I want to take a break from my usual series of posts about Denmark to talk about my favorite band of all time: Dream Theater.
Now, you might be asking yourself: why should I take the time out of my day to listen to this guy talk about some band he really likes? What, in all honesty, makes James any different than a girl who's really into Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga (or whoever, I'll admit that my knowledge of pop music isn't outstanding)?
Well, I'll get to that, but first, I wanted to share a few fun facts about Dream Theater, as well as my experience with their music:
- Dream Theater was originally going to be titled "Majesty", but another band already had the name; the band paid homage to their old name on their first album with the instrumental titled "The Ytse Jam".
- Only 13 of Dream Theater's 100+ songs are under 5 minutes (including one at 4:59), and most are upwards of 10 minutes.
- Dream Theater's longest song is technically Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which is about 42 minutes long, but the album version of the song is broken up into eight tracks (and takes up a whole CD in Dream Theater's only 2 CD album). Their longest continuous song is Octavarium, which is broken into five parts, but takes up only one track on the album of the same name.
- I have listened to Dream Theater an estimated 3,356 times according to Last.fm, but it's definitely missed all the times I've listened to their CDs, so it's probably more like 3,500 times.
- Nine of my "Top 25 Most Played" songs on iTunes are by Dream Theater, including my #3, "The Dance of Eternity", which I've listened to approximately 120 times.
You'll notice that both of the above videos are live, and both are instrumentals. Dream Theater is pretty good on CD, but they are outstanding live - a lot of their instrumental sections will include bits of improvisation, and they have even more energy in concert. Also, a lot of Dream Theater fans complain about the singer, James LaBrie, not because he is bad, but because he is really good while the rest of the band is phenomenal. Considering that fact, LaBrie could hit high notes in 1992, but injured his vocal cords during an illness shortly after; he has just gotten his range back, and showcased that range in Breaking All Illusions, their big hit off of A Dramatic Turn of Events in 2011:
But enough about the band itself. Here's why I like Dream Theater: There has not been a week since I began listening to them when I have not listened to them at least once, and for the first couple of years, I listened to them basically daily.
I started listening to Dream Theater in my junior year of high school, at a time when it felt like a lot of things weren't going right for me. School was okay, but not as good as it used to be, I had entered a number of speaking and essay contests - my two strong suits at the time - and not even made it to the finals in any of them, and a girl I really liked had just completely and totally rejected me. I distinctly remember one night, where I was just sitting on the floor of my room, convinced things were going to be pretty crappy for a while and there wasn't much I could do about it. For Christmas that year, I had gotten my first two Dream Theater CDs - Images and Words; and Train of Thought. I ended up putting Images and Words into my CD player that night, telling myself that if I was going to be miserable I might as well have something to listen to. "Pull Me Under," an early Dream Theater song that is basically the musical version of Hamlet - down to the final lyric "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt" - began playing, and somehow, I felt a little better.
I knew some of the members of Dream Theater had used their music to overcome their own hardships and tragedy - anything from the near death of the singer's young child to the drummer's recovery from alcoholism through the AA program. I couldn't say I was going through anything similar, though at the time I was pretty depressed, and being able to lose myself in the lengthy songs, with their poetic lyrics and complex instrumental sections, gave me something to appreciate when everything else would even at times feel pointless.
Admittedly, it wasn't like listening to Dream Theater that one night suddenly made everything better. I had to work to enjoy the rigors of AP US History and to remind myself that there would always be more speaking contests and attractive girls out there. Still, I had my new favorite band and their music to rely on. There were some times where listening to "Learning to Live" was pretty much the only thing that would get me out of bed in the morning.
And, as usually tends to happen in life, I managed to keep my head up, and things did indeed get better. I qualified for both the state and national tournament in Speech and Debate, which was a huge accomplishment for me, and I learned to find the fun in my classes even when we were going through the merciless and tedious prep for AP tests.
