What does The Pot mean?

Tool: The Pot Meaning

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Album cover for The Pot album cover

Song Released: 2006


Get "The Pot" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

The Pot Lyrics

Who are you to wave your finger?
You must have been out your head.
Eye hole deep in muddy waters,
You practically raise the dead.

Rob the grave to snow the cradle,
And burn the evidence down.
Soapbox house of cards and glass,
So don't go...

  1. anonymous
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    Aug 19th 2008 !⃝

    To me, this song is a convoluted expression of a hierarchy. It's about power,greed and how a mind brought up in power will never see what someone outside power will see, the twisted and immoral reasoning behind a politician/man in power. It is also a constant reminder that in order to progress, you must reflect upon ones self and realize your wrong doings. If you commit an act like a sheep, without reason or cause you are only going to contribute to the system. You are not in control of the system. Anyway here is my interpretation of the lyrics, it is broken down for your benefit. Tell me what you think :)

    "who are you to wave your finger?
    Ya' must have been out your head.


    I think this is said in a hypocritical sense, Waving the finger may symbolize pointing the blame and responsibility onto someone else, although you have also committed that act. You must be crazy if you can point the blame onto someone else, to clear your conscience of your guilt towards your own wrong doing.

    Eye hole deep in muddy waters.
    You practically raised the dead."

    Your judgement is clouded by the surrounding uncertainty which scares you, no one wants to know how deep the rabbit hole really goes. You are only plunging as deep as you are in control of (eye hole deep in muddy waters) and you fear the system. The only thing that is certain is that you are contributing towards the depravity of human kind because you fear change, you fear power and you fear questioning your own morals.

    Rob the grave to snow the cradle,
    And burn the evidence down.
    To benefit from anything less than your own class because you can get away with it. Creating laws, reaping money, Tax, upping your own wages, all because you can, Turn left to the man next to you, is he questioning your morals? No, he is doing the same exact thing! Turn to the man on your right, he is looking to you, Are you doing the right thing? No you are thinking of the man who just upped his wages and got his new car. You find any excuse to fall in line with the crowd! If you were to look down at the man below you, you just spat on him. You burn the evidence by disguising your doings as a motion decided by the 'people'. As long as the crowd is doing it, you will not find prosecution, You are nothing but a sheep following the flock to the greenest grass.

    Soapbox house of cards and glass,
    So don't go tossin' your stones around.

    Soapbox =Simply a House of power, Ruled by the few.
    Cards= Politicians (Kings, Queens, Jacks, Aces) =Power
    Glass= The smokescreens that no one questions, The interwoven series of immoral justifications like Tax,'Laws',Fines.
    With the powerhouse so complex with lies and deceit, Every lie relies upon another lie,another justification and another politician. If one was to point the finger to a card, he must see through the glass, then that card would point the finger. I think the stone symbolizes a 'fault' in the system, a backfire or a maverick which causes the glass to start smashing. :)

    You must have been high.
    You must have been high.
    You must have been...
    Head in the clouds Mr fat cat. When will you realize what you are doing? When will the system change? When will we one day embrace this utopic notion of 'equality'?

    Foot in mouth and head up ass so/asshole,
    What'cha talkin' bout?
    The only way to run that soapbox house full of cards is to use the other cards and let them use you. When you ignore those accusations and don't meddle yourself in troublesome matters you won't be pointed at, until you have to face your own.
    What'cha talkin' bout?= Ignorance and denial to preserve your power and keep your assets. The day you point the finger is the day you will be sacked by your fellow hypocrits.Foot in mouth and head up ass so/asshole= Brown nose? Standing on someones head but your head up someones arse? Sounds like a soapbox house to me.

    Difficult to dance 'round this one,
    'Til you pull it out, boy.
    Until you come clean and live like the majority you will always have to tread lightly.You will always have to be sneaky, be perverted and lie. That day you finally question the system, your own morals and abandon the perverted, sadistic ways of power you will embrace equality.

    You must have been so high.
    You must have been so high.
    Still think you are innocent? Still think your ways of thinking are pure and benefit the many? What more do you want to hear before you will change your ways?



    Steal, borrow reefer save your shady inference.
    Kangaroo done hung the juror, with the innocent.
    No matter how well you cover up your tracks you are still the vile ,
    UNFINISHED..

  2. anonymous
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    Aug 15th 2008 !⃝

    Two words:

    Rush Limbaugh

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  3. anonymous
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    Jul 31st 2008 !⃝

    I think this song completely is about pot...but not concerning itself with pot, just about the controversy surrounding it.

    1. kangaroo courts. we've figured this one out. kangaroo courts were made to prove people guilty without evidence, usually on ganja-related cases.

    2. weeping shades of indigo shed without a reason. well if you melt red white and blue together it makes indigo. So I'm thinking this refers to how the government has raised the war on drugs for no reason whatesoever.

    3. The song might be about the pot calling the kettle black, but in that sense, I think it refers to how the government has outlawed most psychedelics, depressants, hallucinogenics, etc., but trades tons of the stuff illegally each year and still gives people a criminal record if they're caught with two night's worth of weed on them.
    see? it's like the pot and the kettle, but it's also quite literally referring to weed.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking

  4. hoodshoes
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    Jul 13th 2008 !⃝

    I believe the song is about Hurricane Katrina and how Bush just swept it under the rug. "pissed all over my black kettle" I actually thought he said "pissed all over my black ghetto".

    "eye hole deep in muddy water, you practically raised the dead" could be talking about the flooding that went on.

