Nine Inch Nails – Ringfinger

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  General Comment:We need to take a look at how cannibalistic the state is, which is only in part the fault of those who sustain it wittingly. The problem is close at home also through any who adhere to what the state usually prescribes as a sane perception of reality, usually the same who also pathologically persecute others for deviation out of sheer ridiculousness or bitterness. Any who arrive at a metaphysical system, find justification for it from only the fact that the conception had occurred to them (hence it MUST have been produced by a veritable state of affairs), and have the audacity to prescribe their world picture and dogma to others indiscriminately ought to listen to reason or acquire for themselves a stomach for complexity. The same state, speaking of the same America that strikes Reznor with sick, that prescribes the metaphysical or religious dogma that 'life is sacred' pandemically and indubitably so, is the same state that institutes capital punishment meanwhile committing others to the psych ward for admitting suicidal thoughts. The grounds for this is what could only be presumed to be the state's self-regard of it having entitlement over the life and agency of the individual. Crudely, it is to say 'we claim the right to claim your life should you violate our laws (tacitly, which we do not analyze with any rigor but indoctrinate in the collective for social control) but should you deign the right to be the master of your own destiny or make any 'ungrateful' shows of misery you will be ostracized as a sort of heretic, or worse, as someone with a superiority complex'. All these sorts of things foster cognitive dissonance. It is already a feat to arrive at a sense of feeling at home in the world without having to deal with this overspill of maiming misconceptions. An example, substantial or not, the state may shanghai the Buddhist conception of samsara, always discretely (which of course does not bar the possibility of the state's making any religion more blatant, more popular, counter-intuitively). The leap here should be clear enough. So to get out of samsara (for we know you suffer and this world picture will strike you) you become a good citizen: you treat others with distance and courtesy, you understand rank and file, you WORK FUCKING HARD, and then you die. If you expected any better for yourself, well toots, that's what we call being psychotic (since we the state as good as own psychology too). But things are changing and most likely I speak of a fading world and with naive cynicism. These things differ in their degree of severity, depending on the particular state and the particular individual. I do believe, at this time, that we all come into the world each with a different stock of experiences, intellectual accretions we make over time with patience and reverence, that we have posited over time pieces of ourselves in others and likewise have had the reciprocation and that we all have projects we might have been interrupted from. The sick is in that the state engineers reality so as to cut you off from yourself, so that you do not believe yourself, and so that you call YOURSELF crazy for have a certain species of thoughts which will naturally occur to you. These thoughts will flourish if you nourish them but distort and degenerate if you treat them with resentment or terseness. The narrator of Ringfinger genuinely wants to be good, it seems, for self-cultivated reasons too, but meets with despondency when he realizes he is really another victim of some other's gluttony for control, power, the sins of the state against human dignity and freedom. He is a lamb, Jesus, docile, humble and kindred, who suffers at the mercy of another's sinful behavior. Far removed from him, and being made twice-removed from himself, he reflects on this idea 'ringfinger' to keep himself unified, at peace and primed for what could await after the nightmare of, bref, industrial society.

  Flag hehkateon December 26, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Admittedly, when I first heard the song I did hear "GIRL, you've got me working so hard lately". But it is not a song about a romance in any generic sense. Maybe we could speak about Ringfinger without ever equating the term to anything. The next lines give implication-definitions of the term. "Promise carved in stone", without getting too pathetic, poetic, can point to the possibility that Reznor is using 'ringfinger' to refer to a precept. We have concepts, there can precepts. Maybe derivative of primordial intentionality. A precept of engagement, figurative union in unearthing and advancing a cause, I'll stretch an inference, once vaporous now fixed in solidity. "Deeper than the sea". The sea's meaning is always at variance, I usually absorb it as something like... to see the self as a unit of the sea as a transitory conception to apprehend the roiling motion and overlap of water as having some inherent similarity with the viscosity of collective being or consciousness, less inclusive. This precept is something which pressuposes our being as beings, it is a precept of being itself which a being naturally moves into when, more than considers, but can stand in the light of being a being for which whom being is at question. The song is conceding, 'yes I would make consecrations of myself for an authentic cause, but what you ask of my is not only arbitrary but deteriorating and deflective'. It also recapitulates on a fact of the current state of affairs that one's comfort is in the hands of those who operate at the helm of social contracting. The point being I should feel obliged to give back to my community not be obligated for any CAPITAL G pseudo-moral imperatives which operate on guilt and provisionally arbitrary misconceptions of heirarchy, rank not based on anything substantial. Relationship to the fear enters when the lines "sever flesh and bone and offer it to me" are read in just such a way. The state has a tacit grip over the individual to such an extant that Reznor can in a tongue-in-cheek manner only ask that his release be offered to him. Cause for indignation.

  Flag hehkateon December 24, 2011   Link

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    Dayum! Well trained process right there...nice/sweet!

