anonymous 2007-02-15 03:54:42    

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I think when the song refers to "we drink from the river, then we turn around and put up our walls" can refer to the way we use the Rio Bravo with Mexico since we tend not to make it ours even though it's an international boundary, plus the song does allude to aliens which could indeed refer to illegal immigrants.

anonymous 2007-03-10 09:34:00    

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This song is about an aerial on your house that fell of and hit an elderly woman on the foot !

oscarfish16 2007-04-05 14:42:43    

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Life is a waterfall,
We're one in the river,
And one again after the fall.

Swimming through the void
We hear the word,
We lost ourselves,
But we find it all?

This is about becoming mature, not physically, but in the mind. When we are young we are one with ourselves. All we worry about is when we have another day off school or work or when we are going to get laid again, and we are content with that. We are basically uneducated in the struggles of life, because others have made the tough decisions for us. But in that void in life, where you begin to start thinking about greater things like your future and what is happening in the world, you seek knowledge (hear the word), whether it is religion, politics, or sociology. At this point we change into someone new, and we learn so much, but do we truly find all we were looking for?

Cause we are the ones that want to play,
Always want to go,
But you never want to stay,

And we are the ones that want to choose,
Always want to play,
But you never want to lose.

We, as Americans, want to play politics, or play religion, or play sociologist. We want to go spread our views, not just stay and live by them. We want to be the ones to choose the right way of living. We want to spread our views, but we never want them to be rejected by the people we are trying to spread them to. This is evident in the wars we fight. We try to spread democracy by force, but we never want to lose this struggle to people that want to live a different life.

Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.

The only link to the waterfall theme I can come up with is the aerial maneuvers the water goes through as it falls. He could also just be jumping to a completely different metaphor, still sticking to a nature theme (this is what I think). Ill skip the “Aerial” meaning for now, as it will be more understandable at the end. When you begin to think about the big picture (lose small mind), you free yourself from the ties of others’ thoughts. When you are younger you rely on the interpretations of other people to teach you. For example, you see a story on the news about a terrorist attack, and you ask your father why someone would do such a thing. You rely on his interpretations of things to understand. But when you begin thinking for yourself, you are free to analyze things and come to your own conclusions. You have then freed your life.

Life is a waterfall,
We drink from the river,
Then we turn around and put up our walls.

By drinking from the river, he means learning, or consuming knowledge. We find a resource and put up walls to keep others away, as if it’s OUR river, OUR knowledge. This is a weird part of human nature. We try to spread our views on how to live; yet we block our resources from others.

Aerials, so up high,
When you free your eyes,
Eternal prize.

This is the same thing. Think big and you will have eternal knowledge. Aerial has a definition of “lacking substance,” or lacking meaning. I think that by saying “Aerials, in the sky” and “Aerials, so up high” he means that we hold things that have no meaning in high regard, such as material possessions. When you free your eyes from looking at meaningless things, you will be able to look deeper into the meaning of more important things, like life itself

This song is a relation of human nature to things in mother nature. When Daron said this song is about nothing, he is further emphasizing the point of this song. Here is this guy telling me this song is about nothing. Here is this other guy telling me that it’s about a retarded kid watching a trapeze artist.

ynitsed 2007-04-11 18:08:05    

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This song is about how people today are all selfish and greedy hence the song "we drink from the river then we turn around and put up our walls" meaning everybody takes from life and thinks they can own it.

anonymous 2007-04-27 21:00:55    

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NORMALLY, I don't add my two cents into these things,
but it seems somewhat necessary at this point.

If you guys want to quote things band members said, look past the most obvious meanings, and read in between the lines.

One thing I will quote, however, is when the band clearly said they'd never specifically tell what any song was about, because they didn't want it to come easy to the fans, they wanted to MAKE them think about the lyrics rather then just reading an interpretation.

Second, they always say random bullshit that doesn't make sense but in the end has a hidden meaning, not in songs necessarily, but when they speak mainly in interviews.

The song isn't about nothing, the song isn't about aliens.

Learn your shit, and think for yourselves instead of forcing your decisions and ideas on others and arguing about it.

-rant over.-

anonymous 2007-04-29 11:29:34    

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This is funny so many interpretations of this song, most of which a fair interpretation from most people general knowledge but sadly people are not educated enough on the references sourced. Despite the stronge references discussed below the only people that can answer this a SOAD.

However this song takes many Buddist references.

"We’re one in the river
And one again after the fall"

The Zen teaching of Interdependent co-arising and the concept of emtpiness is often compared to as a water fall, with the river being buddha nature existing at the ground of being in all things and the human existence trying to duelise reality represented by the drops of water separated from the river which finally returns to the ground of being again on death or enlightenment

"Swimming through the void
We hear the word
We lose ourselves
But we find it all...."

