Wilma

Battle Hymn of the Republic is a song from the civil war, written by Howe to replace the profane and uninspiring songs the Union soldiers were singing. Many Christians, not just Mormons, enjoy the hymn.

Lyrics in […]

The following is from an online chat with Mike Portnoy:
[AgentCooper] I was wondering whom the lyrics of Honor Thy Father were directed at? They seemed quite brutal, and personal.
[Portnoy] Let me clear this up […]

The Glass Prison” was written about the first three steps in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step Program, and after Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence came out Mike said he would like to write a song on each album that […]

“We didn’t do this album at Beartracks, simply because we wanted to be fair to John and John. We have done the last 2 or 3 albums at Beartracks, which is up where Jordan and I live and both Johns had to commute […]

“I was a bit torn over whether or not we should give the song different ID’s on the CD, because I wanted it to be perceived as 1 song. Ultimately I decided to index it because after a few listens, the novelty of s […]

The title track from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is the story of six people who have a mental problem of some kind. JP and MP split up the lyrics and wrote for three people each.

It is not known if any of the […]

It wasn’t written to project a particular point of view, but rather present both sides from which the listener can make their own decision.

One example is this set of lines:

“Ethic inquisitions […]

While some of the lyrics do seem to apply to JP himself, he has said that he wrote it about a religious figurehead (possibly Jesus).

Bill W. (“The Glass Prison” is dedicated to him in the liner notes) was one of the founding members of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Glass Prison is about steps 1-3 of the AA 12-step program. His ‘friends’ are the […]

No it isn’t.

Some people argue that disc two qualifies as a concept album, but it’s only one half of the album.

The first five songs (that is, disc one) are not connected in any way to each other or to disc two. […]