    Flag idgyon December 24, 2011  

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    We need to take a look at how cannibalistic the state is, which is only in part the fault of those who sustain it wittingly. The problem is close at home also through any who adhere to what the state usually prescribes as a sane perception of reality, usually the same who also pathologically persecute others for deviation out of sheer ridiculousness or bitterness. Any who arrive at a metaphysical system, find justification for it from only the fact that the conception had occurred to them (hence it MUST have been produced by a veritable state of affairs), and have the audacity to prescribe their world picture and dogma to others indiscriminately ought to listen to reason or acquire for themselves a stomach for complexity. The same state, speaking of the same America that strikes Reznor with sick, that prescribes the metaphysical or religious dogma that 'life is sacred' pandemically and indubitably so, is the same state that institutes capital punishment meanwhile committing others to the psych ward for admitting suicidal thoughts. The grounds for this is what could only be presumed to be the state's self-regard of it having entitlement over the life and agency of the individual. Crudely, it is to say 'we claim the right to claim your life should you violate our laws (tacitly, which we do not analyze with any rigor but indoctrinate in the collective for social control) but should you deign the right to be the master of your own destiny or make any 'ungrateful' shows of misery you will be ostracized as a sort of heretic, or worse, as someone with a superiority complex'. All these sorts of things foster cognitive dissonance. It is already a feat to arrive at a sense of feeling at home in the world without having to deal with this overspill of maiming misconceptions. An example, substantial or not, the state may shanghai the Buddhist conception of samsara, always discretely (which of course does not bar the possibility of the state's making any religion more blatant, more popular, counter-intuitively). The leap here should be clear enough. So to get out of samsara (for we know you suffer and this world picture will strike you) you become a good citizen: you treat others with distance and courtesy, you understand rank and file, you WORK FUCKING HARD, and then you die. If you expected any better for yourself, well toots, that's what we call being psychotic (since we the state as good as own psychology too). But things are changing and most likely I speak of a fading world and with naive cynicism. These things differ in their degree of severity, depending on the particular state and the particular individual. I do believe, at this time, that we all come into the world each with a different stock of experiences, intellectual accretions we make over time with patience and reverence, that we have posited over time pieces of ourselves in others and likewise have had the reciprocation and that we all have projects we might have been interrupted from. The sick is in that the state engineers reality so as to cut you off from yourself, so that you do not believe yourself, and so that you call YOURSELF crazy for have a certain species of thoughts which will naturally occur to you. These thoughts will flourish if you nourish them but distort and degenerate if you treat them with resentment or terseness. The narrator of Ringfinger genuinely wants to be good, it seems, for self-cultivated reasons too, but meets with despondency when he realizes he is really another victim of some other's gluttony for control, power, the sins of the state against human dignity and freedom. He is a lamb, Jesus, docile, humble and kindred, who suffers at the mercy of another's sinful behavior. Far removed from him, and being made twice-removed from himself, he reflects on this idea 'ringfinger' to keep himself unified, at peace and primed for what could await after the nightmare of, bref, industrial society.

    Flag hehkateon December 25, 2011  
• 0
  General Comment:I met those almost dolphin chirps 'wooiiuhuh' that take over at the end with a sense that it is, even more than lyrics, the effects of what you could respectively call timber, repetition, rhythm expectation that embody a recurrent attitude in most NIN songs. What I find can help with 'reading' is to deeply consider that initial influx, whatever it was (be it particular memories of your own or just a familiar, or inclusively alien sensations), that first almost intangible, pure impression the first time you heard any (NIN) song. I would say the effects from the music itself are what found the lyrics and the listener's experience. Of course. We remember those scratching sounds at the end of The Beauty of Being Numb after the nice lull and the silence which slams the point of 'it keeps coming from the inside' of The Big Come Down. These songs are all nam-shubs (if you might have read Snow Crash), they are incantatory yes.? Many of them are engineered to help you reflect of your current relationship to the fear and re-prompt you to sort out alot of the 'miasmic' cognitive dissonance that can spawn from living in the current state of affairs. I would venture the claim these wooiiuhuhs are what cast the entire leer behind the part and parcel concern toward an industrial epoch, what is Ringfinger as a five minute soundbite. I couldn't say if Reznor himself were politically oriented toward anarchism, but the impression I get from many NIN songs is that Trent's resolution, proposition to a certain species of insanity (which I define here general as a character of distortion, or pathology when any desire meets blockade) is that the game can be played differently. The end music seems like more than an after thought to me. I read Ringfinger as a plea or sort of treaty Trent is attempting to make with The Big Other, The Man, government, whomever is intently gaining from a state organized to give people a false sense of their freedom. Whether it goes through or not, the final bit gives me a feel of 'can't see me, can't touch me' in any case. You may try to remove me from my nature, suppress my need for a purpose that I will recognize, but I see far enough in some direction to warrant listening to myself. Its all a can do to save myself, in tact if not furthered. It happens too often that I finish listening to a NIN song and the flare goes off 'there I am'. When this happens on other occasion I board, listen to Tool's The Grudge and give myself a tender beating.

