How do the album titles relate to the songs on each album?

[SnakeEyes]

I was thinking about song titles today for my own music and the word "Awake" popped into my mind and, of course, the album "AWAKE" was the next thought.  Then, I got to thinking..... how does that word relate to the songs?  Why did they choose that word?  Some of them are obvious - "Scenes from a Memory" - is there really a need to even discuss that one?  LOL 

But.... "Awake"  .... "Falling into Infinity" .... "Systematic Chaos"..... etc.  Pick an album, or more than one if you wish, and explain how the songs on that album relate to the title of the album.   

[Adami]

Well for SC I think they chose that (If I recall MP correctly) to describe their writing style.

For Falling into Infinity, well clearly they were describing their careers at that point. Train of Thought cause ummmm, they gave the album some thought? I guess. I dunno.

[SnakeEyes]

Lyrical examples, please!  LYRICAL EXAMPLES!  (smacks Adami with a ruler)

[Adami]

Lyrical examples, please!  LYRICAL EXAMPLES!  (smacks Adami with a ruler)

Why would they need to be linked to lyrics? I mean if Systematic Chaos relates to writing style, how could there possibly be lyrics to link to them? Like I titled my last album Human Error. Does it have anything to do with the song subjects? No. It has to do with how I wrote the album.

[SnakeEyes]

It doesn't.  I was just being cute, as usual.  I guess I need to try harder.   

Seriously, though, I understand your point.  But, I don't know..... when you call an album "Awake," there must be something within the lyrics that relates to "being awake."  No? 

(and, no, I don't mean literally being awake, but metaphorically, as the title of the album is meant to be taken)

[BlackInk]

The 'chaos' from Systematic Chaos is from two lines (possibly more), one in Constant Motion that goes "insane random thoughts of neat disorder" and one from The Dark Eternal Night that goes "out of the blackness chaos". The systematic because they're a technical prog band and their music is pretty much about controlling chaos.

(and, no, I don't mean literally being awake, but metaphorically, as the title of the album is meant to be taken)

'Awake' metaphorically is such a vague concept that you can pretty much make up your own lyrical connection and call it a metaphore.

[Zydar]

"The faithful live awake, the rest remain misled" - Innocence Faded

[SeRoX]

I think the album titles which are "Awake, Falling Into Infinity or Systematic Chaos" sum up the sound and musical atmosphere of the album, not lyrically related.

[?]

"The faithful live awake, the rest remain misled" - Innocence Faded

And
"Tonight I'm/he's awake" - The Silent Man

The first lines in 6:00 refer to awakening as well.

[hefdaddy42]

The first three albums took their titles from lyrics in songs on those albums.

When Dream And Day Unite is a line in Only A Matter Of Time.

Images & Words is a line in Wait For Sleep.

Awake is in Innocence Faded, The Silent Man, and possibly others.

If I'm not mistaken, I think I read somewhere that Falling Into Infinity was originally going to be called Stream of Consciousness, which is from the lyrics to Lines in the Sand.  They eventually changed to FII for some reason, but kept that title in the back of their minds, which they eventually used for the instrumental from Train of Thought (which is also related to the same concept).

Scenes From A Memory is adapted from a lyric in Metropolis Pt. 1.

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is a song title.

Octavarium is a song title.

The last three albums are just names they picked that aren't lyrically based or song title based, like FII.

[ZirconBlue]

The last three albums are just names they picked that aren't lyrically based or song title based, like FII.

This is one reason I wish they'd stuck with the original album/song title idea for ADToE, so that it would go back to the pattern established on the first 3 albums.

[Scorpion]

What was the originally planned title?

[nestcmartin]

What was the originally planned title?

Bridges in the Sky

[wasteland]

What WERE the originally planned titles?

Dream Theater -> Images And Words (IAW was originally planned, but the producer was pushing for a self-titled album)
Stream Of Consciousness -> Falling Into Infinity
Bridges In The Sky -> A Dramatic Turn Of Events

Swim, So Many Ways To Drown A Dream, Wounds, The Cage, Out In The Rain, Breathe, Promise, The Plague, Coming Into View, Reflections Of Reality, Bugs, Hell, A Mind Confined Beside Itself Rising Unbound, Thought Disorder, Fantasy In Refuge, Isolation, 6:00, Wood To Chop, Drown, Awake, Immune To Opennes, "Fatalistic Remedies" (by Dream Theater), Scars, Desire And Fear, Space Dye Vest  -> AWAKE

[Elite]

Did Awake have that many working titles?

[wasteland]

Did Awake have that many working titles?

Yup Just try to imagine how DT's career would have been different had they named their third album "Wood To Chop" or "Bugs" 

[BlobVanDam]

Most of those names were just terrible. I think they definitely chose the best of the bunch.

