Maynard's Musical Autobiography

One story which has had a profound impact on my own life is Maynard James Keenan's autobiographical tale of drug addiction and recovery told in three parts on his band Tool's 1996 release "Aenima." His use of lifelike analogies and his personification of heroin as a villian create a concept very unique to today's music.

In "Stinkfist," Maynard introduces his heroin addiction as something he loathes yet can't let go of. "It's not enough, I need more, nothing seems to satisfy. I don't want it, I just need it to breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive." He explains his despair over being trapped, wanting to get away but being unable to have a moments' peace from his tempter. "There's something kind of sad about the way that things have come to be, desensitized to everything." He very accurately portrays how drugs suck the life out of the mind and body, leaving an addict to feel nothing outside of his or her addiction. He introduces the concept that he only wants to find a better way to life his life, find a way to feel happiness again. "I'll keep digging until I feel something." Almost every drug addict became addicted only trying to find some way to feel good again. It's a constant chase to get back the feeling of the first high, a chase it is impossible to win.

In the second part of his epic, "H.", Maynard personifies heroin as a snake hissing at his ankles, chasing him down. "Venomous voice tempts me, drains me, bleeds me, leaves me cracked and empty, drags me down like some sweet gravity." The tone of the song is very distraught, and conveys the hopelessness the addict feels. He explains how the drug becomes the addicts' identity, and the addict himself becomes the drug. The addict is aware that he is dying even as he takes his drug, and it is a very despairing emotion to feel, creating much self-loathing and disappointment in oneself. The listener begins to feel Maynard's pain as the music picks up to a roaring crescendo and he screams, "I am too connected to you to slip away, to fade away. Days away I still feel you touching me, changing me, and considerately killing me." As the last line, "and considerately killing me," is sung the tempo drops and this line is almost whispered to convey the hopelessness he is feeling as he knows he is dying and yet cannot stop.

Maynard goes on to offer hope in his conclusion, "46 and 2." For those of you not familiar with rehab programs, allow me to offer some background info. If a person who checks into a rehab center is high when he or she gets there, they are usually sent into a 48-hour detoxification, which is often in isolation. Maynard writes these words when he is 46 hours into his detox, with 2 left to go until he makes it out the other side.

This time he very artistically personifies heroin through his own shadow. When a person is locked inside a room with the light on, there is no possible way to escaped his shadow. Your shadow is always touching you. He sings that he is attempting to crawl "through" his shadow and come out the other side, free of his drug demons. He poetically describes his despair as he tries to find a way to free himself. "I've been crawling on my belly clearing out what could have been. I've been wallowing in my confused and insecure delusions. I want to feel the change consume me, feel the outside turning in. I want to feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured in my shadow." As he begins to see the light, being sober for the first time, he can feel himself changing into a more pure individual. "Feel my shadow changing, stretching up and over me. Soften this old armor, hoping I can clear the way by stepping through my shadow and coming out the other side. Stepping through my shadow with 46 and 2 just ahead of me." By the time this emotional piece is done, he has come out the other side clean and free of his burden for the first time in years, and it provides hope where there was no hope to be found before.

This final song demonstrates an incredible degree of poetic composition that can only be found in music. Humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent. I believe Maynard has created a double analogy. Not only does 46 and 2 represent his time spent in detox, but also what most scientists consider would be the next logical evolution of the human being, receiving an additional chromosome from each parent. Maynard presents that he has evolved into a better person as he escapes drug addiction. It truly is a freeing feeling.

Reading his story alone cannot possibly convey the emotion that is conveyed when he sings his story accompanied to music. This epic, along with every album his band has produced, is a testament to the fact that music evokes emotions that mere words cannot. Were it not for music in our lives, we would all be lost.

Full lyrics of all 3 songs can be viewed here.