The "Void" is a Zen concept much like that of the emptiness which costitutes all things. Swimming through the void would indicate the presence of Buddha nature in things behaving in a duelist or non-buddha way i.e even things that are obviously non buddha are in fact always buddha. The Word is the Dharma (buddha's teaching), losing ourselves is the acceptance in "non self" and find it all is the subsequent 8 fold path of the Dharma towards enlightenment.

"Cause we are the ones that want to play
Always want to go
But you never want to stay
And we are the ones that want to choose
Always want to play
But you never want to lose"

This is a comment on human nature and "letting go" or the first nobal truth thatt all suffering comes from desire or want. You and not sad because you crash your car or lost you job or split up with your girl friend. You are sad because you want your car, because you want your job. Because you want things to be other than they are.You always want to play but never want to lose.

"When you lose small mind
You free your life
Aerials, so up high
When you free your eyes eternal prize "

Small Mind is a Zen term Being the opposite to Big mind. Small mind says you are you, I am I, I think in my head and the world exists outside me and separate. Big Mind says I exists as apart of everything, you are me, I am you, there is no boundary between me and the rest of the world. Big Mind encompasses all things. Enternal Prize is the resulting enlightenment from Big Mind.

If you would like to confirm my claims as more then intellectual chitter-chatter than I suggest to visit your local library and read some of the Buddhist material there. I can recommend "the heart of the Buddha's Teaching" by Thich Nhat Hanh, "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki and fro beginners "buddhism without beliefs" by Stephen Batchelor.

Thank you for reading

Matthew Dorrell
UK

anonymous 2007-05-19 20:04:09    

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I think this song is about doing whatever it takes to fit in,until one day you are so much like everyone else that your barely even a person,and more like a big shell of armor that houses nothingness.

I_love_my_kid 2007-06-03 22:43:56    

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I think that the meaning doesn't even matter cause all you guys are doing is agreeing that if Daron said it meant anything or if Serj lies or not. So why don't you guys go get a life and get of you asses and go out and get some exercise and stop making america obese. Just thought you wanted to know.

anonymous 2007-06-20 09:55:46    

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Well I personally interpret the song to be about pride. Everyone has it to start with, and it blinds you. You don't see things clearly until you learn to humble yourself.

anonymous 2007-07-23 14:02:21    

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I maybe can't translate this song word for word but its my interpretation that the song is speakin of the element wind and also goes on to mention the void which is basically all the elements combined and how indulgin in and practicing in them u'll eventually lose wat makes you u but the rewards are none the less great..."...swimming thru the void We hear the word We lose ourselves But we find it all....

anonymous 2007-07-30 16:29:57    

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Wow. If you guys think this song is about aliens, and Serj himself said so, You ALL must be doped up! Ahaha. I know Serj probably was. But for you guys to believe him? Ahaha!

anonymous 2007-09-12 05:16:12    

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This song has no meaning daniel says so if you want proof then go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmNsfjctRt0&mode=related&search=

anonymous 2007-10-21 00:13:08    

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This song I think is about not believing in god. About how you are confined to belief because of fear. Personally I also think that Daron and Serj said what they said in a sarcastic, and uncaring sense of mind. Basically saying, "fuck you, think what you want but we know what it means". I heard Daron say at a concert say that it was a song about nothing, and I just took it as directed to a conservatives point of view who can't see past the words. So to the conservatives it means nothing, and Daron stated that sarcastically. Back to why I think it has to do with God though. "Life is a water fall, we drink from the river and turn around and put up our walls" I think this is saying that we get what we need to hear or want to hear or obtain from life, and then we are completely satisfied and happy hearing only what we want to hear rather than the truth. Such as people turning to God or Religion when they're lifes are in turmoil and they need faith or something to believe in. They do it for help, in hope that there is something to still live for and their content thinking in a Godly saviour figure and don't want to hear anything else than that. The chorus part, "Aerials, in the sky, When you lose small mind you free your life" In other words in my opinion, when you lose a small frame of mind, aka being confined to belief, you are more able to think and be creative and find happiness in reality and actuality rather than in faith and what might be. Also if you notice, a lot of very religious people are very stubborn and cannot hear anything that contradicts or opposes their religion. If you tell a very conservative and super-religious christian that you don't think god is real, they will most likely call you a fool and are offended that you could utter such a lie. (This isn't just true for the christian religion, but this is just the particular situation that I found myself in that I was describing). Say what you might, but I took my sip from the waterfall. Peace

anonymous 2007-11-01 09:32:04    

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Life is a waterfall
Were one in the river
And one again after the fall

