Thursday, October 14, 2010

Dream Theater - Another Day

Here's an older track from Dream Theater, which I believe at the time of it's release was somewhat mainstream (complete with music video, which I can't embed for you). I picked this song to give some contrast to my first post, which is dark and metal and all that good stuff, so this song has a lot of (somewhat) hopeful elements in it and of course James Labrie's singing style is just cheerier overall compared to James Hetfield.



The tone of the song itself is constantly keeping the listener on it's toes, switching constantly and seamlessly from major and happy to tender sadness. Add on to these switches the back-and-forth between solo piano and full band, not to mention that they throw in a a sax player just to add an extra touch of emotion (although at times I can't help but think of Kenny G, ugh). The song never wants to let you be completely content with a major key, but it will always almost give it to you, which makes complete sense with the lyrics.

This song is entirely metaphor heavy, and I'll admit that without being a huge Dream Theater nerd and reading interviews and watching the music video, I would probably have no idea what this song is about. From what I can gather though, this song is about a little girl who is diagnosed with brain cancer, and throughout the parents and doctors are trying to console and keep the girl's hopes up while simultaneously dealing with the terrible disease. Now, that is a LOT more depressing than the song sounds, because the story isn't about the little girl dying, it's about her living to see "Another Day"( I feel like James Bond dropping the title of his movie IN the movie right there). So the lyrics are full of encouragement and at times, the acceptance of death, but sort of in the sense of Carpe Diem than just lay down and die.

What separates this song from most other Dream Theater songs is the more standard structure of it, mainly that there isn't a huge instrumental section in the middle, which brings me to a point about this song. This song is an example of a progressive group writing a song that I believe was intended to be mainstream and get them public awareness, while other songs on this album are more traditionally crazy (of course, "Pull Me Under" is what actually got them fame, but I digress). My point is that these musicians are good enough to bend the framework of their genre, both restrictively and expansively, and are still able to write good music. Thus ends my justification for choosing this song on "Images and Words", instead of "Learning to Live" or something.

Here is a an awesome acoustic version. Pay special attention to the short shorts and high tops, good 'ol 90's.



Bonus Prog Blog:
http://prognotfrog.blogspot.com/2010/09/confluence-4-voyages1976.html

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