Tool – The Grudge

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Send "The Grudge" Ringtone to Cell

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.
Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell.

Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.
Saturn ascends, comes round again.
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Wear the grudge like a crown. Desperate to control.
Unable to forgive. And we're sinking deeper.

Defining, confining, controlling, and we're sinking deeper.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let's you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone
To consume you till you choose to let this go.

Give away the stone.
Let the oceans take and trans mutate this cold and fated anchor.
Give away the stone.
Let the waters kiss and trans mutate these leaden grudges into gold.
Let go.

Send "The Grudge" Ringtone to Cell


Lyrics submitted by Everlong

Track duration: 04:58

"The Grudge" as written by Justin Chancellor, Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Daniel Carey

Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Lyrics powered by LyricFind


The Grudge song meanings
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  • 0
    General Comment:I think "one or ten" means "all or nothing". In other words, "no compromise", "my way or the highway", etc.
    Flag vitaminfon April 27, 2013   Link
  • -1
    General Comment:alright this may seem crazy but i think Ive just had an epiphany what lateralus is about is a close relationship with a person with a personality disorder if you know what im talking about you understand.
    Flag gravy1975on March 30, 2013   Link
  • +2
    General Comment:Maynard once said he used his music to get out frustrations he had of his past, and this I believe is him letting his past go. About his Family life, his look on other people, and even God. He really sees his life of anger leading him no where. Tool's earlier records showed Maynard's and the bend's anger and frustrations to the point where they were called an anti religious band by many. (In ways they were) Well Lateralus came and showed us a new side.

    Maynard sees the problem of hate and grudges, and the "Prison cell" it puts you in. As Saturn comes back around to show him everything, he sees it will consume him and spit him out until he chooses to let it go.

    The ending is so powerful. I just picture Maynard thinking of all the things he's mad about, and not just letting them go, but literally changing his mind set as he screams his heart out. "Turn these leaden grudges into gold". This song is an utter masterpiece. Plugged in online didn't give this album enough credit, cause I see more Christian lyrics in this song alone than I do in some songs on Christian Radio. Funny actually. (My opinion though)

    -Zach
    Flag indeed478on March 18, 2013   Link
  • -2
    General Comment:The song is religious in it's meaning.
    Flag CDH8on December 22, 2012   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • 0
    Song Meaning:Besides the obvious theme of letting go of a grudge that holds you down with negativity, and other obvious references, the whole Saturn thing confused me. I found an interview with Maynard where he explains it. (Not word for word) He basically says when you're born, Saturn is in a specific position. It takes about 28/29 years for it to make a full rotation around the sun back to it's original position. This represents a time in your life when you can evaluate where you are.
    Flagged esskater770on December 04, 2012   Link
  • -1
    My Interpretation:This record is a ritual process in my interpretation. It begins with a cleansing sacrifice to move on to the next step.

    In Alchemy, the practitioner's goal is always to transmutate something worthless like led into gold (albiet that is a pretty basic view) And this song is asking you to find one of those pieces of led in your life in the form of a grudge. It begs that you identify it (clutch it like a corner stone) then asks you to see it in the bigger picture. What good is this grudge doing you in your life. How many missed opportunities or lost friendships has it cost you.

    "Wear the grudge like a crown, negativity, calculate what we will, will not tolerate desperate to control, all and everything"

    This is the kind of broken thinking we can fall prey too when fixating on a grudge. But for the ritual to move foreword, a sacrifice needs to be made.

    "Give away the stone, let the waters kiss and transmutate these leded grudges into gold"

