TOOL – Ænima

I’d recommend reading this along with listening to the album, following it song by song. Bear in mind this is simply my interpretation.

TOOL is the holy grail of progressive music, and I wanted to do them justice. I’ve spent a lot of time researching and writing about this album, which discusses everything from rude fans to spiritual awakenings and the next stage of human evolution. Time to dive into Ænima…

Stinkfist

This song, upon first glance, appears very vulgar. The choruses depict a scene of fisting, but this is merely a metaphor for what the song is about. It states that in the modern age we require increasing extremity in order to experience any form of pleasure in life, or even to avoid boredom. The example TOOL use to explain this idea is a sexual one – many people seem to need more and more extreme acts in order to be able to reach where they need to be.

It’s seen as a shame that society has largely become desensitised, leaving no subtlety. Perhaps humanity needs to return to its simpler roots. This will allow us to feel alive without constant over-stimulation.

Eulogy

This song is about L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. The lyrics are laid out in the form of a eulogy in certain sections, this being a speech given at a funeral. The tone of the song is mocking, and frames Hubbard and his followers as blind and lying. Maynard is saying no one missed Hubbard when he died, and that all he did was spew meaningless rhetoric. The band dislike the fact that he tried to show himself as a martyr, when in fact he was just brainwashing people into following a meaningless ‘religion’ that in actual fact is a way to scam them out of their money.

L. Ron Hubbard preyed on people who were looking for meaning in their life, and chose them as victims. These people would ignore all of the signs that Scientology was a scam. He passed himself off as a loving and caring martyr, telling his followers that he’d die for them, when in reality he was just a manipulative liar.

H.

At the time of writing this album, Maynard had just become a father to a boy named Devo H. Keenan. Through this process he began to dwell on how he was raised. He was abused by his father, which is something he had to overcome in adulthood. Now that he’s a father, at a point in his life where he’s depressed and not even sure how to raise a child, he was worried that he wouldn’t do a good job. He didn’t want to see any of his father in himself.

All of this combined means he finds it hard to open up to his son at first. However, pretty soon after Devo was born he found himself changing. The deep paternal bond allowed Maynard to open up his heart. He realised that there were many times in the past that he should’ve done this, but instead bottled up his feelings. His son marked a new start in life, and gave him new meaning.

Forty Six & 2

Okay, so this one is complicated. I’m gonna have to explain a couple things before applying them to the lyrics, the first being sacred geometry. There is a (pretty out there) theory that our planet is covered geometrically constructed grids, extending 60 feet below the Earth’s surface and 60 miles above. Sacred geometry can also appear in nature, such as shells and flowers. It’s linked with spirituality, and can be found in religious iconography.

The second concept to briefly sum up is Carl Jung’s view of the human psyche. He claims that outside a person’s ego (conscious mind), there is the personal unconscious. This is a term to cover all of the thoughts in a person’s mind that can’t be consciously recalled at will, for example, forgotten or repressed memories. There is then the collective unconscious, which covers a theory that there is a certain section of the deepest unconscious that is genetically inherited as opposed to being shaped by personal experience. Between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious is the shadow – the animal side of someone, and the source of creative and destructive aspects of a personality. Fun fact – another Jungian archetype of personality is anima, which is what the title of this album is based on. An enima is a method of clean the rectum using water, and the anima is the mirror image of oneself, for example the feminine side of a man or the masculine side of a woman.

This song is centred around breaking through the shadow and accessing the collective unconscious. It depicts the shadow as old and numb, an armour that tries to protect a person from seeing the possibilities of humanity. The song describes a process of digging through the unconscious mind and confronting fears, insecurities and delusions. There is an apparent will to find what is hidden in the mind with the knowledge that true meaning is on the other side of the inner journey. Change is coming.

Through this process of searching the unconscious mind, the song states that it’s possible to reach the next stage of human evolution. Some evolutionary biologists state that it’s possible that humans will eventually have 46+2 chromosomes, as opposed to the current 44+2. The two extra chromosomes here are the two responsible for deciding the sex of a child. TOOL state that this next stage in evolution would mean it would be possible to obtain a collective conscious. This would mean that permanent world peace would be possible, and would propel the human race forward.

Hooker with a Penis

This song is an angry response to a TOOL fan. One day in the early 90s, Maynard was at a bar and was confronted by a guy. He was wearing Vans and a Beastie Boys t-shirt, along with nipple rings and tattoos. He explained that he’d been a fan since ’92, from the release of the band’s first EP, Opiate. He then went on to say that he thought the band had sold out. Maynard wasn’t happy with this.

