians and the black Africans.
We knew they needed to be saved, even if through cruel oppression. We knew they'd come to believe in the one true God, Jesus if we forcefed them consistently enough.
Would we have NASA if Nazi scientists did not perform cruel experiments on Jews to find out how much a human (thought they said they were SUBhuman!) body and a human mind could take under the most extreme conditions of temperature, air pressure, and psychological torment?
If they would have taken all that inhumane insensitivity and "let this go" how could science have advanced to the sophisticated level we all take for granted and enjoy today?
"Justify denials and grip them to the lonesome end".
"Ignorant to the damage done!"
The scarlet lettermen in the song or the adulterers are Saturn's children. In Greek Mythology, Saturn was a vicious, jealous being who consumed his children because they weren't faithful to him with their actions.
When "Saturn comes back around", that means rage and jealousy and the "grudge" is rising up again to take control of the narrator, to consume him much like Saturn ate his own offspring.
The reason the phrase "scarlet lettermen" applies is, as has already been pointed out, it jives with what happened in the Hawthorne novel.
Isnt the lyric "Scarlet Letterer"? which might imply someone metophoricly writing the letter A on themselves. Hard to tell what some of tools actual lyrics are, often left a mystery or misprinted on purpose.
Wearing a scarlet letter as punishment for adultery was around before the book!! That's where the book got it's name from!! Way back when (the pilgrims I think) it was actually a thing that they did. The reason Maynard says it, is in reference to the "grudge" every man holds.
It's the grudge. The only one that's important. The one that Freud endorsed. The one that is the antithisis of The Patient!
I've posted this somewhere...
Peace.
Yeah this is it.
"Letter men" is plural. A "scarlet letter man" would therefore be a man (or person) who imposes this ^ upon somebody else. Somebody who would go so far as to brand another because of the grudge they're holding against them. Instead of just letting it go.
Crowley and alchemy there... Crowley is talking about a metaphysical sort of alchemy. But alchemical references are found elsewhere in their music, and businesses. Take a look at his wine page, and look up Caduceus on Wikipedia. I'm sure I'm not pointing out anything new to alot of you.
The concept is so true though, at least I have found in my life. If you can't let personal anger go, you're bound to sink and drown in a sea of loathing, sooner probably than later. Some of these references, I believe, begin on Undertow. It can be so incredibly challenging to release someone from these feelings, but it is so rewarding to do just that. You can never be whole, or self actualized, if you don't. Forgive me for preaching to the choir.
a different twist on this... i always looked at it as being the letters in the bible that are red... you know, the words of 'jesus in red' type of thing... now because these weren't direct quotes from jesus because the gospels were written after he died, they could have been skewed or mistranslated completely... and in the old testament, way before christianity, people worshipped all kinds of gods... there were people who worshipped the moon as a god, the sun, the stars, etc... and as its well known there were people who worshipped the planet saturn as a god... and these saturnian cults beliefs are known to have influences on freemasons and the illuminati and all of the other secret societies who form the upper elite's of our government and other corporations...
so maybe the 'unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen' could be the writers of the gospels being the scarlet letterman... matthew, mark, luke and john... sense it was them who wrote it from memory... or the revisers of the bible... because it is odd about all of the other gospels that were taken out... so maybe these four were left in for a reason... they were easily manipulated to say what they(the elite) wanted people to hear...
The Scarlet Lettermen were the men who sewed the letters onto the clothing of the women who had (supposedly) committed adultery, thus pointing out their "faults" for all to see.
The metiphorical meaning of "Scarlet Lettermen" in The Grudge track is anyone who recognises (and therefore points out) the personal grudges of another. By grudge of course I mean an untrue belief that someone must hold on to in order to justify their current reallity and actions. So of course one becomes defensive and cannot forgive the Scarlet Letterman for making such accusations.
The "Grudge" can be a personal one or a collective one. So the Scarlet Lettermen are the whistle blowers, the "Games Up" people. They are the little boys in the crowd yelling "But the Emperor has no clothes on!".
The Scarlet Lettermen were the men who sewed the letters onto the clothing of the women who had (supposedly) committed adultery, thus pointing out their "faults" for all to see.
The metiphorical meaning of "Scarlet Lettermen" in The Grudge track is anyone who recognises (and therefore points out) the personal grudges of another. By grudge of course I mean an untrue belief that someone must hold on to in order to justify their current reallity and actions. So of course one becomes defensive and cannot forgive the Scarlet Letterman for making such accusations.
The "Grudge" can be a personal one or a collective one. So the Scarlet Lettermen are the whistle blowers, the "Games Up" people. They are the little boys in the crowd yelling "But the Emperor has no clothes on!".
Just an FYI, it's metaphorical
__________________ "WITHOUT A LITTLE EVIL, GOOD WOULD NEVER EXIST"
Hey, what about those GM executives who flew in a private jet to Washington to feed freely off of the Federal Reserve teat; for years they had no trouble painting the foreign competition red. Are they not scarlet lettermen?
We'll hear about it on Lettermen. Makes for good comedy.
Money and power seems to provide a prosporous breeding ground for fat, wimpy fleas and tyrannical ticks.
Yeah, okay, I have a grudge.
__________________ Time is still the infinite jest.
Hey, what about those GM executives who flew in a private jet to Washington to feed freely off of the Federal Reserve teat; for years they had no trouble painting the foreign competition red. Are they not scarlet lettermen?
We'll hear about it on Lettermen. Makes for good comedy.
Money and power seems to provide a prosporous breeding ground for fat, wimpy fleas and tyrannical ticks.
Yeah, okay, I have a grudge.
LOL, actually, they returned those jets today over the scrutiny.
__________________ "WITHOUT A LITTLE EVIL, GOOD WOULD NEVER EXIST"
i believe its a metaphor for times in your life where responsibility presents itself causing discomfort and unwanted change or at least the opportunity for it
I believe the intention is, as per usual tool, for a multitude of possible perspectives--a broader trope, if you will.
In the book, the adultress wears the letter as a result of humanity's obsession with blame, judgment and purity (and resulting grudges). I think this line simply refers to everyone's personally designated scarlet letter wearer--whoever they may find convenient to blame and cast judgment down upon in a condescending, scolding way. In a way they would be...unable to forgive.
Edit: In other words, Benjamin is right.
Last edited by vicariousleye; 02-16-2017 at 06:46 PM..
