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In 2006, the heavy "prog rock" band Tool released their fourth full-length CD, 10,000 Days. Since Tool puts out new material every five years or so, each release tends to be a big event. The band has been touring nonstop since May 2006 with shows booked through this September, and 10,000 Days claimed the #1 Billboard slot after its first week on-sale with no advance media hype—the result of a rabid, word-of-mouth fan base eager to devour the band's latest achievement.
I was riding the train home from work that day in May 2006 when my cell phone rang. Without introduction, the voice of an old friend coolly announced, "Remember, the new Tool CD is out today." Excellent! Fortunately my wife and kids were otherwise occupied, and I hunkered down with the new CD, hoping for a set list filled with infectious, odd-timed grooves, demanding lyrics, and frequent displays of technical prowess that would spark "How do they do that?!" conversations with other musicians for years to come. (I'm a drummer myself, and Tool's Danny Carey routinely astonishes me.)
At the end of the evening I was not disappointed, but I was surprised. Along with all that I'd come to expect from Tool, there was something more, in the haunting two-song set entitled "Wings for Marie" and "10,000 Days (Wings part 2)." As best as I could tell—no lyrics were provided in the CD packaging—this seemed to be a commentary on a life well lived by someone close to the band. Thanks to one of the fan-run websites, I discovered that a complete set of unofficial lyrics generated by spontaneous fan submissions was already available within a couple days of the CD's release.
The lyrics—and some additional online digging—revealed that this two-part song is a lengthy meditation by the singer, Maynard James Keenan, whose mother had died during the making of 10,000 Days. The title of the CD—and the corresponding track—refers to her 27+ year-struggle with paralysis caused by a stroke.
Keenan, who was raised a Baptist, transports listeners to his mother's funeral at the local family church. One by one, pastors and church members rise to recount tales of Judith Marie's victorious Christian witness. But their comments are awash with a perverse boasting that flattens all suffering and life experience into some kind of generic triumphalism:
Listen to the tales and romanticize,
How we follow the path of the hero.
Boast about the day when the rivers overrun.
How we rise to the height of our halo.
Listen to the tales as we all rationalize
Our way into the arms of the savior,
Feigning all the trials and the tribulations;
None of us have actually been there.
Not like you.
Keenan's disdain for such spiritual showboating—in contrast to the private, suffering faith of his mother—is visceral. He portrays a church community so eager to preach the good news that it forgot, or never understood, how real saints are made. "My mother's suffering is not a rhetorical device," Keenan seems to suggest. "Why have you co-opted her memory and turned this funeral into an opportunity for self-congratulating motivational speeches? It's not about you."
To some extent, a listener's response will depend on his readiness to accept Keenan as a reliable witness. Those for whom churchgoer and hypocrite are synonymous—a good segment of Tool's audience, perhaps—will be inclined to trust the singer. But even those who are put off by Keenan's own self-righteousness, his boundless disdain for the "ignorant fibbers in the congregation," might want to hear him out. He devotes most of the 17-minute set to marveling at his mother's life of persistent faith. The lyrics overflow with gratitude for her prayerful devotion:
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