Meaning and Lyrics of Lateralus by TOOL

This is one of the most brilliant songs ever written. Like a complex novel, it operates on many levels, but the central theme of the song is evolution, both personal and on the grand scale. First we’ll examine the music itself. Note that in the beginning the background beats/rhythms sound almost like a bubbling swamp, which is the source of life. As the song progresses, those rhythms become more tribal, then more mechanical, till near the end we hear what sounds like robots in a factory. Thus, the music is about the evolution of the human species to the point where we are either replaced by machines or become machines ourselves.

Now, the lyrics reinforce this theme on a few ways. The song starts out: “Black then white are all I see in my infancy, red and yellow then came to be reaching out to me, let’s me see.” On a very literal level this is exactly how vision evolves in each human. Babies see in black and white, with their ability to distinguish colors arising as they age. But this is also true of the human species in a philosophical and spiritual sense. Edward O. Wilson has written about how the most primitive tribes have words only for black and white; the next most advanced tribes have words for red and yellow, on up to the point where we recognize there is a near infinite color spectrum, which the most advanced cultures recognize. Thus, the most morally developed beings recognize that issues can never be easily divided into black and white; that’s much too simplistic. There are, of course, people who still see moral issues in black and white, but they are throwbacks to our primitive heritage. So as technology advances, if we do not evolve morally too, we lose our connection to nature more and more and become little more than machines. Computers too view things in simplistic black and white terms (or bits and bytes if you prefer).

Thus, in that context the song is about personal growth–spiritually, morally, and philosophically speaking. when Maynard sings about pushing the envelope, he is saying that he is attempting to push beyond the 2-dimensional mores and prudish religious nonsense that still holds us back as a culture. True spiritual growth cannot come from without; it must come from within, and no one else can define what is right or wrong for you. In that sense this sing is kind of a companion piece to Hermann Hesse’s novel ‘Demian.’

As the song approaches its denouement, Maynard approaches something on the order of mystical ecstasy and again the music reinforces the lyrics. Note how the pitch of Maynard’s voice, moving up and down rhythmically, compliments the “spiral out” he’s singing about. He leaves the rest ambiguous. What lies beyond the simplistic black & white world we live in? Who knows? But the point is, we must push ahead anyway, no matter what, because the alternative is that we’re no better than the machines we build to labor for us. We MUST stop looking at the world as if it can be divided into easy categories. The truth is never that simple. We may not like what we find as we move on; nevertheless, we advance or we die, spiritually speaking.