is this the comfort of being afraid: Much of what I have written in my previous analysis of At The Drive-In’s “Non-Zero Possibility” (they do like hyphens, don’t they) applies actually even more to this song, what with the disharmonious chords and awesome guitar lines – I am especially thinking of the “Banked on/Memory” part. This song, certainly their biggest hit, was the first song I heard and learned to love by At The Drive-In and it was the chorus that hooked me up in the first place. The song actually displays a curious structure: Aside from the chorus there is little that objectively connects the parts. We have what we can call three verses between the chorus parts, but they show no resemblance whatsoever, neither musically nor in terms of the sung phrase lengths. The first verse is in ¾ unlike the rest of the song; the lyrics here are spoken rather then sung. The second verse contains what is arguably the most awesome guitar riff of the song and proceeds with increasing entropy on Omar’s guitar, over a descending chord progression by Jim that repeats over and over. The final verse then brings us a stumbling drum pattern with an extended descending melody running in octaves, played by Jim, complemented by a repeating riff played by Omar that at four bars is only half the length of what Jim plays; during the later half of the melody this creates some interesting dissonances and illustrates my point from the other analysis mentioned above, showing how At The Drive-In combine different melodies/ licks in unusual ways creating new “Gestalts” that are as a whole bigger than the sum of its parts. This is also certainly the most difficult part of my arrangement as I have tried to have the running eights in the bass played by the left hand, the melody in octaves in the right, and Omar’s part divided between both hands. In a way, this song barely provides an angle of analysis: The lyrics to me certainly seem like what you could call a collage, juxtaposing loosely related ideas and words that seem to be used for their immediate “color”, that is their effect, sound and association, rather than in a strictly semantic sense: It is hard to claim a literal meaning in phrases like “hallow vacuum, check the oxygen tanks”. This is of course not to say that the song is meaningless or that it does not have a theme; I think of the theme of this song as being a vague reference to alienation and distance, probably with a generous helping of drugs – very much a tale of alienation if you will. The title brings the first moment of confusion: Wouldn’t a one-armed scissor defeat the purpose and thereby defy the very definition of what it means to be a scissor? How is a one-armed scissor not a knife? Are we talking about a knife? I read on the internet that At The Drive-In say a One-Armed Scissor is a cocktail of Red Bull with Vodka, but I don’t see it bringing us any closer to the song’s meaning and I think it’s intended just like those movies with an open ending, where the artfulness actually consists in the fact that it is open for you to interpret. With all this said, I still think drugs are probably a good guess; if we think about At The Drive-In’s heavy drug abuse it would seem hard to believe that drugs wouldn’t at some point invade every aspect of their lives. On a musical level, however, another observation is in order: If you ever saw a live performance by At The Drive-In, you may get the erroneous idea that they are high on coke, banging out whatever sounds their guitars can create and that half of what they do is chaos: While transcribing this song I found the version played on Later with Jools Holland where Omar has thrown away his guitar during the latter half of the song effectively not playing for the last chorus and the end of the song! So while you may be right about the coke part, transcribing this song has made me realize again that what sounds so chaotic live must actually have been put together very carefully: There is an incredible lot of immensely ingenious musical ideas and details hidden – from how Omar’s awesome riff blends with the rest of the band to the last verse with its intermingling guitar voices. So while I agree that At The Drive-In’s music is in good part about the energy and just rocking out, I hope that with this arrangement I have been able to sort of strip away some of the loudness, distortion and chaos, and put a spotlight on the musical skeleton behind it.
watch the temple topple over: Much has been talked about this song’s technicalities and indeed I never stopped to find out about its lyrics until I decided to make this arrangement. I am not a progressive metal expert, but what I like about Tool in particular is how they make use of musical sophistication to support their statement, creating musical symbols which at times say so much more than mere words possibly could. Different interpretations have been attached to the lyrics from referencing the need for communication between different religions – the schism in question would be a quite literal one in that case – to what lyrics and video seem to imply in a more immediate fashion: Relationship problems. While everybody is of course free to apply whichever interpretation they prefer, I would like to interpret it in the latter way; it turns out that this might actually be one of the most intelligent, immediately provable songs about relationship problems ever written. The basic idea, then, is laid out quickly: A couple’s relationship is not what it used to be, due to the fundamental differing between the sexes. They say differences attract each other which may be all the more true when mechanisms of evolution come into play: The more different the genes of two persons, the more resistant will the children they engender be, in their fertile days of the month women tend to be attracted to rather masculine men that they might in other moments find impossible to stand etc. It turns out that that difference can be “a light that fuels the fire” at first, but “burns a hole” between the couple once the first infatuation has passed. The pieces “fall away”, although there is a definite belief that “they fit” and can be “brought together”; after all men and women need and cannot be without the other – an insight so obvious that you would have to ask how the human species could have survived otherwise. What has been proven, too, is that male and female communication differ from each other – it is telling that in the video the male character does not have a mouth while the female does not have ears. The only way to overcome misunderstandings seems to be to communicate more, in order to make sure that what has been said is what has been understood etc. Lack of communication, likewise, leads to a cold silence that creates an atmosphere of alienation, disconnection and callousness; the fact that the people in this situation are supposed to be lovers makes it all the more absurd. I vaguely recollect a myth from some part of the world, which advocates the “hermaphroditic primordial shape” of the human being: Man and woman are one before they are born, are separated at birth and spend all of their lives looking for their lost halves. The song reflects some of this: In the end of the video, the two characters reach out for each other, presumably having overcome their communication problems although not without what seems a fit of rage, and consequently blend into each other, becoming one again. “Schism” refers to the separation of a whole, pieces of the same thing that belong together; the hermaphroditic being from the video could be a symbol for a bond like matrimonial union then that turns two people into a unit. Let’s talk about the music: The main riff is composed of a 5/8 and a 7/8 bar each, odd time signatures which sum up to 12/8 which is a regular meter again; an example of how the split or schism is symbolized musically. The verse starting from “The light that fueled…” is quite notable too: The guitar plays the bass riff here, but a fifth above, creating a rather neutral accompaniment. However the vocals are at the same time doubled by a second voice which runs in thirds: Closer analysis reveals that between the guitar and the second voice, both fitting the part they accompany, dissonances as severe as a minor second actually occur. I like to think of this as the couple talking to each other, their intentions perfectly in tune with what each of them they says himself, but somewhere these “unspoken overtones” without anybody noticing have drifted apart from each other and clash. And yes, polyrhythm occurs: For example in “Pure intention juxtaposed…” where 12/8 in the vocals runs against the main riff in the other instruments. The main example however is the bridge at 3:14: The guitar part in 7/8 runs against 7/4 in bass and drums, with a displacement, however, of one quarter note – arguably the most complicated part of the song and it took me a few listens to figure it out. So remember – it is only communicating that the pieces can be brought together again.
