No. 962 – Sober

Performer: Tool

Songwriters: Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Paul D’Amour, Danny Carey

Original Release: Undertow

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None

The Flint Journal when I was there was an early PM paper, which meant that it hit the streets shortly after noon. Because of print runs, that meant that sports needed to be off the paste-up floor by 9 a.m. weekdays. So the shift for sports copy editors started at midnight.

With no one else in the building except for a security guard till 6 a.m., we needed something to break up the silence, so we would put the TV on till the sun rose. A lot of the time—particularly during the Stanley Cup playoffs—we’d have a late game on the tube, but at least as much of the time, we’d be tuned in to SportsCenter.

In 1993, however, at 3 a.m., there was only one place the TV would be: tuned to Beavis & Butthead on MTV. This was when the show was brand new and just before it was taken off for a while after the kid burned down his family’s house—when the show really was cutting edge. It quickly became the Official Comedy of the Flint Journal Sports Department.

Before B&B was Alternative Nation, which would play videos from the hip groups: Pearl Jam (when they still made videos), Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders, et. al. We might have that for a song or two before the mayhem began. Although I’m certain this wasn’t actually the case, it certainly seemed as though the last video on Alternative Nation—every night—was Sober. I can’t hear this song without mentally playing the B&B theme song when it’s over; it was that automatic.

Heh heh heh heh, Tool.