Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under"

At a time when things were going very poorly, and I was reading Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Boethius with some frantically renewed commitment, someone told me I needed to run, not walk, to the nearest record store to buy Dream Theater's new album. "Trust me," he said, "this one will blow your mind."

Now progressive metal is not for everyone, but if you like your profound truths mixed with crunchy and screaming guitars, noodling keyboards, machine gun drumming, and a bass to rattle your teeth, it'll do the trick.

It had been a terrible summer, and it wasn't even half over. It all felt like straw. I did as he suggested, however, on the hottest day in my recent memory, and the train broke down on the way back from the record store. I sat in a sweltering hunk of metal, and stared at the cover of the new CD. This had better be worth it.

It was. And then some. The opening track left me floored. These fellows could play, and more importantly they could think. Queensrÿche had been my first love in this particular style, but that would now change.

It was probably just a convergence of time and circumstance, perhaps even a touch of synchronicity, yet I found that the lyrics spoke to me about everything that had been going through my head over the last few months. The way fortune seemed to have her way, the sense of being swept along by everything, being irrelevant to anything, and all the stubbornness and resentment it brought out in me. There was the nagging despair that there was no other way out. I was afraid to breathe when the song was over, because I had never thought that I only had so many breaths set aside for me.

Instead of merely wallowing, I took the song as a challenge. Would there only be honor and spite for me? Could I perhaps make it right in some other way, somehow? Why be so angry, when there could be peace? Was there a better way out?

Being a literary nerd, the many references to Hamlet in the song were not lost on me. The sparrow falling. Seven lives for one. The love for a father. Too much in the sun. Until your will is done. And, of course, the final lines, that this too solid flesh would melt. Long hair and an electric guitar do not always make for a barbarian.

My life didn't have to be a tragedy. I didn't have to be a Hamlet. Thank you, gentlemen.

This is best listened to loud, with headphones.

Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under", from Images and Words (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGRgAULYgWE

Lost in the sky
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Arrows fly
Seas increase and then fall again

This world is spinning around me
This world is spinning without me and
Every day sends future to past
Every breath leaves me one less to my last

Watch the sparrow falling
Gives new meaning to it all
If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day

I'll take seven lives for one
And then my only father's son
As sure as I did ever love him I am not afraid

This world is spinning around me
The whole world keeps spinning around me and
All life is future to past
Every breath leaves me one less to my last

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
All that I feel is honor and spite
All I can do is to set it right

Dust fills my eyes
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Centuries cry
Orders fly and I fall again

This world is spinning inside me
The whole world is spinning inside me
Every day sends future to past
Every step brings me closer to my last

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
Living my life too much in the sun
Only until your will is done

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
All that I feel is honor and spite
All I can do is to set it right
Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
Living my life too much in the sun
Only until your will is done

Oh that this too
Too solid flesh
Would melt
 

Written in 12/2011