Alice In Chains: The Rooster Meaning

The Rooster Lyrics

Ain’t found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids 'n household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhere

Yeah they come to snuff the rooster, oh...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jul 11th 2012 !⃝

   People Look it up you'll find it. Yes it's about a M60 gunner, Yes it's about Vietnam. No it doesn't have anything to do with Vietnamese people calling them chickens. No its not about M60 gunners being cocky. The Rooster was his fathers nickname. The song is about his father. It was the start of their healing process.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 22nd 2008 !⃝

   Actually in an interview Jerry Cantrell said that 'Rooster' was his fathers nickname as a kid growing up in the south. The song was written as a tribute to his fathers experience in Vietnam and I'm thinking that the lyrics "they've come to snuff the rooster" and "you know he ain't gonna die" relate to his father facing death constantly in Vietnam, and his will to live.
   
   Jerry Cantrell's father may still wake up sometimes thinking about Vietnam. It was also a very unpopular war so the lyrics "They spit on me in my home land" could refer to the treatment he received by anti-war citizens of the US.

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 7th 2008 !⃝

   My father, Marine Corp Vet in 'nam, explained this to me without an inquiry when we were listening to the song. He said (like 1 out of 100 comments previous) that Rooster was nickname for the M-60 gunner of a platoon. He said they were cocky and had a strut to them (you needed to be cocky as an M-60 threw out heavy fire, but would take heavy fire as well).
   
   His general sentiment was that a Rooster was a bad a$$. He thinks Rooster is an incredible song and thanked me for being into good music back in the day :)
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 24th 2022 !⃝

   About The comment that anti-war protesters did not spit on soldiers. I understand that you hope the world and people worked as logically as you say. It does make sense, however sadly, it is not what happened. Soldiers from Vietnam were dragged to a foreign land to kill or be killed in a fight that turned out to be based on something that was far less noble an endeavor than WWII. And when they got home there was no heroes welcome. Not that they felt like heroes but they were used and spit out by their own government. It is a nice idea that anti war people were hugging our wounded and soul crushed men and women on their return but sadly that is not how it happened. Please watch a documentary before you write that those lyrics are invalid. They are one of the most poignant and tragically true lyrics to come from the 90’s grunge scene. I hope they inspire you to go spend sometime with a Vietnam Vet one day and do some of the embracing kindness you think happened to them in the 70’s.
5. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 13th 2019 !⃝

   Jerry Cantrell's own words
   
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNXukKg8j90
6. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 2nd 2019 !⃝

   Jerry Cantrell's father, Jerry Cantrell Sr. is a Vietnam War veteran. Cantrell wrote this song to honor his father by telling a little story about his service in the Vietnam War. "Rooster" was the name that he went by in Vietnam. Jerry Cantrell Sr. has had the nickname "Rooster" since childhood because of the way his hair stood on end in his youth. Cantrell Sr. even appears in the music video.
7. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Feb 24th 2019 !⃝

   Thanks guys, you all did an awesome job !!! Joe,still alive ! "You know, he was born to fly!!! Hallelujah !!!!!
8. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Nov 4th 2015 !⃝

   Definitely a song about a different time with that old familiar tired song about war. About humanity that kills itself in the name of feeding the war machine. Politicians,power freaks,wall street. We are pawns or we are not American.
9. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Nov 17th 2014 !⃝

   So the song Rooster has a deeper meaning then what comes across to most people. I had talked to my grandpa a Vietnam Vet And he actually told me a lot about how this song moved him. He told me how So the song Rooster has a deeper meaning then what comes across to most people. I had talked to my grandpa a Vietnam Vet And he actually told me a lot about how this song moved him. He told me how the Rooster was a nickname for the gun M-60 and how when it was night it light up when they shot and looked like a rooster tail.
   the Rooster was a nickname for the gun M-60 and how when it was night it light up when they shot and looked like a rooster tail.
10. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Oct 24th 2014 !⃝

    Ya'll are hilarious!
    The 101st airborne were known as the SCREAMING EAGLES..... It would be interesting to know IF the writers father was in the 101st? Perhaps that's why he was nicknamed rooster?

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
11. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 2nd 2013 !⃝

    the rooster is about a man who thought he was the best in the business, but he was really just another dumb-ass, put in a position of power by some one he did a huge favor for. he ruled supreme over his little empire, and thought no one could touch him. He bad mouthed the wrong person and was immortalized in this song. there's a few people who know the time and place this piece was originally sung, but they won't be talking about it and I am not saying anymore. From the memories of "the man in the box". The true meanings of many alice in chains songs, are so made up they are funny, there is one person who knows it all, and everyone else believing what they've been told, but the truth is, it's all a pack of lies. Isn't it guys? god bless you for your playing of these songs to the world.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jan 14th 2013 !⃝

    When you fire a long burst from a machine gun, the barrel tends to rise. Since their ammo belts have one tracer round after every four ball (normal) rounds it creates a "rooster tail" effect at night. So M60 gunners often earnes the nickname "rooster "
13. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Oct 4th 2012 !⃝

    This song was written by Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell for his father Jerry Cantrell Sr., who went by the nickname "Rooster" while serving with the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Jerry Cantrell has stated that his father, Cantrell, Sr., had this family nickname "Rooster" since childhood due to the way his hair stood up on end as a youth.[2] The "Rooster" nickname is often mistakenly attributed to a reference to men carrying the M60 machine gun (see the second verse, first line), the muzzle flash from which makes an outline or pattern reminiscent of a rooster's tail. It is also often mistakenly attributed to the 101st Airborne Division - in which Cantrell's father served - who wore shoulder sleeve insignia on their arms featuring a bald eagle. As there are no bald eagles in Vietnam, the closest thing to which the Vietnamese could draw a comparison was the chicken, thus leading to the pejorative "chicken men."
14. enigmaticang3l

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Sep 16th 2012 !⃝

    A real work of art may have a very specific meaning, but appeal to different schools of thought/interpretation in a more universal sense. Rooster is in this caregory.
15. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jul 20th 2012 !⃝

    Don't everyone forget that a rooster is also an alarm clock (remember the old cartoons where the sun would come out and the rooster would cock-a-doodle-doo). Therefore "snuffing the rooster" is "making sure that you don't wake up in the morning."
16. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jun 10th 2012 !⃝

    This is what I think the song means. Well the rooster is up at dawn and goes to sleep at dusk. So the soilders were up at dawn and went to sleep at dusk. Thats why no one could snuff the rooster. You know he aint gonna die!

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
17. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Mar 15th 2012 !⃝

    Also talk to infantry soldiers, not POG's about this kind of shit.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
18. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Mar 15th 2012 !⃝

    Ok the rooster nickname for M60 gunners is true but the reasoning is more than the gunners being "cocky" it is given because when firing especially at night the tracer bullets ark in the air, closely resemble the long arched feathers of a rooster tail.

Latest Articles

• 
  A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park
• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)