8+

"Lateralus" by Tool which clocks in at 9:24

Easter.

Eggs.

Easter eggs.

Intentional hidden messages.

They are everywhere, just look.

In nature, movies, TV shows, on this website...

Trust me, if you over-think (over-analyze) enough, you'll find meaning anywhere and everywhere.

Behold: many things in nature – and not solely human things – skillfully twist the obvious, revealing truth only to the "astute few".

Early Indian thinkers (Pingala and Virahanka) first noticed distinct patterns within their ritual cadences in the 4th century BC; these would shortly become known as mātrāmeru, later (and more famously) as the Fibonacci sequence.

Govinda was smiling down upon these math whizzes that day, for they discovered a new numerical way of looking at the world that would take the West another thousand years to figure out - a good solid twenty-five hundred years before any of us would get lost within the numbers, patterns, and Easter eggs on LOST.

In modern mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers "are a sequence of numbers named after Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, whose Liber Abaci (published in 1202) introduced the rather simply defined sequence (after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers; for example, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on - note that each third number in the sequence is an even number) to Western European mathematics" - it is a pattern that is often injected into various forms of popular art, media, and culture.

Now, if you freak out over playing with math in a similar manner to the way that I freak out over playing with math, you're going to love the following facts (culled from this fantastically nerdy video) about Tool's song "Lateralus": band leader Maynard James Keenan revealed in an interview that this song, "Lateralus", intentionally references Fibonacci numbers; the time signature of the main riff happens to be 9/8, 8/8, 7/8 and 987 is the 16th step of the Fibonacci sequence; the numeric value of the syllables of the lyrics is also Fibonacci - listen as it goes from one syllable words up to eight syllables and back again; when the thirteen tracks of the album Lateralus are reordered in a Fibonacci sequence, they flow better and the end of each track exactly matches the beginning of the next one - it's true, all of it.

Somehow, through a series of increasingly massive run-on sentences and a smidge (or ten) of research and number crunching and listening to this song on repeat and feeding my cat and taking out the trash (and then putting a new trash bag in the trash can, only to find that I'd already done so (there was already one bag in there, I added another so that makes two bags now and, AND "one, one, two" is the start to a Fibonacci sequence!!); ergo my mind has turned to mush, completely thanks to Tool and their numerological mind-fuckery) and making phone calls and sending emails and commenting on other blogs and doodling spiraly sea-shells on the back of my bank statement (and then searching for Fibonacci numbers within this sneaky bank statement - there are a BUNCH) and then calling my bank just to see what they would say if I asked them why there are such obvious Fibonacci numbers on my statement (she asked me if I was joking, when very clearly I wasn’t – but my tone gave away my honest intentions and, seriously, I know she must’ve heard Tool in the background), somehow through all of that I've unexpectedly arrived at the only surefire conclusion one can come to in regards to this song and Maynard James Keenan's blatant desire to use prog-metal to convey his own OCD tendencies - "spiral out, keep going".

*above photo found HERE

Buy Lateralus on Amazon.

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks - "Real Emotional Trash"
Iron Maiden - "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"
Mandy Reid - "Tornado"
Genesis - "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"
Metallica - "Master of Puppets"
British Sea Power - “Lately”
The Decemberists - “The Mariner's Revenge Song”
Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Free Bird"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.