Sober
by Tool
- 152
- BPM
- D minor
- Key
- 7A
- Camelot
- 72
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Tool first recorded "Sober" on a demo EP called 72826, released in 1991, with Maynard James Keenan singing. The song is one of Keenan's earliest. It goes back to a 1987 live performance with his first band, Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty, released as Peace Day, where it was called "Burn About Out." That version had some of the same lyrics and basic melody, but was much faster and had an instrumental chorus.
Adam Jones has said the song is about a friend of the band whose artistic expression only comes out when he is under the influence. Jones had little sympathy for people who become addicted and said it was their own fault. "Sober" shares a chord progression with Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," and Tool has approved of other bands mashing the two together.
The second single from Undertow (1993), it got a video that year, directed by Fred Stuhr, debuting in May. It was the first Tool video made in stop motion, and Jones designed the models. The earlier clip for "Hush" was live action. The band members appear only in brief flashes. Kurt Cobain called it a shameless ripoff of the Brothers Quay.
Sober runs at 152 BPM, the tempo of hard techno, punk and fast rock. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.58 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 395 ms. It is in D minor, Camelot 7A, which shares its notes with F major and mixes cleanly with G minor and A minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.