‘The Balls of Satan’: the secret hash cookie recipe hidden in a Tool song
Tool were always known to be one of the most intellectual bands to come out of the 1990s metal scene. For a decade whose biggest metallic export was acts like Fred Durst complaining about doing it all for the nookie, having Maynard James Keenan sing about the more cerebral side of life made us believe that there might be hope for something less braindead on the horizon. That didn’t mean that they didn’t have a sense of humour about themselves, and they actually put one of their most wholesome moments into the track ‘Die Eier von Satan’.
But once they hit Aenima, every Tool fan knew that they were hearing something much different than Undertow. Whereas that record was pure snarl from back to front, Keenan’s lyrical style started to drastically change. No more talking about ‘Prison Sex’ or ‘Intolerance’. No, this was the era of ‘Forty-Six and Two’, where people began discussing theories of evolution and how man would function with extra chromosomes.
Then again, it’s hard to say that this is a serious listen when the group has Bill Hicks show up at the back end of the record. There are still some broader concepts about life to be found in ‘Third Eye’, but since Hicks prefaces everything by saying that every great musician who ever lived was most likely high as a kite, it’s safe to assume that the guys were at least chemically assisted when writing a handful of tunes.
But for all the funny moments, ‘Die Eier von Satan’ is downright horrifying if you hear it in the wrong context. Compared to their primal approach, this is a piece of haunting sound design by the group that’s closer to the denser moments of Nine Inch Nails or Ministry’s style of dissonant industrial music.
And when Keenan does open his mouth, he’s screaming through a bullhorn in German, which gives off the feeling of being in a Nazi concentration camp and having only minutes left to live. Before people start asking questions, though, it’s worth it to take the time to read what Keenan is saying in English.
When translated, the song title is ‘The Balls of Satan’. It’s definitely a demonic title, but reading the words on the surface, the entire track is a roundabout way to give people a recipe for hash cookies. Considering the group had started gaining momentum, this might have been a good way to show that they weren’t selling out, but putting this much dark energy behind the song is like the equivalent of hyping up a puppy as a mythical beast stomping across the land.
And that’s not even the last time that they would think outside of the box for ideas. The odd pieces of sound design on later albums like Lateralus are certainly interesting, but on a track like ‘Mantra’, Keenan bypassed any kind of random sound effect that they could have used and decided to slow down the sound of him gently squeezing his cat.
Still, that’s not to say ‘Die Eier von Satan’ isn’t a little bit unsettling while it lasts. Once you’re in on the joke, it does warrant a chuckle, and for anyone listening and wanting to try the cookie recipe out, it’s still up for grabs.
