asparta replied to your post: So you guys know I'm TAing and I love that I get to do cool stuff..
Ohhhh my god, if my TAs had us listen to Tool I would be so damn happy.
Tool, in particular, is great for that sort of thing because they challenge their listeners and make them engage with music in a way that people typically wouldn't. It's not just the lyrics but the composition of the songs. Also, there are songs that don't follow the verse/chorus/verse formula religiously. They kind of try to push beyond that.
Parabol/Parabola is great b/c you can see the contrast of how the feeling words convey can change if sung slowly vs, say, faster. In actuality though, I went off into this whole thing about how it's really just one song and follows the curve of an actual parabola and how that's related to life and death and stuff. I don't want to give my entire idea away, but let's just say that they were really into it afterward.