anonymous October 1st, 2008 10:53PM  
Frankly I think people look much deeper into this song than is required. when I hear this song all I hear is the death of a relationship. I don't disagree with the idea that there are more than one meanings but all this bullshit about spirit planes and duel dimensions is... well its bullshit. and on the topic of acid if you do acid everything is then tied to acid. during trips everything goes with acid. wizard of oz and dark side of the moon? this will probaly piss people off but who gives a shit.

anonymous November 14th, 2008 12:13AM  
I think this song is about a relationship that is failing, you can interpret it from
I know the pieces fit- I knew it worked before

Cause I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smouldering
Fundamental differing - our relationship fell apart in front of my eyes

The light that feuled our fire then
Has a burned a hole between us so - our passion is gone

Cold silence has
A tendency to
Atrophy any
Sense of compassion

Basically what this song is stating is that a relationship will end without communication

anonymous December 4th, 2008 05:16AM  
Guys, read the lyrics carefully. The song is about war and needing to find some middle ground. Torn by our beliefs in battle and having it tear us apart. Against each other. To strengthen communication with those countries at war that we fight against and with our own country. Make peace. Make amends... or we all just fall apart as citizens, civilation, country and human beings. Being against each other in the world through wars... "point the finger, blame another." knowing we can make a right again as we know what made it fall apart and knowing with enough conviction, to put it back together as should.

anonymous December 4th, 2008 05:25AM  
With that said, with the song being about war, he's seemed to also leave it open to those to interpret for themselves as well, as it's lyrical content can be easily relative to so many things and even letting the listener also interpret how they'd like, to fit it into their lives as well.

anonymous December 4th, 2008 05:32AM  
Never expect a song from Maynard to be so simple as in a relationship or break up. His songs are always very indepth with a much more deep intellectual meaning which not many can just figure correctly right off the bat. Hence his frustration on explaining what his songs are about.

TallicaTim January 12th, 2009 10:58AM  
idk if maynard beleives in god a all or has any religous stance.(prob not) but he leaves many meanings in each song for you to input the meaning you want and for me its about the tower of babel from the bible lke what regular guy said, cause it fits that meaning in very well. the song can also be interpreted toward a realationship thats what my mom thinks.

JohnnyLoco June 27th, 2009 01:21AM  
I think that the whole separation of the catholic church was a good point but somehow I belive that there is a image of a relationship in this songs meaning. Between him and a lover or him and his Father. "I know the pieces fit cuz I watched them fall away" to me sounds like Maynard was in some sort of relationship which was ended due to a lack of comunication, thus emphasizing on the importance of communication to a solid relationship.

anonymous August 25th, 2009 01:45AM  
Do you ever consider that hes talking about the communication between him(MJK) and god himself? if you listen to every song on every album youll see that hes always had a struggle with choosing weather or not to believe and have faith in GOD. it appears he's severed communication with GOD over and over again. But as time goes on it appears he slowly reinstates his faith.

anonymous August 26th, 2009 09:55PM  
On a documentary with tool, an interview with a close friend of the original 3 members clearly states that the song is abou the bands break up and how when they got back together they realised just how much the pieces fit! nothing complicated or spiritual about it its just speaking the truth!

anonymous September 11th, 2009 09:11PM  
This is not a interpretation on this song but i would like to make a response to the anonymous interpretation about perception is reality and other things. The somewhat interpretation made by the anonymous person makes perfect since and it blew me away.

anonymous October 9th, 2009 08:26PM  
I think a lot of Maynard's lyrics, when interpreted, always end up relating to the interpreter. In other words, the lyrics mean different things to different people. For me, Schism reminds me of a recent issue I had with some of my friends. I am 100% sure Maynard's intentions when writing this song were far from this sort of thing, but this is what it means to me. Maynard has a way of connecting with people through his lyrics.

Dr.MED November 16th, 2009 02:51PM  
ok people let me give you the actual meaning that only a real tool fan can figure out. "disintegraring as it goes , testing our communication.- doomed to crumble unless we grow, testing our communication.- I KNOW THE PEICES FIT" is a dead give away what this song is clearly about. this song is about the band TOOL!!! and theorder of the c.d's. think about it guys read the lyrics and think. stop being narrow minded and thinking of what the common pop culture would right about and think of what TOOL would write about.

