Overthinking, Overanalysing

Lateralus is a song by TOOL released in the album with the same name. And, it is one of the best rock/metal/prog songs, ever. Thus, as a tribute, I want to give my very sparse and idiotic thoughts¹ regarding to this genius of a song and an album.

Lateralus (apparently pronounced “Ladder-Alice,” and not “Lateral-Us”) is supposedly a portmanteau of the leg muscle Vastus lateralis and the term lateral thinking.² The album projects a very spiritual aura, enticing people to let go of their hate, grudges, discord, and limiting beliefs, and the song is about “becoming free” by embracing the random and allowing yourself to have a physical life as well as a spiritual one, and growing yourself in the process.

When you listen closely and analyse overtly, you see that the song and the album has been planned and created very specifically, nearly reaching a 79 minute hiatus; a spiral of mathematics and science themes, brain-melting time signatures, shifting rhythmic interplay, expanding song lengths, tumbles of drums, and killer riffs. Specifically, this song has the fibonacci sequence all over it.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…

Fibonacci sequence is seen everywhere in mathematics and interestingly nature. It is the thing that you come across of in the unexpected, it is the random, it is the spiral.

Overthinking the numbers

When you look closely into the song and how it’s structured, you see very clear references to the fibonacci sequence.

• The introduction section of the song is 01:12 long (0, 1, 1, 2 are the first four numbers in the sequence).
• The first verse starts at 97 seconds, which is approximately 1.618 minutes, which is the golden ratio.
  • The golden ratio is defined as the ratio of two consecutive numbers in the fibonacci sequence; specifically, $\lim_{ n \to \infty } \frac{F_{n+1}}{F_{n}} =\varphi$.
• Each verse is 55 seconds long (11th number in the sequence).
• The syllables in the verses coincide with the sequence, as the first part of the first verse goes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 5, 3.

1
[Verse 1]
2
Black (1)
3
Then (1)
4
White are (2)
5
All I see (3)
6
In my infancy (5)
7
Red and yellow then came to be (8)
8
Reaching out to me (5)
9
Lets me see (3)

• The following chorus also continues with the fibonacci sequence on its syllabuses.

1
[Pre-Chorus]
2
As below so above and beyond I imagine (13)
3
Drawn beyond the lines of reason (8)
4
Push the envelope (5)
5
Watch it bend (3)

• The 2nd line “to swing on the spiral” finishes at 6:18 which numerically matches 1.618, again the golden ratio.

1
To swing on the spiral
2
To swing on the spiral
3
To swing on the spiral

• The spiral refers to the golden/fibonacci spiral, as shown above, very frequently found in nature.
• The time signature of the main riff is 9/8, 8/8, 7/8, 987 is the 17th term in the sequence.

Overanalysing life

In the beginning of the song, the background beats/rhythms sound almost like a bubbling swamp, like a small and faint heartbeat, which is the source of life. Looking at the first verse, we see this as well.

1
Black
2
Then
3
White are
4
All I see
5
In my infancy
6
Red and yellow then came to be
7
Reaching out to me
8
Lets me see

On a very literal level, this is exactly how vision evolves in humans. Babies see in black and white, with their ability to distinguish colours coming in after a couple months. 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 recognise there is a near infinite color spectrum, which the most advanced cultures say.³ Thus, the most morally developed beings recognise 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, as computers too view things in simplistic black and white terms (ones and zeros).

Continuing, these sentences push us to see and be aware of the spiritual world, where we try escaping the limits of the physical, where we try growing into the spiritual world, into the moral world.

1
[Pre-Chorus]
2
As below so above and beyond I imagine
3
Drawn beyond the lines of reason
4
Push the envelope
5
Watch it bend

However, we need to be careful. Overthinking and overanalysing leads us to be hopelessly cautious when considering the motions and actions we take. When we expend more mental and emotional energy (into the spiritual world) than is productive, communication between the physical is weakened. Habitual overthinking and overanalysing eventually robs you of life’s opportunities and experiences.

