A little on my favourite song from my favourite band..
.
Quite apart from being a fucking AWESOME-sounding song, the meaningful
content of Tool's song, Lateralus is as
deep and replete with expressive potential as any song could hope to
achieve.
Recently, after reading the above comic about the Fibonacci sequence, I
realised that one of my favourite songs ever included the number sequence
in part of it's lyrics.
(1) Black,
(1) then,
(2) white are,
(3) all I see,
(5) in my infancy,
(8) red and yellow then came to be,
(5) reaching out to me,
(3) lets me see.
(2) There is,
(1) so,
(1) much,
(2) more and,
(3) beckons me,
(5) to look through to these,
(8) infinite possibilities.
(13) As below so above and beyond I imagine,
(8) drawn outside the lines of reason,
(5) push the envelope,
(3) watch it bend.
Something I'd noticed before with many Tool songs, especially
Lateralus and Schism, is that they not only use non-standard time
signatures but they change time-signatures throughout the song. In
Lateralus, the time signatures of the chorus change from 9/8 to 8/8 to
7/8.
Notice, also, that the number 987 is the 17th iteration of the Fibonacci
sequence.
And the colour reference? From an essay on cosmic consciousness by Gayl
Woityra:
" I have always thought that his discussion of color perception is
extraordinarily interesting. He points out, citing various classic sources,
that "not more than 15 or 20,000 years ago, man was only conscious of,
only perceived, one color."
Evidence for this prevails in studies of the Indo-European language
history. Studies found "no names of colors in primitive Indo-European
speech" and "no Sanskrit root... has any reference to
color."
Bucke concludes that gradually, color perception evolved. Early literature,
such as the Rig Veda only refers to red, yellow, and black. Later, white
and green joined the list. Even in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the
Bible, the sky is not identified as "blue" and for Homer, the sea
is "wine-dark." "
The song itself is concerned mostly with Humanity's destiny amongst
the unknown, about how if we "swing on the spiral of our
divinity" while still being human, "we may just go where
no-one's been".
I won't get into the details and semantics of the rest of the
lyrics... There's FAR too much... what I've blogged is merely the
things I've found out about the song TODAY.
And for your continued enjoyment (I'm very, very bored today)...
UNRELATED:
On September 19, 1985, (Frank) Zappa testified
before the US Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee,
attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music censorship
organization founded by then-Senator Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore and
including many other political wives, including the wives of five members
of the committee. In his prepared statement, Zappa said:
“ The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to
deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of
people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years
dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in
the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First
Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive
alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of
treating dandruff by decapitation. (...) The establishment of a rating
system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of
moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not
like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow
"J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to
save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?
"
FURTHER UNRELATED, for you Discworld fans, if any:
(stolen from HERE)
FURTHER, FURTHER UNRELATED, my current desktop background, downsized muchly
(no, it's photoshopped and yes, it is a real place):
..........
And, because you've made it this far, I'll let you in on a site
I've found. It's probably old news to many of you, but I've
not seen it mentioned on b0g before, and I have a job & a social life,
so... nyer.
Here you go... not certain if it's the right resolution, but
it's the highest I've got, unless photobucket has mangled
it...
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x144/channean/47164_poster2000.jpg
I'll certainly agree that some people read far too much into the
songs, but that's only because Tool CAN be read very far into, so
much that people get a little over-anxious and it attracts a certain
kind of mind that over-analyses...
What I'm doing here is applauding being able to produce very,
very complex songs. It's an art form, so much unlike pretty much
*all* pop/rock/everything music.
And as for being posing bullshit, well, show me a person that
isn't a posing bullshitter, and I'll show you someone that
was either named Ghandi or Buddha.
yea we were all going to go see the simpsons movie together and
her little brother is usually the popcorn bitch, but his uncle
called and was like hey wanna come see zappa... the little retard
almost turned it down!
A little on my favourite song from my favourite band..
