What does 4 Degrees mean?

Tool: 4 Degrees Meaning

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Album cover for 4 Degrees album cover

4 Degrees Lyrics

Get up, get up now. Get up, get up now. Get up, get up now. Get up, get up now. Free yourself from yourself. Free yourself from yourself. Locked up inside you, like the calm beneath castles, is a cavern of treasures that no one has been to. Let's...

  1. 10kdayslover
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    Nov 24th 2010 !⃝

    Maynard is quoted as describing the 4 degree warmer temperature of the poop chute which strongly implied that this song is about unconventional love making, but I always take any thing MJK says in interviews with a grain of salt knowing the band is frequently intentionally cryptically sarcastic in the info they share through media. Certainly there are major inferences to anal sex with a rookie partner, but deeper than just that there are metaphorical references to man's primal urges to hunt, kill, eat, and conquer in general. Keep in mind that MJK reportedly was raped by his step father and refers to the experience in Prison Sex and Jimmy. That info leads to me to theorize that it is more than just about the act of anal intercourse and more a message of human emotional pain that forges the future behaviors of the ones who've experienced such trauma. The end result is that he sees anal sex as acceptable and possibly pleasurable, but not when the receiver isn't a wiling participant, thus the lines that describe his persuasive efforts to convince the partner that it will be a freeing, spiritual, and painless physical event. MJK may be the most literary, brilliant, thought-provoking, and poignant lyricist out there, at least in my 44 years of lifetime. You won't see threads that illustrate the thinking and philosophical evaluations of artists product like this for Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer.

  2. anonymous
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    Sep 1st 2010 !⃝

    Ok whats with everyone saying its about sex... it could be but if you see that everyone else says it is why would you? explore you mind and find a different and logical meaning. for i do not believe maynard thinks and sings of nothing more than sex. however i don't know him so it could be possible. On to my meaning for 4 degrees. Multiple people have said something close, but what it means to me is live you life to the fullest or don't live. 4 degrees means to me, your closer to you. its like a game of hot and cold. you opening your mind to come to your fullest form of mind and body.

  3. convolution
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    May 28th 2010 !⃝

    Proof positive that Maynard is
    a B.P.

    I hope you all are intelligent enough
    to decipher the acronym...

    Again, Maynard suffers from assfixiation
    as well as sexual identity and religious
    identity issues.

    Resounding themes that keep emerging through
    all of his works.

  4. anonymous
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    Mar 15th 2010 !⃝

    There have been a lot of interpretations and with tool you can never know the true meaning becuase they do not give them out. Some say its becuase the anal cav. is 4 degrees warmer than the vagina. some say its becuase of west point, and some say its about the world (becuase if the world rises 4 degree's we will all die) all of them make sence and i hate to say it but the anal one makes the most sence fitting to the lyrics

  5. anonymous
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    Mar 4th 2010 !⃝

    I think it's about patriotism about how he would kill what his country wants him to and how america won't give up (knock me down and ill come back running) and how we will win all of our fights at some point(nock you down and well it won't be long now) and it is about him trying to get higher up inot the ranks

  6. anonymous
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    Oct 21st 2009 !⃝

    Well, I've heard the story of how this song is about the anal cavity being 4 degrees warmer than the vaginal cavity. Lets be honest though, all Tool songs have a crazy metaphor or I hope so at least. There is also an alternate meaning that it refers to the would be school Maynard would have attended, the famous Unites States Military Academy. Well, coming from the prospective of someone who goes to West Point, this place is a f'n sh*thole! Its in the ass crack of no where and its been a miserable existence for me for the last 3 years. Even though Maynard went to the prep school because he was prior service enlisted in the army (prep school-designed to help people who need to catch up or improve their studies before coming aka Maynard being out of school awhile) he still visited the Academy and probably realized what a terrible place to be- parallel to the anal cavity. Its like living in hell, somehow I feel the four degrees refers to the temperature difference to between hell and West Point. 4 degrees is also known as the separation difference between the different classes of cadets. Pick your poison I suppose..

  7. anonymous
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    Jul 10th 2009 !⃝

    this song is about the two years maynerd spent at west-point millitary acadamy. look at the lyrics then put yourself in the fram of mind your at a millitary acadamy.

  8. toolman7070
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    Aug 27th 2008 !⃝

    This is one of the greatest Tool songs of all time! I believe that this song could be dealing with letting yourself go and trying new things and different ways of doing things. It may look like "anal" on the surface...but with Tool, you just never know. Undertow rules!

  9. anonymous
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    Jul 10th 2008 !⃝

    Occam's razor. It is clearly the expulsion of Maynard's feelings about sodomy (the simplest explanation is usually right), however if there is a duality about it all, it might have something to do w/ the "unconditional warmth that Opiates bring. If you've been there you would Know, if not, you could not...

  10. anonymous
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    Mar 25th 2008 !⃝

    I agree with #1 and #3. A lot of Tool songs have 2 or more meanings (interpret as you will) I think it does have to do with exploring that part of yourself. lose yourself in the amazing moment of sex and experience something you didn't know you had in you. right along with meaning number 2. Freedom in a way. There is something in us all that is being suppressed, like a clam beneath castles. Let's go digging and see what we are really capable without fear.

  11. anonymous
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    Dec 8th 2007 !⃝

    Like many other Tool songs, Maynard James Keenan writes songs with 2 meanings. One, the obvious is about anal sex (like Stinkfist is about anal fisting). The butt is both tighter and 4 degrees warmer. But there is some metaphoric purpose that the song expresses, which could be a variety of things. Free thinking, searching for yourself and finding something strong/great/whatever inside your mind. Or maybe questioning authority or conventional ideas; Such as anal sex, an act most people are against, and embracing it to find it may be better than conventional "sex".

  12. anonymous
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    Oct 4th 2007 !⃝

    Okay, I read what Zaq said, and then checked out the song very closely. The lyrics paint the pictures in your imagination. I would have to agree that this song is about the first time a person(presumably a woman) receives anal penetration...

  13. Zaq
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    Sep 27th 2007 !⃝

    The anal cavity is 4 degrees higher in temperature than the vagina. Truthfully, that is what this song is "supposed to be" about.

  14. anonymous
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    Sep 18th 2007 !⃝

    This came to me in an odd way, I was flickin thru the channels on TV I heard the words 4 degrees and I stopped and it was on a surgery/medicine show talking about advancements in technolgy ... old methods of surgery doctors had 4 degrees of freedom(movement), new technology gives them 7 degrees so I immediatly thought of this song and figured out what it means to me. but that's about where the similarity ends. The lyrics talk about freeing yourself and doign what you want with what you got, the lyrics are fairly broad and the message is clear - FREEDOM

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