Maynard’s response to the guy in this song is essentially that we all sell out by being part of capitalistic society, whether that means releasing products for other people to purchase or buying products yourself. Maynard tells the guy that he’d sold out long before the fan heard his name. To sum up the tone of his words, Maynard tells the guy to “point that fuckin’ finger up your ass”.

All this man knows about Maynard and TOOL is what they’ve sold him, and of course he’s bought their records, meaning that he’s ‘sold out to the man’ too.

Maynard met a guy who told them he thought they’d sold out. This made him angry. Describes the guy. They didn’t sell out to ‘the man’ – we’re all ‘the man’. Basically a song having a go at this guy. He’s still buying their albums, so he’s a bit dense. He said he’s been a fan since the first EP.

Although this song is mostly just a roast of the guy that insulted TOOL, but there is also a criticism of capitalism. All society centres around now is ugly corporations and ruthless people begging for money, and it’s everywhere.

Jimmy

When Maynard was 11, his mother suffered from an aneurysm and was paralysed, as she would be for the rest of her life. The impact that this had on the boy was huge. He didn’t have a mother growing up, and his father was abusive. This lead him to feel hopeless. Maynard never really moved on from this mental state, and even as an adult hasn’t moved past it.

He knows he needs to confront his trauma in order to move on. Even though it’s painful to go back through these old memories, it’s necessary. Eventually this will lead to letting go of the trauma, and moving forward with a happier life.

Pushit

This song explains a toxic and abusive relationship that is carrying on because neither person is willing to examine what’s making things difficult. They’re afraid that if they do this, they may never see each other again. The person being abused places some blame on themselves, and doesn’t feel as though they can judge their partner or fight back. Even though this is how they feel, they’re being pushed to the edge and doesn’t feel as though they can carry on. Their partner says that they still love them, but still abuses them. The person being abused believes that they’re still in love. All they want is peace.

The person being abused tries to convince their partner to let them go, because if they stay then they might do something they regret. Even after this, the abuser keeps them trapped. The only thing they can do is try to survive through it, and the only way it will end is if they fight back.

Ænima

There is a possibility of a large portion of the state of California falling into the ocean, given a large enough earthquake. This song communicates that this would be a good thing. This is something that comedian Bill Hicks, whom this album is dedicated to, wished to happen.

TOOL describe Los Angeles as a “three ring circus sideshow” filled with vain people. The only way to be rid of this toxic way of living is to literally flush it all away. People wouldn’t know what to do if this happened, and would focus on what really matters in life as opposed to TV pilots and cars. TOOL suggests people learn to swim, because mother nature will fix all of this soon by putting California underwater. Maynard directly asks the listener to read between the lines in one lyric – under all of the pessimism in these lyrics, there is a deeper message of focusing on one another as opposed to ourselves.

Third Eye

Many people believe that spiritual awakening is possible through the use of psychedelics. One person that believed this was Bill Hicks, which is why snippets of his stand-up shows are sampled at the start of this song. He talks about the fact that most music that impacted people’s lives was written by people who used drugs. TOOL also believe that psychedelics have spiritual benefits. Maynard, for example, used them to help confront his traumatic childhood, discussed in the song Jimmy. The use of psychedelics can lead people to experience personal and spiritual breakthroughs.

Maynard describes one trip he had on DMT, the strongest psychedelic and the one that’s most linked with life-changing experiences. He describes seeing a face with a wide grin, blue and shimmering. He found it a comforting presence. It’s common for people who’ve experienced DMT trips to say they saw ‘mechanical elves”, who resemble the being Maynard describes here.

He then explains that through his use of DMT, he’s realised that life is actually just a dream. The nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row your Boat” states that “life is but a dream”, and Maynard now realises that this is true.

He also describes seeing himself as a child, and being sad about the life he was given. This is how he managed to work through his past trauma.

Also discussed is Maynard’s act of digging through his shadow, discussed in the previous song Forty Six & 2. He no longer recognises his body, but knows that his existence is merely his consciousness, which he shares with everyone on Earth.

Some people doubted Maynard and his drug use seeing it as unhealthy, or that he’s chasing a spiritual awakening that isn’t actually possible. However, Maynard has now pried open his third eye through the use of psychedelics, and proven these people wrong. He’s had his spiritual breakthrough and understands life on a much deeper level.

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There we have it. That’s Ænima. One of the best albums written.

TOOL’s album really do tell a story, and I’m not just talking about this one – I mean each album in succession. Ænima is about the disgusting flaws in humanity, the hardships that we will go through in life, and ways in which we can overcome them. These themes are expanded upon and continued over the band’s subsequent albums, making it feel as though the whole thing was planned. I hope you’ll continue reading these write-ups as they come out to discover that.

– Kane