Swimming through the void
We hear the word
We lose ourselves
But we find it all....


life is like a waterfall.
we start off like a river, then we go through a transition period where we "fall".
after we fall, we're back again in the river, back to life.

the transition period of falling ("swimming through the void") can be: life-changing events in our life. Situations, broken friendships/relationships, etc etc.
"we hear the word": we hear warnings, we hear advice...
we go through a phase where we don't seem like ourselves ("we lose ourselves")
then in the end, we find ourselves again ("one again after the fall")
"but we find it all": we figure out what the "word" really meant.

something like a cycle. keeps happening over and over again.


Cause we are the ones that want to play
Always want to go
But you never want to stay

"we are the ones that want to play": we want to deviate from our lives and "play". do something exciting. live a little.
"always want to go": we want to go play
"but you never want to stay": but we always end up going back. I.e-> like a waterfall that "falls"/plays and then comes back "never want to stay".


And we are the ones that want to choose
Always want to play
But you never want to lose

"we are the ones that want to choose": we make the decision to fall. we want to fall.
"always want to play": we always want something that is on the other side. we want to gamble with happiness.
"but you never want to lose": we want to gamble with happiness but we never want to lose. we made the decision to fall, but we don't want to fall.

Life is a waterfall
We drink from the river
Then we turn around and put up our walls

life is like a waterfall.
"we drink from the river": we take for ourselves
"we turn around and put up our walls": once we are comfortable, we become selfish.
we don't want anyone else drinking from our water. don't want to share our lives with them.


Aerials, in the sky
When you lose small mind
You free your life

"when you lose small mind": when you let everything go. (small mind denotes that how you think is very primitive)
"you free your life": you realize that life isn't always about being a waterfall (falling, becoming one, falling, becoming one).
you can break the cycle when you lose small mind, when you stop being primitive and clinging to things.


In summary:

Life is a cycle. We rise, we fall. In all aspects. We get attached.
We can break away from this cycle and free our lives, when we unattach ourselves.

Lot of people look into the meaning of the word "AERIALS". yes it can mean aliens.
it can mean that aliens are more intelligent than us and they don't have this problem of falling, breaking, becoming one again.
higher beings won't be primitive or small minded.

Beautiful song.

anonymous 2007-12-03 22:22:17    

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For aerials, which is one of the best songs on TOXICITY, I have several meaning/theory ideas on it.

#1: It says that any country with an intimidating military (America, Russia, China, etc.) can/will go and take advantage of a smaller countries (can't think of any right now). It's simple bullying on a massive, world-wide level.

#2: This song is about America being in the spotlight; we're a jealous country. We've lately wanted to bring the attention on us lately if you haven't already noticed: America with the whole "Iraq-war recovery" thing, Bush trying to get his daughter a 6-billion dollar wedding at the expense of our money, and the ever rising price on gasoline. America's out to make a name for it's self and by God, we've got one. Sadly, it's one that we(the American society) hate.

#3: This song has a bit of a religous meaning if listened to right. Part of the final chorus says and I quote: "When you free your eyes/eternal prize" It's saying that if we open our eyes to the path of righteousness(God) we will earn the eternal prize(heaven).

anonymous 2008-01-20 15:14:56    

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Daron says it is about nothing at concerts, right before it is played. "And again, this is a song about nothing."

anonymous 2008-04-01 10:27:32    

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Just watch the video.... I mean, look at the boy in all those fancy shit hi end living... These are the people who in my own expression, take all the credit from those down at the very feet of a government, corrupted by all those shit... you know what I mean...

anonymous 2008-04-16 20:26:22    

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It's about the kid and how he wishes he could be an acrobat. He sees the trapeze guys in the tent, hence the name of the song "Aerials". He has it all, money, women, fame, and he still isn't happy.

anonymous 2008-04-20 02:26:25    

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Well I interpret this in a couple of ways:
-seeing the world through the eyes of someone differently abled
-spiritually. I thought Aerials could be angels, "when you free your eyes eternal prize, free your mind you free your life".
-indecision (always want to play but you never want to lose, always want to go but never want to stay, etc).
But I agree they probably were high when they wrote it, lol!

anonymous 2008-06-26 14:41:44    

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What you guys have to understand about SOAD is that they said in interviews that they don't want to tell you what the song is about because then the people who listen to it won't think about what they think the song means. They want people who listen to their music to formulate their own opinion about what their songs mean.

I have to agree with the guy before me, who talks about everybody being the same. I think this song is about how oppressive society is and how it smothers people's creativity and individuality.