76. Sober by Tool

"Sober" by Tool

Music by Adam Jones, Dana Carey, Paul D'Amour
Lyrics by Maynard James Keenan
Released on Undertow (April 6, 1993)
Released as single in May 1993
amazon spotify music video
Warning: Explicit Lyrics

I have a funny story about this song. I used to live and work at a camp in Michigan. In between seasons, I had to live in a little room upstairs in the camp's farmhouse (which also served as the camp office). To say that this was an awkward living situation would be an understatement. See, they forced me to live there during the parts of the year when I had essentially no work responsibilities, and this was not a large office. The offices were all downstairs, but I'm sure it wasn't hard for my colleagues to figure out when I got up each day. I enjoyed my time off between seasons and sleeping in is something I have always enjoyed doing during time off. But it was a job I loved, the rent was cheap, so I made it work. Living where others are working is simply not an ideal situation.

One Sunday morning, I got up and took a shower as I got ready for church. Because it was Sunday, I assumed no one was in the office. When people ask me if I sing, I usually tell them that I do, but only in the shower, the car, and at church. So I was in the shower singing. For some reason "Sober" was in my head, so I was singing the chorus (the only part of the song I know the words to). I was really going for it. When I want, I can sing LOUD. I'm not entirely sure where or how I developed this skill, but I can really project my voice when I want to. My sister used to be an opera singer. I don't know whether I could have trained my ear and my voice to sing nearly as well as her, but I'm pretty darn sure that I could sing as loud as her, if I really wanted to.

So there I was, in the upstairs shower in an empty office, singing like a madman.

After church, I was talking with a couple people from the camp. My boss mentioned that he had stopped by the office on his way to church and heard some singing. This was getting awkward, and not just because he had heard me singing at full volume. What really made it awkward was when he asked me what I had been singing. Because of my boss's age and what I knew about him, I couldn't really figure out how to explain who Tool was. So when he asked what I was singing, I lied and said that I didn't know.

I don't sing as much in the shower anymore.

Tool is great. They rock hard. "Sober" was their first song that got played anywhere, and it was accompanied by a fantastically strange and cool claymation music video. I have enjoyed other Tool songs, but none as much as this "Sober." Tool is a cool band because in addition to rocking hard, they also do cool things like mess with time signatures and song structures. In the end though, as interesting as their music is, sometimes I just want to rock, and "Sober" isn't particularly interesting or complicated; it just rocks. Interesting music is interesting, but sometimes it's OK to just want to rock, hard.

Right now, "Sober" by Tool is (probably) my 76th favorite song of all time.