Dream Theater

I was listening to Breaking All Illusions recently, and I noticed an interesting thing on there, that it seemed to have a huge stress on "Living life in the moment" and "Starting the cycle," and I couldn't help but think that this stemmed from Octavarium's theme of repeating cycles. Upon looking further into Systematic Chaos. Even further in, "This is the life" seemed to go with Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence's overarching theme of dealing with flaws among your own life, and "Bridges in the sky" seems to deal with spiritual connections among many things, in the sense of Metropolis Pt. 2, Scenes From a Memory. This led to believe this:

A Dramatic Turn of Events isnt a collection of 9 stories, its a recollection of the themes of the past 9 full studio albums, Images & Words, Awake, Falling into Infinity, Metropolis Pt 2, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Train of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, and Black Clouds & Silver Linings.

Keep in mind these lyrics are taken more literally then some prefer.

The songs and corresponding albums are as follows:

On the Backs of Angels - Falling into Infinity - The "angel" could be seen as the recording studio during the time this album was demanded, as they led Dream Theater to write a more popular sounding album, which came to be one of their worst works.

Build me up, Break me down - Black Clouds & Silver Linings - This song could be related to Portnoy's directing of the band, obviously, but could also be seen as voicing the final straw in dealing with his choice of sound and where it was heading.

Lost Not Forgotten - Systematic Chaos - This song has fantasy lyrics, something stemming off the ideas of Systemactic chaos, along with the topic being about a lost greatness, also a possible throwback to how the band felt about the reception of their new sound and ideas.

This is the Life - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - Being about dealing with life as it comes, and being thankful for it, whatever what might happen, this could easily relate to Six Degree's theme of dillemmas in our lives and how we deal with them

Bridges in the Sky - Metropolis Pt. 2 Scenes From a Memory - This song has direct lyrical references to Metropolis, with things such as "Visions come alive," "Reunite my soul," and "Carry me home," to go along with the obvious throws to unseen spritual connections.

Outcry - Train of Thought - One of the more thrashy, powerful songs on the album, this song speaks of a revolution, which I percieved as possibly a viewpoint of the band as the fanbase reacted to such a sudden change in sound, from the prog mastery of Six Degrees to the Thrash metal of Train of Thought, also, it is the sixth song on the album, like Train of Thought being the sixth album.

Far From Heaven - Awake - The majority of this song being about a child, and some lyrics allowing an inference of some things that occured before hand between the couple could be tied back to the couple of which Awake's story was based off of.

Breaking all Illusions - Octavarium - This song has many bases of its lyrics sitting among the topic of cycles and life in the present, somethings that can be held with Octavariums theme of endless cycles.

Beneath the Surface - Images & Words - This song talks about storing away whats paining you, only to let it stay unnoticed for long to come. This could be refering to the making of their first huge hit with Portnoy, and how they simply let their own feelings and musical prowess begin to be overturned by Portnoy's view of the music they should make.

Please tell me below what you think of this theory

God I hate Dream Theater fanboys.

My Man! You have a lot of time on your hands. But, as crazy as it seems, DT is a collection of such high end musicians that it is possible that the guys actually did set out to make a totally inside-the-circle-of-trust concept album. You may be really close on the idea, but I don't think that you aced the song list. I'd love to hear the guys answer to that question. I bet that they would think that it was awesome that you took all of this from ADTOE. I will say this though, if you have been a fan for at least a little while, and have heard all of their works, and you have a really good ear for music, you will hear them throw in a riff from an earlier song, or hear a little theme from another album. It's all just gifted makers of music tying everything together in a subtle and unobtrusive yet sublime way. The thing to remember is that it's not so much the why they did it, but that they did it so well, so you and I can enjoy it.

you just have to not think so far into out, pure and simple it's written by the same group of people. it's a writing style just like authors who write novels, you will find the similarities in the work.

@Disappear: Fuck off then.

I mean seriously, what do you expect on a DREAM THEATER forum you moron?

Bravo SCA! I think your off on this one too, but again I dig the way you read into their catalog. And ditto what Jeff wrote.

Keep em' coming too cuz this should be a place for us fans to draw all kinds of conclusions from a band with as much depth as DT has.

Cheers!