Sober by Tool

Sober is a song by the Los Angeles band Tool. It was the second single from the band's debut album, Undertow, released in 1993. The song reached No. 13 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. Its stop-motion video played often on MTV. In 2019, after Tool put its catalog on streaming services, Sober reached No. 3 on Hot Rock Songs.

Maynard James Keenan wrote an early version of the song before Tool formed, while he was singing with Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty. A 1987 live recording of that band, later released as Peace Day, includes a track called Burn About Out. It shares some first-verse lyrics and the basic melody with Sober. It is much faster. Its chorus has no vocals.

By the time Keenan joined guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey and bassist Paul D'Amour, the song had slowed down and grown heavier. Tool cut it for 72826, a demo tape the band put out in 1991. After signing with Zoo Entertainment, Tool recorded Sober again for Undertow at Grand Master in Hollywood. Sylvia Massy produced the album with the band. Ron St. Germain mixed it. Howie Weinberg mastered it. All four members share the writing credit.

The finished track runs just over five minutes. It moves between quiet verses and a heavy chorus. Listeners have compared its chord movement to Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. Fans have combined the two songs in mashups. Tool approved one of them, called Zober.

The lyrics are about a person who can only make art when high. In a 1994 interview, Jones said the song was about a friend of the band whose creative side came out only under the influence. He said he had little patience for addiction as an excuse. In his view, becoming an addict was the person's own fault.

Undertow came out on April 6, 1993. Prison Sex was its first single. Sober came next. The single had a few different versions. The international CD paired the album track with live recordings of Bottom and Intolerance. A release titled Tales from the Darkside added live songs taped at Lollapalooza on August 6, 1993, and at the Lowland Paradise festival in Dronten, in the Netherlands, on August 29, 1993.

Fred Stuhr directed the Sober video and handled the animation and storyboards. Jones designed and built the figures. It was the first Tool video made in stop motion. The band's earlier clip for Hush was live action. The band members appear only in quick flashes.

The video follows a small, gray, sickly-looking figure living in a decaying house. He opens a wooden box in the wall. Whatever is inside seems to change his state of mind. By the end of the clip the box is empty. The images are grimy and unsettling. MTV put the clip in heavy rotation. Beavis and Butt-Head also showed it. It won the Billboard award for best video by a new artist. Kurt Cobain called it a shameless ripoff of the Brothers Quay. The video's look draws on the twin animators' dark puppet films.

Sober reached No. 13 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart during its 1993 and 1994 run. It reached No. 131 in Australia. Undertow peaked at No. 50 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Heatseekers chart. It was later certified triple platinum in the United States.

Sober charted again in 2019. Tool had kept its catalog off streaming services for years. Its albums arrived on streaming on August 2, 2019, shortly before the release of Fear Inoculum. In the first tracking week, Sober drew 2.9 million US streams and sold 21,000 downloads. That put it at No. 3 on Billboard's Hot Rock Songs chart, its highest position on any Billboard chart. It also topped the Rock Digital Song Sales chart that week. Tool held all ten top spots on that chart, the first act to do so.

Other bands have picked up the song too. Staind played Sober live as early as 2000. The band later filmed an acoustic version at the Hiro Ballroom in New York for its video collection. String quartets, lullaby albums and 8-bit tribute projects have all covered it. Anyone who wants to play it can find its key and tempo on the Sober song page.