MrTiff March 4th, 2010 12:47AM  
this song is saying that people agreeing together brings us together but eventually we will see different sides and its no ones fault but we all feel the need to blame some one else. he is saying that communication is the only way to bring us together even if its arguementative. finding beauty in the dissonance i think he means the fight or argues. if we can over come them we can grow and strengthen our communication bringing us closer together and that is the beauty. cold silence has a tendancy to atrophy any sense of compassion. i think that means that when we are angered in disagreements we some times ignore it or push it away and dont talk it out and that makes us less compassionate by not being able to hear the other side. which in turn weakens our bond. pretty much saying that the key to loving and getting along whether it be a lover or brother is communication and KEEPING that communication and learnig from and growing with others through that communication.

Scribble_n_Blot March 16th, 2010 09:13PM  
I've added some of your views and opinions to my own and this is what I came up with:

The society we live in, on a larger scale the globalisation of societies is further severing our compassion for our fellow man. On a global scale, societies have been progressing toward narcissistic lifestyles; people are obsessed with themselves and their worldly possessions and begin to judge others based more and more on their appearances and possessions. People generally don’t trust each other any more and so we start distancing ourselves from people in general. All the negative emotions of man are working against him-greed, fear and hatred. It’s ruining man. Our lack of communication and compassion, our greed and judgement, the segregation of people, are all keep us from trusting each other, from building new relationships, from re-establishing a unified and a harmonious existence.

We are all human and of one consciousness but we’ve lost touch with our humanity and our fellow man, separated and driven to conflict by fundamentalism. We focus on and brood over our differences instead our commonality so that what we all share is blurred and skewed by our self-imposed mental barriers, disintegrating our connection and inhibiting our communication. We’ve come to view our differences as something to separate us rather than something to connect us and form a greater whole. There is war – religion against religion, man against man, women against women. People should forget religion, politics, cultures as boundaries that separate us; we must start listening to one another and realise that we are all people. The only thing that remains truly pure in organized religion is love.

We can’t see past the surface to the inner truth, we can’t compromise or reach an agreement because we contrast our views, rather focusing on the differences in the details than on the bigger picture of what we actually share. We refuse to see another’s point of view and believe only in our own which cripples our communication. Our differences, what makes us unique, can give input and allow us to gain alternative perspectives. We immediately discard a view because of its difference to our own instead of seeing the beauty in dissimilarity. Our materialism and narcissism constrict and limit us.

It’s the narcissistic ‘all about me’ attitude of our culture – when it’s all about you, you slowly become the only person in your life and communication breaks down between you and others in general. Judging people at face value is more predominant now than in the past. This keeps people from growing spiritually because the greatest teachings we can learn are from each other. People don’t give each other a chance anymore. Greed must be turned into compassion and hatred into understanding. For survival, ultimate evolutionary survival, humans need only one thing: other humans. We need to live in absolute harmony, egos completely shed off. We're all making reality happen; all of us together. Once we all know that we can help each other and grow and become unified and evolve.

We should not second guess pure intentions, our instinct to strive for love and interconnectedness, for unity. We need to grow back together instead of further apart, we need to re-establish communication and human-relations or be doomed to live a fractured and isolated existence. We are ruined if we continue to doubt out natural instinct and continue to deny our divine task of love and unity. We are meant to reach out, be compassionate and recognise our fellow man as our brothers, a part of us, of who we are. There was a time that "the pieces fit", that everyone was "one" with each other in the collective conscious... Sharing, blending, loving, being...
These are interests common to all and set in the same way. “Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion” is telling us that if we all strive toward these ideals it will create prosperity in people’s relationships with each other.

It is human nature to opt for something which is easier and in this case it would be passing the blame. I think Maynard is making reference to the hypocrisy in institutions, especially in that of religion. He’d like to see “the temple topple over” – see an end to the establishments which breed mistrust and hatred, that which divides people. (Note: I disagree with what religion has become but this does not mean I’m not spiritual and I think perhaps he has the same outlook). We need to transcend superficial barriers and rediscover communication, accept and tolerate our differences.

Cold silence severs any sense of love between lovers and brothers. Silence creates a sense of decline from compassion.