    Now, I don't care if you follow the same spiritual path that I do, this is a wonderful exercise for anyone, Listen to this point with your eyes closed, focus on a grudge. Something specific. Maybe not even a grudge, but something you need to move on from. Now, try to imagine an object two wrap that feeling, action, grudge, into an object or symbol of some sort. Imagine a large etherial space where you can hold it up in the palm of your hand (around the 6:00min mark) Keep your hand extended and imagine this grudge being sandblasted by the sound. And as they chant "Let Go" imagine that led symbol becoming something golden and usable. You first must really want make this work though. And be willing to let go.
    Flag psillypsymunon March 24, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Roman and Greek Mythology are known to almost be identical. The Roman god Saturn was known as Cronus in Greek mythology. Cronus overthrew his father, Uranus. He then in fear that his children would do the same to him would wait for them to be born and eat them. Eventually Rhea (his wife) grew tired of this and instead of handing him the newly born child, she gave him a stone wrapped in blankets, and hid the baby. Cronus ate the stone and the baby, which was Zeus, grew strong enough that eventually he forced his father to disgorge all of his siblings which were, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Hestia. Zeus then overpowered his father to succeed him as the King of the Gods.
    Use that information however youd like
    Flag GiveMeMyWingson February 03, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:'Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or drags you down. To consume you until you CHOOSE to let this go' hardly seems at odds with the reading I gave. This song is a jab at a crack you may slip into while climbing. It is to say we climb, we all do and it is what there is to do. Come now, if you have a pick axe show it to me, explain it to me, allow me to try it on for size, as of now I too am open for business. It'll be a slow, arduous climb.
    Flag hehkateon December 26, 2011   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:The most general and cohesive reading I can give to The Grudge is the grudge one could unwittingly have toward the existence of others, even more pronounced when the other emerges an inhabits your OWN being 'unable to forgive your scarlet letterman'. This may be someone who gives you a heads up. It progressively rears its head on you, the grudge, and then you realize you are begrudging others for inhabiting their OWN being. The realization that one can slink into this is cause for self-reproach, moreover. That others possess content identical to your own makes you not only question the grounds for your own self-identity but strikes at something even more fundamental: do I really OWN anything I think? Is it a product of my own adeptness or more likely do things just occur to me in too similar a character as it does for all if not many other beings. He can realize he is being seen as someone with a grudge. Trying to cling to some last shred of something substantial or all his own, he 'wears his crown of negativity'. Get an image of Jughead's paper tapped crown... 'yes, and?' So he sets out provisionally, awkwardly and with abandon to reconstruct his character (which can never be anything more than a self-percept) about this grudge. It doesn't seem to be a move made to advance ground with any scarlet lettermen, it is a move made in last dash for an inward sense of peace. Hang on or be humbled again, likely what should be inferred from the scarlet letterman's prompt. I have read briefly that Saturn is usually evoked as a symbol for the epithets 'the opportune moment for harvesting from life' and 'the death of old ways'. Also, more abstract and generally designated meanings of authority, steadiness, construction, integrity. So, yes the grudge could be spawned from someone keeping you in check. What spins the grudge tighter is your lacking the grounds to utterly hate them based on a smooth, kindred, genuine delivery they made for you, with whatever that sentiment is. Some specific species of love. The grudge and concomitant self-loathing is escaped from temporarily by denying of others their real inhabited being, 'justify denials', which is to go back to a state before the letterman spoke, where the now grudge-holding was conceiving himself or simply reclining into the self-percept of being the master of the show. While this might have something to offer in other spheres, when it enters into issues concerning realizing or evoking, if you are an idealist, the presence of others it can cause some problems. While it may be true of you it is just as well true of the other, in like character. The letterman called your behavior, preconscious or calculated, into the open maybe. Cause for soreness or indignation, seems to be the case in The Grudge. This is not someone with any immediate desire to seek a sort of penance. A sort of penance is the way out. Perhaps the grudge has an inherent recursive structure, meaning it rebounds or linearly, thought about the character of the grudge causes its character to get more pronounced. One has met a blockade which may be rerouted or assuaged with some ol' integral penance: acknowledgement of self-deceiving behavior and appropriate recompense in a spirit of seriousness. The fact that the grudge holder can understand himself to be occupying this pending position incites them to resign themselves to smoldering in fecklessness.
    Flag hehkateon December 26, 2011   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:I think that this song is pretty simple in its meaning... and ultimately beautiful. The Metal genre is usually stereotyped as angry and hateful but this is another song that proves it wrong.

    This song is about a hate or a grudge. Something has happened to you that you can't let go of that you can't undo. It festers and seethes within you. a Grudge this deep can take hold of a person until all thats left is that feeling.

    This song is that process. and its ultimately telling you to let go and be free.

    They sing as your grudge as being a corner stone. Something that holds up the foundation of your life. Anchoring you to one spot. The best part of the song however is the last verse. Speaking of the ocean, letting it kiss you clean of your anger and hate. Letting go of that Grudge and letting the anchor it had become sink into the sea. Water in many traditions and stories has been cleansing. Its the perfect imagery.

    The song basically is telling you to let it go because whatever it is that your Grudge is about is not worth mulling over,
    Flag Aztridon November 18, 2011   Link

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