  Flag hehkateon December 24, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:The meaning I get from it is very different from what other people have said. When I listen to it, I think of it not really only in relationship terms but also in terms of people like bosses and family.
  The first part refers to I try as hard as I can to please you and nothing I ever do is good enough for you. And I keep on being your bitch because I need something from you. The promise carved in stone represents an expectation, either of working at a certain level, or an unspoken binding contract to be what someone wants you to be. Carved in stone deeper than the sea means it is a really limiting promise that basically you can't get away from, and that you can't get rid of. I think of the sever flesh and blood and offer it to me as representing that this bossy person with high expectations wants him/the narrator to actually go so far as to give up part of their body, as in they don't care about you they just want a warm body to fill the place they want someone to fill. You leave me hanging like jesus on the cross dying for your sins and aiding the cause means that the controlling person's issues are what is making them have this need to use this person for work or to fill a certain role,and they are only enabling them, but they can't get off the cross. wrap my eyes in bandages means the person is deceiving him. confessions I see through means that he knows he's being deceived. I get everything I want when I get part of you is the other controlling person speaking to the narrator, who basically wants to own him. Devil's flesh and bone means the controlling person is like the devil.
  

  Flag redRTCrazyon January 10, 2011   Link

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    I met those almost dolphin chirps 'wooiiuhuh' that take over at the end with a sense that it is, even more than lyrics, the effects of what you could respectively call timber, repetition, rhythm expectation that embody a recurrent attitude in most NIN songs. What I find can help with 'reading' is to deeply consider that initial influx, whatever it was (be it particular memories of your own or just a familiar, or inclusively alien sensations), that first almost intangible, pure impression the first time you heard any (NIN) song. I would say the effects from the music itself are what found the lyrics and the listener's experience. Of course. We remember those scratching sounds at the end of The Beauty of Being Numb after the nice lull and the silence which slams the point of 'it keeps coming from the inside' of The Big Come Down. These songs are all nam-shubs (if you might have read Snow Crash), they are incantatory yes.? Many of them are engineered to help you reflect of your current relationship to the fear and re-prompt you to sort out alot of the 'miasmic' cognitive dissonance that can spawn from living in the current state of affairs. I would venture the claim these wooiiuhuhs are what cast the entire leer behind the part and parcel concern toward an industrial epoch, what is Ringfinger as a five minute soundbite. I couldn't say if Reznor himself were politically oriented toward anarchism, but the impression I get from many NIN songs is that Trent's resolution, proposition to a certain species of insanity (which I define here general as a character of distortion, or pathology when any desire meets blockade) is that the game can be played differently. The end music seems like more than an after thought to me. I read Ringfinger as a plea or sort of treaty Trent is attempting to make with The Big Other, The Man, government, whomever is intently gaining from a state organized to give people a false sense of their freedom. Whether it goes through or not, the final bit gives me a feel of 'can't see me, can't touch me' in any case. You may try to remove me from my nature, suppress my need for a purpose that I will recognize, but I see far enough in some direction to warrant listening to myself. Its all a can do to save myself, in tact if not furthered. It happens too often that I finish listening to a NIN song and the flare goes off 'there I am'. When this happens on other occasion I board, listen to Tool's The Grudge and give myself a tender beating.

    Flag hehkateon December 24, 2011  
• 0
  General Comment:yall are all retarded, this whole album is about a a sociopath trying to love

  Flagged duffelbagboyon March 13, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Despite how angry she makes him, he knows he'll stay with her and try to make their relationship work because of how much he loves her.

  Flag whisperingdevilon March 05, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:Is it just me, or does it sounds like he says
  
  "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH MUTHAFUCKA!!!"
  
  at the end?

  Flag D4MVPon August 06, 2007   Link

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    I thought it was "ahhhhh come on come on"

    Flag DJgifon May 30, 2009  

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    i always thought it was a Janes Addiction sample...

    Flag monkeycatton March 12, 2013  
• +1
  General Comment:he's very desparate to please the person he wants to marry but she wont give in.

  Flag ubertalldudeon July 03, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:It's a guy who loves a deceiving bitch who can never have enough money, enough sex, enough anything, and he's finally fed up with her shit and is forcing her to marry him so that he can fix her from a greedy slut into a decent human, but he knows he'll fail.

  Flag blingy16on June 22, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:Lots of posts from along time gone. Don't even know if this will be read, but its almost frustrating how over analyzed this song is. it is very blunt.
  Many of the references in other posts are correct,masturbation and obsession being key.
  
  Although I would like to point out that the line "twice the man I could be, I'd still be half of what you need."
  OH COME ON!!!
  The chick is a size queen slut, and he won't ever be big enough for her, one of the many reasons she is out whoring around. All in all he wants her finger literally so she can never be married off to anyone else
  and as a symbol of her undying devotion for all the pain she has caused him and proof that she wont do it EVER again.
  He wants to KNOW he will have her and the pain will be over that he deals with.

  Flag gungho-mojoon April 20, 2007   Link

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