This song is about the need for people to re-establish communication with each other and break down all the self-imposed barriers in between, the need to re-connect and to re-unite.

Peace
:)

Scribble_n_Blot March 16th, 2010 10:32PM  
Edit: my last one was a bit jumbled so I just re-organized the structure a bit...

The society we live in, on a larger scale the globalisation of societies is further severing our compassion for our fellow man. On a global scale, societies have been progressing toward narcissistic lifestyles; people are obsessed with themselves and their worldly possessions and begin to judge others based more and more on their appearances and possessions. People generally don’t trust each other any more and so we start distancing ourselves from people in general. All the negative emotions of man are working against him-greed, fear and hatred. It’s ruining man. Our lack of communication and compassion, our greed and judgement, the segregation of people, all keep us from trusting each other, from building new relationships, from re-establishing a unified and a harmonious existence.

It’s the narcissistic ‘all about me’ attitude of our culture – when it’s all about you, you slowly become the only person in your life and communication breaks down between you and others in general. Our materialism and narcissism constrict and limit us.

Judging people at face value is more predominant now than in the past. This keeps people from growing spiritually because the greatest teachings we can learn are from each other. People don’t give each other a chance anymore. We are all human and of one consciousness but we’ve lost touch with our humanity and our fellow man, separated and driven to conflict by fundamentalism. We focus on and brood over our differences instead our commonality so that what we all share is blurred and skewed by our self-imposed mental barriers, disintegrating our connection and inhibiting our communication. We refuse to see another’s point of view and believe only in our own, which cripples our communication. We can’t see past the surface to the inner truth, we can’t compromise or reach an agreement because we contrast our views, rather focusing on the differences in the details than on the bigger picture of what we actually share. We immediately discard a view because of its difference to our own instead of seeing the beauty in dissimilarity. We’ve come to view our differences as something to separate us rather than something to connect us and form a greater whole. Our differences, what makes us unique, can give input and allow us to gain alternative perspectives.

There is war – religion against religion, man against man, women against women. People should forget religion, politics, cultures as boundaries that separate us; we must start listening to one another and realise that we are all people. The only thing that remains truly pure in organized religion is love.

We should not second-guess pure intentions, our instinct to strive for love and interconnectedness, for unity. We need to grow back together instead of further apart, we need to re-establish communication and human-relations or be doomed to live a fractured and isolated existence. We are ruined if we continue to doubt our natural instinct and continue to deny our divine task of love and unity. We are meant to reach out, be compassionate and recognise our fellow man as our brother, a part of us, of who we are. There was a time that "the pieces fit", that everyone was "one" with each other in the collective conscious... Sharing, blending, loving, being...
These are interests common to all and set in the same way. “Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion” is telling us that if we all strive toward these ideals it will create prosperity in people’s relationships with each other. Greed must be turned into compassion and hatred into understanding.

Cold silence severs any sense of love between lovers and brothers. Silence creates a sense of decline from compassion.

For survival, ultimate evolutionary survival, humans need only one thing: other humans. We need to live in absolute harmony, egos completely shed off. We're all making reality happen; all of us together. Once we all know that we can help each other and grow and become unified and evolve.

This song is about the need for people to re-establish communication with each other and break down all the self-imposed barriers in between, the need to re-connect and to re-unite as a single human consciousness.

SuckMeDry April 4th, 2010 02:32PM  
Now remember this is tool we are talking about, so it is suppose to have an individual meaning for every listener, so if you interpret another way that is completely fine, now to me it came out as a song simply about separation. The lyrics and title both back this up, the definition of Schism is division or separation. Now personally to me it seems like a split about a couple, but I listened to this song a lot when my girlfriend broke up with me so it connected to me in a personal way with that meaning, which is the beauty of Tool, because it could probably connect with you in some other way.

E.X.P.E.R.T April 13th, 2010 05:17PM  
OK, i think this is about a broken relationtip.There are many other ways to look at it but in my opinon thats what i think.

Drumz95 July 2nd, 2010 02:43PM  
Ok, in AEnima, that album was basically about the bulshit that people these days pull to try to make themselves look different to the world. In Lateralus, to give a connection to AEnima, they used Schism as a way to show their side of the "Doomsayers" The song is about their perspective of the end of the world, if it was to come... The end of communication would be the starting point. No communication, total chaos.