Tool: Stinkfist Meaning
Song Released: 1996
Stinkfist Lyrics
Undeniable dilemma
Boredom's not a burden
Anyone should bear
Constant over stimulation
Numbs me
But I would not want you any other way
Just not enough
I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy
I don't want it
I...
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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It can they are talking about how man in general is being ran by the "id" and not the ego or super ego. Creating an addiction to life's pleasures(i don't want it i just need it)to the point of numbness(to feel to know I'm alive).
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I haven't tried to develop this theory too much but it seems to make sense to me. Maybe that's because I'm crazy. Ok - So this entire album should probably be looked at as 1 song. Rather than breaking the songs up, since all of them relate to each other through Maynard's (or the "poet's") voice/struggle. The whole of this album I think is devoted to becoming schizophrenic, or at least dealing with schizoid thoughts and feelings.
In the beginning of the song, the speaker is obviously dealing with something troubling. His desensitization to society. Ok, that points been hit hard already on this forum. The speaker knows he is numb to everything and needs something more,
"I can help you change
Tired moments into pleasure.
Say the word and we'll be
Well upon our way.
Blend and balance
Pain and comfort
Deep within you
Till you will not have me any other way."
These two stanzas I believe are the first of the second voice of the album. Intertwining another view with his own.
The next song, called Eulogy, I think is the "death" of the first speaker, where the second speaker mourns in a mocking way.
Anyways, this is just a loose interpretation. But if you head to toolshed dot com and look at all the lyrics in a row, you will be surprised to find that this ideal holds through most of the album. Also, a lot of the artwork has schizotypal indications. (one eye with two eyeballs in it, etc.) -
I think this song does of course deal with fisting. I also believe it goes deeper than just that, though. I believe it deals with the Anima AND Enema side.
I think the "I don't want it, I just need it" part refers to the fact that no one wants change but it's necessary for survival. (In the aspect of gaining those extra two chromosomes as mentioned in the song 46 and 2.)
I think the "turn around and take my hand" part means like Maynard (or whoever) was fisting him now he needs to do it to whoever.
I'm not sure about the whole "numbing" part though. It seems as if this Stinkfist phenomena would hurt unless it means it's numbing the pain until the step from 44 & 2 to 46 & 2.
I also like how Maynard goes from finger to shoulder. I think that just means how we get addicted to anything that can takes pain away and how we abuse it.
One of my fave's!!!...Plus covering the guitar part is fun to :) -
"Stinkfist" is about our inability to connect to one another emotionally and substituting ever more intense physical acts in order to feel some sort of connection.
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Yeah... I think this song is really just about drug addicts. makes perfect sense.
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While this song appears to be about anal fisting, I think that it is something much, much deeper. Listen to they lyrics:
"I can help you change tired moments into pleasure.
Say the word and we'll be well upon our way."
"Relaxe. Come Around and take my hand"
All can be seen as something a person trying to convert someone to a religon would say. Religon is a quick outbreak to realization. The last line of the song especially resembles this. The people who say this song is about anal fisting are too lazy to look beyond the obvious.
Read these lyrics:
"It's not enough, I need more. Nothing seems to satisfy, I don't want it, I just need it to breath to feel to know I'm alive."
When people begin to realize that their religon could be false, they begin to want more. It's like a drug. This song is meant to help people not fall subject to the addiction of spiritual leadership.
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Wow... I think you guys are too serious.
It's a song that talks about over stimulation leading to being desensitized, but he's being a smart ass and equating it with being fisted - probably anally.
I mean, the lyrics out of context sound like a love song. "Show me that you love me and that we belong together. Relax, turn around, and take my hand." *snicker*
And then, how the penetrating body part gets bigger - knuckle to elbow... That's funny! He does intermix it with some interesting lines "How could this mean anything to me when I can't feel a thing at all... " sung in a sort of high pitched falsetto moving into a more declarative "I'll keep on digging 'til I feel something".
All in all, it's a serious concept - over stimulation leading to desensitization leading to people being the hell out of themselves to feel anything instead of just being still - juxtaposed with toilet humor - anal knuckling/fingering/fisting/elbowing.
And it's genius. -
Good to see a lot of deep minds out here. As stated earlier, Maynard's lyrics tend to be metaphoric and layered. This attempt is just to look at one slice that hasn't been addressed...
Following the picture in the AEnima album of the guy sucking his dick... or... doing a yoga pose... The lyrics of progression (from finger, to knuckle, to elbow, to shoulder) sound disgustingly painfulon the physical level... or... They paint a picture of kundalini rising, from 1st to 2nd to 3rd to 4th chakra, as the arm location matches each chakra (for those unfamiliar with kundalini and chakras, a nice intro is actually the last minute or so of the Parabola video).
This would mirror the yogic/layered theme of AEnima and the words Maynard has given many-a-time before performing the song live: "This song is about choosing compassion over fear." -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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No, that's all bullshit why must it be nothing but an addiction to drugs? How hard is it to consider he fell down that far?
Listen to me. It is about many things, but it deals directly with pornography. He couldn't feel anything, and so he drove himself deeper and deeper into it in a search for stimulation. I have done the same thing with my wayward friend and with something much more sinister as well. As he kept getting closer he became more and more numb and sought even deeper things, and as the urge to revolt grew stronger, he fought to nullify it. He wanted to kill that response, which is where all the 'take my hand' stuff comes from. The progression from finger to knuckle to shoulder is him getting number and number.
THEN, there's the other part, which is the discussion of society, how it has become numbed and needs such things to be stimulated, that things like anal fisting exist, what became of subtlety &tc. In each and every one of his songs there is a strong personal component. Noone ever, ever gets that because it is too esoteric, and they start throwing around all these wild interpretations. Keenan has seen anal fisting. He went that far, and the song, more than anything else, is a description of that....place - can't you HEAR it in the music? That sickly, hollow, insipid, decadent feeling - you cannot express that unless you've been there, and he wouldn't be able to make the song sound like that if he had only been discussing the desensitization of society. It's a ballad to that period of his life, that sensation, that pattern and what it felt like as much as anything else. I know this is correct. -
I too think that this song is a metaphor for today's desensitized society. The main reason this song is even about sodomy-- which is against the law in the US, right?-- is to make us go "WTF?!" However, within a few listenings to the song, it's old news. I won't bore y'all with my reasonings, as they're pretty much the same as what you've got.
But I would like to say, "Well done!"
The coolest thing about Tool lyrics, I find, is how they can be viewed on a thousand different dimensions. Anyone and everyone can listen to this music, can think, react, and exchange ideas: young and old; male and female; American, European, Asian-- whatever. To further emphasize this, just look at the way everyone's responded on the board. Some are literate, some simply aren't. Some think on a more shallow plane, while other's dig so deeply for meaning that it's mind-boggling.
That's the point of Tool. To get us to think.
After all, what is questioning everything but another way to "breath to, to feel, to know [we're] alive?"
~Mii (Newcomer? :O) -
Something to hold in consideration with the interpretations, Maynard opens a the song on a video clip I just saw with "this song is about choosing compassion over fear" (there is a cut between him talking and them playing however it flows in context). Also, the clip was an interview in 1997 and this album was released in '96 I believe; point being he explains how at that point he was working on forming a balance between sexual gender within himself (the cross dressing). My final opinion on the matter though is that I feel the best thing about nobody coming to a final decision on the meaning in its entirety is that it has people thinking.
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Stinkfist is about society and the government, specifically American, completely putting it to us as citizens. They are using us, sodomizing, for whatever they want. Yet they don't admit it, they want you to just relax and just go along with it.
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