I entered a speaking contest for my local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and unlike in the past two years, where I had done well but hadn't really wowed the judges, I came in first, and got to go to the State Competition, where I won third overall. Unfortunately, the day of regionals was also the day that my grandfather, John Howard, as well as my favorite cat, Tybalt, both of whom had been battling cancer, passed away. I was old enough to move past questions like "Why?", but the death of two loved ones, especially my grandfather, who had been a major part of my childhood, was still pretty jarring. Despite this tragedy, I managed to get through it all with a degree of serenity, thanks in large part to the Dream Theater song "The Spirit Carries On":
My experiences with Dream Theater since then have been pretty routine, but things got better to say the least: I was elected to lead several clubs and teams at the end of my junior year, including both the writing fellowship I was a part of and my school's speech and debate team and I got into my first choice for college the following December. Still, to this day, if a family member of mine becomes seriously ill, something isn't going right in my life, or I just feel out of sorts, I know I can always turn to Dream Theater to make me feel better and put me back where I need to be.
I was going to add more about Dream Theater's complex stories that they've put in their music,
especially in Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory (an entire album that serves as a sequel to an earlier song), but I kind of like leaving it here. I know there's a lot of music and videos in this post, but I wanted to add one more song, the one that originally introduced me to Dream Theater, "The Glass Prison":
Cheers!
I started listening to Dream Theater in my junior year of high school, at a time when it felt like a lot of things weren't going right for me. School was okay, but not as good as it used to be, I had entered a number of speaking and essay contests - my two strong suits at the time - and not even made it to the finals in any of them, and a girl I really liked had just completely and totally rejected me. I distinctly remember one night, where I was just sitting on the floor of my room, convinced things were going to be pretty crappy for a while and there wasn't much I could do about it. For Christmas that year, I had gotten my first two Dream Theater CDs - Images and Words; and Train of Thought. I ended up putting Images and Words into my CD player that night, telling myself that if I was going to be miserable I might as well have something to listen to. "Pull Me Under," an early Dream Theater song that is basically the musical version of Hamlet - down to the final lyric "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt" - began playing, and somehow, I felt a little better.
I knew some of the members of Dream Theater had used their music to overcome their own hardships and tragedy - anything from the near death of the singer's young child to the drummer's recovery from alcoholism through the AA program. I couldn't say I was going through anything similar, though at the time I was pretty depressed, and being able to lose myself in the lengthy songs, with their poetic lyrics and complex instrumental sections, gave me something to appreciate when everything else would even at times feel pointless.
Admittedly, it wasn't like listening to Dream Theater that one night suddenly made everything better. I had to work to enjoy the rigors of AP US History and to remind myself that there would always be more speaking contests and attractive girls out there. Still, I had my new favorite band and their music to rely on. There were some times where listening to "Learning to Live" was pretty much the only thing that would get me out of bed in the morning.
And, as usually tends to happen in life, I managed to keep my head up, and things did indeed get better. I qualified for both the state and national tournament in Speech and Debate, which was a huge accomplishment for me, and I learned to find the fun in my classes even when we were going through the merciless and tedious prep for AP tests.
I entered a speaking contest for my local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and unlike in the past two years, where I had done well but hadn't really wowed the judges, I came in first, and got to go to the State Competition, where I won third overall. Unfortunately, the day of regionals was also the day that my grandfather, John Howard, as well as my favorite cat, Tybalt, both of whom had been battling cancer, passed away. I was old enough to move past questions like "Why?", but the death of two loved ones, especially my grandfather, who had been a major part of my childhood, was still pretty jarring. Despite this tragedy, I managed to get through it all with a degree of serenity, thanks in large part to the Dream Theater song "The Spirit Carries On":
My experiences with Dream Theater since then have been pretty routine, but things got better to say the least: I was elected to lead several clubs and teams at the end of my junior year, including both the writing fellowship I was a part of and my school's speech and debate team and I got into my first choice for college the following December. Still, to this day, if a family member of mine becomes seriously ill, something isn't going right in my life, or I just feel out of sorts, I know I can always turn to Dream Theater to make me feel better and put me back where I need to be.
I was going to add more about Dream Theater's complex stories that they've put in their music,
especially in Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory (an entire album that serves as a sequel to an earlier song), but I kind of like leaving it here. I know there's a lot of music and videos in this post, but I wanted to add one more song, the one that originally introduced me to Dream Theater, "The Glass Prison":
Cheers!
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