    I can break it down more, but you can see for yourself and make your own interpretation

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  5. anonymous
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    Jun 26th 2008 !⃝

    My interpretation of this song is that so many people tell other people that they are doing something wrong when in truth they could be just as worse..

    Who are you to wave your finger
    you musta been out your head
    eye balls deep in muddy waters
    you practilly raise the dead

    rob the grave to snow the cradle
    and burn the evidence down
    soap box house full of cards and glass
    so don't go tossin your stones all out

    this song to me is not so much about drug use, but rather than all of the hypocrites in the world telling people not do something wrong when they do the same thing to a worse extent, like don't smoke weed, when they smoke four times as much as anybody else (the weed thing was the first thing I took from the song)

  6. anonymous
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    May 25th 2008 !⃝

    The song is about Bush and about the Bush administration's policies, I think Maynard is basically criticizing how Bush and his miscreants are handling the prolonged and plaguing issues in our country, be they terrorism, the economy or whatever. At the same time MJK is making fun of Bush when he says "difficult to dance around this one before you pull it out...Boy" he's suggesting that our "fearless leader" is just a scared helpless boy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Now when he says that its difficult to dance around him, I see that as a sexual reference...


    -----------------

    Yea....Clinton was much better. Wake up and smell your own friggin coffee. They all fuck us. You elect them and they knock us down. Screw Bush...Screw Clinton...Screw the Newbie. Its a cycle. Jump on board.

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  7. anonymous
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    May 10th 2008 !⃝

    First of all, I don't think Maynard would go so personal with the Pot, actually the title itself is about "The pot calling the kettle black", that's what Adam said ^^ Anyway, it's not like Hooker in a Penis, criticizing the critics of Maynard. It's more a general thing, attacking the law. Note, that a lot of drug smuggling cases in the US, are penalized really high (50 years without a parole option). Most of them are kangaroo, everyone knows what's the verdict before the trial begins. And that's why the jurors are hanged, because if they don't agree to vote "guilty" in a kangaroo case, they will also be caught. Of course, this might also apply for other cases.

    And the punchline is, after the lawyers got so much attention, probably got rich and things like that, they also start doing drugs.

    I hope this one might help :P Cheers ^^

  8. anonymous
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    Apr 23rd 2008 !⃝

    Hey guys, it's really nice how you've been arguing here about the lyrics.
    But I think it's best that we have so many different interpretations. Almost everyone can find the one that fits best for him.

    When I first heard the song, I immediately thought about weed, because I had some experience just at that time and it may be the aim of the author, that you can take the meaning and shape it with your imagination.
    And btw, great music too ;)

  9. anonymous
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    Apr 22nd 2008 !⃝

    Adding to this little political debate

    Ganja comes from the Arabic word ganj, which also mean treasure or treasury
    this could be a reference to Bush going to the middle east just for the oil etc.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  10. anonymous
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    Apr 17th 2008 !⃝

    Kangaroo refers to kangaroo court. The specific one he's talkin about is when people where tried for petty drug crimes and senteced to unfair punishments

  11. anonymous
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    Mar 8th 2008 !⃝

    It's about weed, nuff said...

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  12. anonymous
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    Mar 5th 2008 !⃝

    The song is actually about hypocrisy and the name actually is no reference to drug use whatsoever, but to an idiomatic term (pot calling the kettle black.)

  13. anonymous
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    Feb 20th 2008 !⃝

    After reading all the other interpretations I think I like mine best.
    It may be a little far fletched, but I thought the song The Pot was about how the government let the people of New Orleans down.
    I now that Trent Reznor lived down there & at one point so did Maynard James Keenan.
    The "eye ball deep in muddy waters" the the streets after the levees broke. "you practically raised the dead" it is the city of Voo Doo & there are ancient cemetaries there.
    "Liar, Lawyer" sounds like a politian to me.
    Not really sure about the other lyrics but Maynard has been known to change the lyrics while he's singing them live.
    Love You Dude!! No disrespect.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  14. anonymous
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    Jan 10th 2008 !⃝

    I hope you readers actually get to this post, even though its so far down the list.

    I think if you put a few of these interpretations together it makes sense. First of all, I, like all of you, thought the song title was reference to weed, but in light of the kettle reference, it's quite clearly about hypocrisy "the pot calling the kettle black"

    Added to this, the Kangaroo part does in fact refer to Kangaroo court where a judgment is almost handed down before the trial. This ties into the hypocrisy theme by pointing out that the jury themselves are being judged as fools by the courts and lawyers, hence their preconceived notion about the verdict is in fact hurting them (the lemon in the eye part)
    But hey, all in all its a great song.
    Justin.

  15. anonymous
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    Jan 7th 2008 !⃝

    Sorry to break up this nice little political debate, but if you just glance over the lyrics it's obvious that it's about weed. Not glorifying it like bob marley and shit like that, but merely explaining what it does in the end. Lines like 'weeping shades of cozened indigo' are obvious references to the way that heavy stoners get dark circles under their eyes, 'lemon juice caught in your eye' is almost definitely referring to the way that potheads get bloodshot eyes and end up looking like Darth Vader. Further on in the song, 'steal borrow reefer', which evidently refers to the way that people become dishonest as the drug takes over their lives. It is a known fact that at one time Tool were major stoners (just listen to their early work) and having been there, done that myself, and been wanting to forget I even touched the stuff in the first place, I can more than see where they're coming from.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway



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