Here are the Lyrics to Tool’s New Song “Fear Inoculum”

Just like that, there is new Tool music out in the world for the first time in what feels like forever (13 years, to be exact). And as is always the case with Tool, there is a TON to dissect.

We shared our thoughts about the musical elements of “Fear Inoculum” earlier this morning, and now it’s time to dive into the lyrics.

Maynard has never been one to be earnest and literal — in his lyrics and pretty much everything else — and “Fear Inoculum” is no different. As best as I can tell, the song is about keeping a poisonous, contagious and deceiving force away. The current U.S. administration, perhaps? Politics in general? American society or the state of the world? Crazy Tool fans? Something in Maynard’s personal life? Could be anything.

Read the lyrics below and share your theories in the comments.

Immunity long overdue
Contagion I exhale you
Naive eye open up to you
Venom in mania

Now, contagion I exhale you

The deceiver he says you belong to me
You don’t want to breathe the light of the others
Fear the light
Fear the breathe
Fear the others for eternity
But I hear them now inhale the clarity
Hear the venom, the venom in what you say — inoculated
Bless this immunity
Bless this immunity
Bless this immunity

Exhale, expel
Recast my tale
Weave my allegorical elegy

Enumerate
All that I’m to do
Calculating steps away from you
My own mitosis
Growing through delusion from mania

Exhale, expel
Recast my tale with my allegorical elegy

Forfeit all control
You poison
You spectacle

Exorcise the spectacle
Exorcise the malady
Exorcise the disparate
Poison for eternity
Purge me and evacuate
The venom and the fear that binds me

Unveil now
Lift away
I see you running
Deceiver chased away
A long time coming