Tool: AEnima Meaning
Song Released: 1997
AEnima Lyrics
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I cannot say what exactly he means, but I have an idea. See when I went down the path of enlightenment I began to hate everything around me. I was disgusted by the hopeless fucking hole that surrounded me. I began to learn the truth (not wild conspiracy's but historical FACTS) about the government, media, and the world.
The funny thing about all this is I used to HATE Tool! On the radio I would always change it, being one of the hugely repeated songs on the radio. I accidentally downloaded this song, and heard it uncut. This was right at the time of my questioning everything around me and truthfully I was quite angry. Now That I hear this song, I totally identify with his attitude here.
Learn to swim is a vocal handshake with any with knowledge of the most likely of all human-ending events. He is probably talking about the coast (which have the highest populations and are usually the most dirty of human filth) and how they will disappear if we have a polar shift, due to any cosmic changes to our gravity (another thing we know nothing about, all theory). This is why one of the biggest pyramids were found in the seas of japan.
When you debate the future of human kind you always come to one solution, either something HUGE has to change, or we are all done. This is Maynards way of expressing how many of us feel who know, we cannot wait to see this beautiful and majestic planet suck away the filth that is humanity, and once again create balance.
NO more drug/fertility worshiping cults ( christianity )
NO more materialistic propaganda flooding our minds.
NO more political bullshit putting a face to our slavery.
NO more child rapist living next door. (in the church)
NO MORE HUMAN! we are an incredible dark being, and we are creating an imbalance. So, naturally, this planet is going to flea shampoo our dirty little asses right off her planet, and as you can see, she has done it before and has become very good at it. I cannot wait either, Maynard. It will be so beautiful I cannot even imagine or speculate! How lucky we are to be alive to see it with our organic eyes! That experience must be very rare... we all should be thankful for being given such a wonderful gift from this vastness we call eternity!
So drop the bullshit and live this thing before its over. Trust me. -
Maynard is clearly disgusted at the hive of decadence that the modern, self-centered, media driven world (Represented by LA) has become and claims that the only way to cleanse this evil is to totally destroy it, hence the apocalyptic imagery. This is shit that has to be cleaned with biblical floods, like the way an enema cleans human bowels.
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Many others have a good interpretation but I think materialism is a keyword here. LA is used as an example b/c of all the materialistic freaks there, but I think Maynard is really singing this song to the whole world. As far as floods and flushing it all away I think that he is saying that nothing short of a natural disaster can put the world back into a natural, non-materialistic state. "Mom" is mother nature and she's "coming around again" (world populations probably get wiped out by a cataclysm every few millenniums).
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Basically, he's saying that in order for us to find ourselves we must experience such a crysis as california breaking away from northern america.
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Basically he is taking what bill hicks said and applying it to the entire world. He is saying that the world is fucked up and all the people and things responsible need to be gotten rid of. or if you will "washed away".
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When he says "Mom is going to fix it all soon,
Mom is coming round to put it back
the way it oughtta be..."
does he mean mom as in mother earth or just a a generalization of someone or something flooding the earth is it just a filler for the god is that what he means or is it something else? -
Hes saying that he's tired of seeing all these mindless "freaks" following society.
society in this case is just a bland slur of bull-shit. Telling everyone what to do, how to think, how to act, its all bullshit!
all these mindless "freaks" who don't have an identity (but the one which society has given them) just follow w/o hesitation, and they are fucking up their, and everyone around them's life
people need to figure out for themselves how they want to live, how they want to act, and what they want to do with themselves!
wat he's saying is we need an aenima. Its a word tool made up from, obviously, enima: "cleaning out of one's rectum", and anima: "one's inner self discovered"...we need a deep cleansing of our selves, not just our outside persona, but our inner "soul" for want of a better word.
"the only way to fix it is to flush it all away" He's saying if everyone could be cleansed, could be "reborn" as a friend of mine put it, reality wouldnt be reality anymore: a bland wasteland of society's projections to our self images, and our perception, but it would be wat we made it to be, how we REALLY percieve it! Not so much a commonplace, boring life... living just to function, but a LIFE! one where we are truly living, not functioning as robots made of flesh.
life should be ours to live, not the governments. people would be that, people, hum,ans, not gears, and hydrolic pumps, and crankshafts in "The Machiene"
He's tired of seeing everyone else turned to metal, and replacing old parts in the machiene, and he wants to see it changed for the better, as he,himself has discovered.
Or, it's about 69% possible that I'm a dumb ass, but that's the way I percieve it, and at least I'm not part of the machiene. -
More specifically, the section in which he lists the things 'for you to fret', I think is a bit of an attack on materialism and other shallow traits, I guess perhaps in L.A. but most likely also on a wider scope. 'Fret for you latte', 'fret for your contract', etc.
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the song to me is about him noticing the how the world around him is crumbling and he knows that its not something that's meant to happen. He knows that people are causing all theses problems. and he describes the childhood hope that "mother" will fix everything. like when you're a child you believe "mother" knows a lot and she can fix your problems. He's trying show that people still rely on this and its won't work. He wants people to open their eyes though he knows it may never happen.
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I believe this is talking about mom as mother nature and LA as the constipated shit hole of the world that is need of cleansing through the use of an enema (basically a rectal douche) so the earth will use a giant tidal wave to cleanse the earth of LA just like the water from an enema cleans out shit from the rectum.
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Hey Zaq has got it. If I were to explain my opinion, it would be the same as his. A song can mean more that one thing you know guys... anyways, I think bill hicks died and influenced the band a lot on the whole album. What Maynard did was state what bill's idea was. What then Maynard did was he made that comedic idea into a heartfelt song with a metaphor. I think the the cali floating away from the us is a small scale item for the human to understand. Once they understand that, they can relate it to the inner most lyrics of one of Tool's amazing songs.
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The thing about TOOL songs are that each one has different meanings to everybody which is why Maynard doesn't get the meaning out because it would not encourage the fans to Think for themselves. So here is my Interpretation of Aenema. I think this song is about the San Andreas fault and how it will eventually break California away from the states. How when this Armageddon comes none of the Material possessions will made like Latte, Law Suits, Gun totting hip gangster wannabes and how the only thing you can do is Learn to swim. THIS IS CLEARY 100% MY INTERPERTATION NOT MAYNARD'S OR ANYBODY ELSES IN THE BAND TO MY KNOWLEDGE. If you want to discuss this or any other TOOL song the email me at Selfmade@aol.com
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I think there are several double meanings in the song. It can be taken both literally and metaphorically at the same time. It's obvious that it has some basis in realism, especially with the hologram of California falling into the ocean contained in the CD Case. In any case, I think this particular encompassing subject has been debated enough. What I'd like to throw in as far as my 2 cents are concerned is the repeated mention of "Mom." I believe the literal meaning in this case is attributed to the metaphorical aspects of the rest of the song and vice versa. The metaphorical "Mom" could refer to mother nature literally destroying L.A. (or the entire world). His actual Mom, however, would refer to his metaphorical catharsis. Maybe how if she'd wake up, she could 'just make it all go away,' as Mom's are so wont to do if only for a few minutes.
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Very few of you mentioned Bill Hicks in your interpretations. A great deal of this song, along with Third Eye, are heavily influenced by Hicks' philosophy, and the album as a whole is dedicated to him. That may tie up some loose ends.
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