1
[Chorus 1]
2
Overthinking, overanalyzing, separates the body from the mind
3
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must

One other thing that this song (especially in this chorus) references and explains is how the left and right hemisphere of the brain differ and the connection between the two. Right side of our brain is the more rational, the more task-ial side, while the left side of our brain is the creative, intuitive one. Overuse of the right hemisphere of the brain weakens our connection to the left hemisphere. Here, the “body” would be the right side of our brain, keeping to reality, while the “mind” is our left hemisphere, the connection to the spiritual world. In fact, if we can’t use our left hemisphere then we don’t have access to intuition and creativity, ever.

1
[Post Chorus]
2
Feed my will to feel my moment
3
Drawing way outside the lines

Here, will power probably comes from the left hemisphere, it is the “master” and the right hemisphere is its “emissary” because only the left hemisphere can answer the question “why?”, to the right hemisphere everything is just a task to complete. These lines also enforce the line for us to go beyond, to draw beyond the lines of reason, which refer to the idea that we, as children, have been forced to be in the line, to not break the rules, to follow expectations (the colouring book for example, to stay in the lines of the drawings). Coming back to the previous line, obsessing over the details, the rules do lead to detachment from imperfect reality, from our will, and the imperfect results of human endeavour, which is exactly what we should avoid, we should try to find the imperfect, find the nature, see the universe.

Leading to a paradox

After the second verse, we see the following, which at first seems like a contradiction; the concept of randomness alludes to the central paradox of the song’s construction. The song so far has crafted a complex lyrical structure with the fibonacci sequence while mocking the listener for overthinking and overanalysing the song. Similarly, it encourages the listener to “embrace the random” of the natural world while acknowledging that the world is infinitely complex and structured.

1
[Post-Chorus]
2
Feed my will to feel this moment
3
Urging me to cross the line
4
Reaching out to embrace the random
5
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come

But the point is to not understand the infinitely complex universe and the nature. Dwelling on the finer details causes us to miss the beauty therein, to miss the proverbial forest for the trees. We need to see the big picture. We need to understand the universe, of our divinity.

1
[Bridge]
2
I embrace my desire to
3
I embrace my desire to
4
Feel the rhythm
5
To feel connected
6
Enough to step aside and
7
Weep like a widow
8
To feel inspired
9
To fathom the power
10
To witness the beauty
11
To bathe in the fountain
12
To swing on the spiral
13
To swing on the spiral
14
To swing on the spiral
15
Of our divinity and
16
Still be a human
17
[Guitar Solo]

This is where the song reaches a climax. This is where we reach the spiritual world, this is where we keep going, this is where we spiral out, this is where we reach where no one’s been…

1
[Outro]
2
With my feet upon the ground
3
I lose myself between the sounds
4
And open wide to suck it in
5
I feel it move across my skin
6
I'm reaching up and reaching out
7
I'm reaching for the random or
8
Whatever will bewilder me
9
Whatever will bewilder me
10
And following our will and wind
11
We may just go where no one's been
12
We'll ride the spiral to the end
13
And may just go where no one's been
14
Spiral out, keep going
15
Spiral out, keep going
16
Spiral out, keep going
17
Spiral out, keep going

Even with the enormous comprehension required to understand the nature’s structure, we can still get close to it by seeking the unknown, by embracing the random, not though linearity, but by through spiraling; we must think outside the box and consider possibilities we normally wouldn’t. Humans get horribly stuck in their own ways and thought patterns, quickly dismissing things that don’t make sense in our minds based on the opinions we already have. This is living with our “feet upon the ground.” If we’re not careful, it’s easy to lose ourselves “between the sounds.” By acknowledging these sounds, our own biases, and by pushing the envelope to break outside norms of thinking and acting, we evolve and advance. Instead of backing away from the feeling, we open ourselves wide to it, both taking it inside of ourselves and feeling it all around us at the same time. This is our merging with the universe, taking in the vastness of the entire universe which we are now becoming one with.

The willpower we created through a life well lived, taught to us by our fourth dimensional body, the psychological construct of the ego, untethered from the physical body, merged with all of existence to the end of time, creates a new factor in the creation of the universe. This small difference of our human will, imperceptible on a universal scale, adds a new condition to the big bang, giving our soul, which lives on, a chance to “go where no one has been,” living a new life in a new, better world.

Footnotes