Hush - Tool
Warning: Parental Discretion is Advised
Alright, so changing things up a bit. Instead of writing about Rise Against this week, I've decided to write about Tool. This song, Hush, is from Tool's first ever EP, Opiate, which was released in 1992. The video is very simplistic, and just shows the members of the band naked with tape covering their mouths and their junk covered up by "Parental Advisory: Explicit Parts" stickers, as seen in the thumbnail above, which is a parody of the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" stickers. Later in the video, their mouths foam through the tape, and then they take the tape off, and continue to foam. The foaming at the mouth is a comment on how artists may feel like caged dogs with rabies when they are held back from their full creative abilities. This combination of serious and comical protest toward censorship is also conveyed in the lyrics of the song. The band repetitively curses to 'explicitly' speak out against censorship. This vulgar display of protest is pretty funny, yet the comedy is lost to those who take it too seriously. Once, I showed this song to my mom, and while was laughing at the vulgarity, she was utterly disgusted. She said "Why do you listen to this crap?!", and I responded with, "What? They can't say what they want to, even if they aren't serious?". She then laughed, and realized the comedy of the song. I think that this song is really successful as a protest song because it is catchy, funny, and contains cursing. Since its catchy and funny it will be easily distributed since people will want to share the laugh with their friends. Vulgarity makes the song more successful because it makes people realize the inherent anger and the overabundance of the cursing actually adds to the comedy and sarcastic feel of the song. The only thing is that the lyrics and feel of the song can offend people, however, I think this is intended. Tool likes to exclude certain people from their audience, especially those who Maynard, the lead singer, would like to rebel against.
Censorship is a pretty huge deal in America. I think it may be a pretty bold statement, especially since I have no proof, but I think that it has to be true that nearly every form of art that exists has been censored, especially in America. Manga, cartoons, paintings, and anything else you can think of that CAN be censored HAS been censored. Honestly, who's right is it to label things as 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate'? The FCC certainly thinks it is their right to control the mass media. They say things such as sex, swear words, and violence are 'inappropriate'. But what makes them so? Sex is a natural process of human life, it is NORMAL, and without sex, the people making these rules wouldn't exist in the first place. Swear words, are simply WORDS, what makes them inherently 'bad'? And why do people get offended by them? Is it the definition or context? Because seriously, even the worst swear word is just another word for sex. Censorship really makes no sense. It's just a silly construct used to control the distribution of information and art. And thats why I think Hush is such a great song, it's a silly song commenting on the silliness of being censored.Tool is a pretty fantastic band, and they have pretty great ideas on a lot of things. I think you may see some more blogs about them in the future...
I think that this was a really good song to blog about since it relates very well to the class discussion about ideology and how society is given fixed ideas of how most things should be treated. The video gives the song even more of a voice but I do think that, like we mentioned in class, the singer seems to be too insistent and too demanding of the audience in order to make us want to step up and do something about censorship in America. Maybe this is my opinion because I am not necessarily part of the quire that the band is preaching to, considering that I’ve never heard this band before but I'm all for the message. From that point of view would you think that the effectiveness of the song could change?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I do think that the effectiveness could change from several different points of view. For instance, if a person is a parent and they have a young child, I'm fairly certain they would be pro-censorship. That way they could be more lazy in monitoring what their kids see since the government is doing it for them. However, since you aren't a previous fan of the band, but you're all for the message, I think that you're exactly the type of person that this song is trying to reach out to. This was released right when Tool was trying to make it big, so they had to make a few songs that would appeal to a large amount of people in order to get a fan base. Also, you're completely right about the singer being quite demanding, and this, I believe, is to get their point across clearly. For instance, I know that I don't clean my room until my parents tell me 4-6 times.
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