Pseudonymph

Hey everybody...I have a question about some song lyrics that have to do with the orbit of planets and astronomy.

These are lyrics from the Tool song, "the grudge"

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.

Now I read somewhere that Saturn fully orbits once every 27-30 years...the song is about letting go of the past and moving on without grudges, and in an interview Maynard(singer) said that it was representative of a time in your life when it was time to move ahead and leave the past behind. I think that's really awesome to have lyrics that are that involved, but I'm really curious to know if anyone knows anything more about saturns orbit and what it might mean in that context...and also I have no idea what "choose one or ten" means. Does that have anything to do with the orbit as well?

I know this is kind of off the wall but this has been bugging me for a long time now...thanks!

heres the full lyrics if anyones interested....

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 transmutate this cold and fated anchor.
Give away the stone.
Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.
Let go


[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: SirenSpeak ]</p>

bluefugue

"Saturn ascends" sounds more like an astrological term than an astronomical one.

Pseudonymph

Yeah I was thinking about that as well. I think there may be astrological tones to it(not really science then I guess) but I was wondering also if the patterns were correct(the 27-30 years thing)

Coragyps

I'd say it's all astrological/mythological: Saturn was associated with gloom and with the metal lead in olden days. The real planet orbits in 10759.2 days, or 29.45 years, with no noticeable variation. As to the "one or ten", that might be the near-rhyme with "ascend."

Shadowy Man

It's a great song, though!

Gauge Boson

It is definitely an astrological reference. In the context, it is clearly referring to influences on or analogies to traits or events. What it is supposed to mean will probably vary from astrologer to astrologer.

I must say, Tool makes great music, but I've found their songs riddled with nonsense. Rather strange with the last track on Lateralus*.
On that subject, I was rather suprised to hear 46&2 on the Atheist Radio Network the other day. What gives? Don't get me wrong, the music is great. But have you ever looked up what they are talking about? It's some 'quantum quackery' nonsense about humans 'evolving' to a 'higher level of consciousness' by allegedly gaining pairs of chomosomes. There is a mix of Timothy Leary's Futans thing, 100th monkey claptrap, and other nonsense. Actually, the Jungian psychology in that song (that's what all the talk about shadows is) is the most sane component of it.
Then again, it's sometimes hard to tell when they mean what they say or when they are just messing with the gullible (remember their 'lacrymology' hoax?). As the official Tool FAQ says: "It is worth mentioning that much of what Tool says, you need to take with a HUGE grain of salt."

*For those of you who were not wise enough to buy Lateralus, the last track, Faaip de Oiad (the "Voice of God"), is hilarious. It is a taped call into the Art Bell radio show of some guy claiming all kinds of nonsense. A few days later, he admitted it was a hoax. Here is a transcript:
"I, I don't have a whole lot of time. Um, OK, I'm a former employee of Area 51. I, I was let go on a medical discharge about a week ago and, and... [chokes] I've kind of been running across the country. Damn, I don't know where to start, they're, they're gonna, um, they'll triangulate on this position really soon. OK, um, um, OK, what we're thinking of as, as aliens, they're extradimensional beings, that, an earlier precursor of the, um, space program they made contact with. They are not what they claim to be. Uh, they've infiltrated a, a lot of aspects of, of, of the military establishment, particularly the Area 51. The disasters that are coming, they, the military, I'm sorry, the government knows about them. And there's a lot of safe areas in this world that they could begin moving the population to now. They are not! They want those major population centers wiped out so that the few that are left will be more easily controllable."

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gauge Boson ]</p>

Gauge Boson

I found a page detailing the exact reference and what it is supposed to mean. In the context of the song, it makes perfect sense as an analogy. <a href="http://www.untool.net/saturn_ascends.html" target="_blank">http://www.untool.net/saturn_ascends.html</A>