[wasteland]

Most of those names were just terrible. I think they definitely chose the best of the bunch.

C'mon, Blob! Even you could not turn your back on something as awesome as referring to an album as "AMCBIRU" in everyday's life 

[BlobVanDam]

Most of those names were just terrible. I think they definitely chose the best of the bunch.

C'mon, Blob! Even you could not turn your back on something as awesome as referring to an album as "AMCBIRU" in everyday's life 

Fuck that, if they'd gone with SMWTDAD people would confuse it for a new Mario game!

[Elite]

I actually quite like Fantasy in Refuge and Fatalistic Remedies as album titles.

[mrjazzguitar]

"The faithful live awake, the rest remain misled" - Innocence Faded

haha I never knew what he was saying there

[darkshade]

The phrase "Stream Of Consciousness" is sung in what song? It's in my head and I can't figure it out! ACOS?

[Zydar]

The phrase "Stream Of Consciousness" is sung in what song? It's in my head and I can't figure it out! ACOS?

Lines In The Sand:

In the stream of consciousness
There is a river crying
Living comes much easier
Once we admit
We're dying

[darkshade]

The phrase "Stream Of Consciousness" is sung in what song? It's in my head and I can't figure it out! ACOS?

Lines In The Sand:

In the stream of consciousness
There is a river crying
Living comes much easier
Once we admit
We're dying

Thank you!

[Zydar]

You're welcome

[SnakeEyes]

LOL I'm not being clear enough.

I wasn't asking which songs the references were in.  Here's what I was asking (in an attempt to start a potentially interesting discussion):

Lets take "Awake."  Most of the songs on the album demonstrate a "realization" for the author, or that he has figured something out and come "awake" from that realization.  For instance, Voices is the author coming to terms with his illness.  The mirror is the"realization" of the affect of alcoholicsm.  The theme of the album is "waking up" from some type of adversity....

[hefdaddy42]

Here's what I was asking (in an attempt to start a potentially interesting discussion):

*statements with no question*

[SnakeEyes]

I got to thinking..... how does that word relate to the songs?  Why did they choose that word?

[hefdaddy42]

Well, with most of the albums, I don't think there is any connection.

[SnakeEyes]

I would argue that this is true with their weakest albums (Train of Thought and Systematic Chaos, in my opinion) while their best albums -- Images, Awake, SFAM, Octavarium and ADTOE do make a connection between the title of the album and the subject matter of the songs.  Petrucci even said himself that ADTOE was inspired by world events (Outcry and On the Backs of Angels, for example) and the lyrics completely reflect that. 

I'd also rank FII as one of their best albums, but it falls under your category of "no connection."  Great album, love the songs, but don't understand the album title. 

edit..

Oh yeah -- almost forgot Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.  That's a pretty obvious one, much like SFAM.  When Dream and Day Unite is more along the lines of "no connection," I would say.  But, you could get a little crazy with "day" and "night" symbolizing lyrical content within the songs. 

[The Letter M]

One might say that their use of the lyric "When Dream And Day Unite" as the title of their first album could symbolize their dream of making an official album finally seeing the light of day, thus, their dream and day unite. As far as relating to the songs, the lyrics are full of "dream" ideas, such as living a dream (a fortune made in lies or gaining status), or being in a dream-like world (as seen in hell-ish future of "The Killing Hand", "Afterlife" and "The Ones Who Helped To Set The Sun").

As for the "Images And Words" lyric, I think it's just a good use of the lyric to describe what they see and write as a presentation of their creativity - their images (or music, perhaps images created by their music) and their words (their lyrics, statements and ideas). Also, it fits well after When Dream And Day Unite, as we have another album with the "And" conjunction. Also, in relation to dreams, one may often write their dreams down, in words, from the images they recall seeing in their dreams. In terms of the title's relation to the songs, it's just as simple as putting images to their words. Nothing TOO complicated here.

Then we have Awake, whose title could come from the lyrics of "Innocence Faded" and/or "The Silent Man", which could be seen as the other side of their first album's title, which deals with a dream. When one is awake, they've left their dream state, and are now conscious, and many of the songs on Awake deal with coming out of dreams or dream-states or other states of consciousness, or perhaps a form of awakening or realizations. These ideas are scattered throughout the whole album's lyrics.

In that way, I see the first three albums as a trilogy that involves dreams, their images, and an awakening from them.

Moving forward to Falling Into Infinity, one might view this as their first step into ideas concerning things being "Full Circle", as one who falls into "Infinity" would forever fall, perhaps be in a cycle. The idea itself is a paradox, as one cannot REALLY fall into "infinity", being an abstract idea, but if viewed as an endless/infinite space or time, we could note that, while falling, you cannot change your path through outside variables. Also, there are dreams where one may feel like they are endlessly falling, perhaps, into infinity, and so we have another idea/album title dealing with dreams. As for the songs on the album, there isn't TOO much of a connection, unless you consider the idea of "falling" as part of the album's lyrics' ideas, such as falling into time ("New Millennium"), falling into depression from death or related events ("Peruvian Skies", "Take Away My Pain", "Anna Lee"). I'm sure you can connect each song's lyrics to a type of falling.

Scenes From A Memory is quite an obvious connection to the lyrics of "Metropolis Part 1" being that the album is "Part 2", but the whole album's story deals with dreams, images, and awakening, as we realize that perhaps we are infinitely falling into unbreakable cycles, and that events from past lives will come full circle in the present, and will again happen in the future.

Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence is even MORE obvious as it takes it's title from the epic track on Disc 2. But this could be viewed as another foray into the inner workings of the mind, and how turbulence in our lives affects our minds, be it with alcoholism, beliefs, reality, morals, death, or mental disabilities, all of these things affect AND change our lives and dreams.

Then we come to Train Of Thought, an idea related to "Stream Of Consciousness", a lyric from "Lines In The Sand" (from FII), and it's obvious we've come back to a title that deals with our mind and thoughts, but this album seems to be a bit more direct, and with an album title like that, perhaps with rapid, successive thoughts, rather than subconscious dreams or scattered images and memories. The songs on this album are harder, and the lyrics are more direct and less obtuse than before, so they may come from a moving "train of thought".

Now we arrive at Octavarium, the idea of things being in full circle, something that goes back to Falling Into Infinity's title, and, at least in MY opinion, this album is more like FII than the 3 before it, musically and lyrically. We get songs about things that relate to cause and effect, or how we are trapped, or even if we are free, we are still trapped in a circle of endless static living, where no matter what we do, we cannot change things or people around us. Even though this album title doesn't directly relate to dreams, the idea of things and life going in circles can relate to our cycles of dreaming and waking every day, something that we ALL do.

Systematic Chaos, as MP said (and noted above), is just a way the band writes. It can be formulaic but also very hectic. It could also relate to dreams, as even though we systematically sleep every night, our dreams may be chaotic. Our bodies do nothing but lay still, but deep in our minds, chaos may reign. Lyrically speaking, this album is full of fantasy ideas (mostly from JP), ideas that seem like dreams because they are not real (vampires, undead, dark masters, spirits, etc.), but there are also lyrics regarding mental (de)stabilization, concerning obsessive-compulsive disorder and overcoming addiction, two things that can consume a person's life if left unchecked, and thus, leaving them trapped to infinitely fall in a cycle of degradation.

Black Clouds & Silver Linings related to the songs in that, even through the darkest of moments, some good must rise out of it. This title is another use of the conjunction "and", and relates two things that are somewhat opposite (like Dreams and Days, or perhaps Images and Words).

And at the present, A Dramatic Turn Of Events seems to signify a new era, but also a change, something that seems to be key in many of the band's album titles. Usually, a turn of events signals a change in the status quo, like when dreams and days unite, or when one awakes or comes to a realization. Perhaps memories or thoughts could signal a turn of events, or events that are chaotic or covered in black clouds, which could be systematic or silver-lined in nature, despite their outwardly appearance. For me, it's the turn that changes the game/events, that reveals what things really are, bringing us to a realization or awakening, perhaps even breaking us out of an infinite fall or endless cycle.

-Marc.

[?]

Swim, So Many Ways To Drown A Dream, Wounds, The Cage, Out In The Rain, Breathe, Promise, The Plague, Coming Into View, Reflections Of Reality, Bugs, Hell, A Mind Confined Beside Itself Rising Unbound, Thought Disorder, Fantasy In Refuge, Isolation, 6:00, Wood To Chop, Drown, Awake, Immune To Opennes, "Fatalistic Remedies" (by Dream Theater), Scars, Desire And Fear, Space Dye Vest  -> AWAKE

Reflections of Reality, Fantasy in Refuge or Fatalistic Remedies could've been a cool title but most of those aren't very good, I'm glad they chose Awake.

[rkd11]

Swim, So Many Ways To Drown A Dream, Wounds, The Cage, Out In The Rain, Breathe, Promise, The Plague, Coming Into View, Reflections Of Reality, Bugs, Hell, A Mind Confined Beside Itself Rising Unbound, Thought Disorder, Fantasy In Refuge, Isolation, 6:00, Wood To Chop, Drown, Awake, Immune To Opennes, "Fatalistic Remedies" (by Dream Theater), Scars, Desire And Fear, Space Dye Vest  -> AWAKE

Reflections of Reality, Fantasy in Refuge or Fatalistic Remedies could've been a cool title but most of those aren't very good, I'm glad they chose Awake.

MP did name the 4th part of the 12-Step Suite (so, the first part of This Dying Soul) Reflections of Reality (Revisited), though