Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (song)
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence is the sixth song and title track on the album Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, written and performed by progressive metal band Dream Theater. The song explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses. Particularly represented are manic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, delusions of grandeur, autism, bipolar disorder, post-partum depression, and dissociative identity disorder.
The song also contains musical influences from classical, to metal, to folk and progressive. Some parts of the song are direct nods to some of the bands musical influences. The ending of "Goodnight Kiss" bears resembalance to Kansas' "The Wall", and "Solitary Shell" is similar to Peter Gabriel's "Solisbury Hill".
Song Listing
The song is also more commonly split into eight different parts, each with their own different styles.
- I. Overture – 6:50 (Dream Theater, instrumental)
- II. About to Crash – 5:51 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- III. War Inside My Head – 2:08 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
- IV. The Test That Stumped Them All – 5:03 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
- V. Goodnight Kiss – 6:17 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
- VI. Solitary Shell – 5:48 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- VII. About to Crash (Reprise) – 4:05 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- VIII. Losing Time / Grand Finale – 6:01 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
Song Analysis
The lyrics of the songs never stay on one particular object, instead describing each of the Six Degrees in turn. All six parts (excluding Overture, as it is an instrumental, and About To Crash (reprise), as it is a continuation of the First Degree), are describing six different mental problems.
II: About To Crash
The lyrics tell of a girl who presumably has Bipolar II disorder, a disorder which has at least one manic depressive episode ("Then one day, she woke up to find, the perfect girl, had lost her mind") and one hypomaniac episode ("She can't stop pacing, she never felt so alive"). Bipolar II sufferers tend to get worse when the affliction is untreated, and her father (presumably) has seen this ("I've never seen her get this bad").
III: War Inside My Head
The second degree is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as many soldiers do after a war. The lyrics show he was in a tropical place, maybe Vietnam ("palm trees and shrapnel"). The chorus is very revealing ("Hearing voices from miles away...waging the war inside my head")- this shows he is having flashbacks, and is under the impression he is still in Vietnam. The second verse implies that he may have twisted his mind into believing he has the degree forever ("Trading innocence for permanent psychotic hell"). At the last chorus, he begins to feel that it is not him inside his mind, and that maybe he could be in danger in every moment of his life ("Tasting danger with each word I say").
IV: The Test That Stumped Them All
This patient is suffering from delusions of grandeur, ("He lives in a world of fiction"), in the form that he imagines himself as a musician, ("Intro tape begins to roll...igniting sonic rage"), and, that this is a problem unknown to medical science (hence the name, The Test That Stumped Them All). The doctors don't know what to do with him, and fire an awful lot of tests at him to try and find the answers ("Random urine testing"), ("Can't seem to find the answers"), and one jokingly suggests "Why don't we try shock treatment?", as a reference (and very dark humour) to the tests. The doctors could not find what it was.
V: Goodnight Kiss
This is a piece about a mother who has lost her child, in one form or another, and is suffering from post-partum depression ("Are you lonely without, Mommy's love?"). There is also evidence of the child being hospitalised at some point, and maybe being taken away or has died as a result of the doctors ("Those bastard doctors are gonna pay"). A heart monitor, and a baby crying can be heard in the latter part of the song, suggesting a medical problem with the baby. All in all, a very bleak degree.
VI: Solitary Shell
The penultimate degree, this person is suffering from autism. This is explained in the second verse, ("and steadily he would decline"), showing that the symptoms have declined quite gradually. The lyric ("He learned to walk and talk on time, but never cared much to be held"), tells us that he started off quite normal, however, he did develop the tendency autism sufferers have , and that is the withdrawal of social contact (the title, "Solitary Shell, shows that he is quite reclusive). The autism is shown in a series of unexpected bursts ("A Monday-morning lunatic, disturbed from time to time"), and when things perhaps don't go his way )"A temporary, catatonic, madman on occasions"). Yet another autistic syndrome is referenced, ("He poured himself onto the page, writing for hours at a time"), and this shows the concentration aspect of the autism. The lyrics end with a plea for social acceptance from a peer or relative ("When will he be let out of his solitary shell"), showing that they are perhaps pleading to a higher power to save the patient.
VII: About To Crash (reprise)
About To Crash (reprise) takes the girl (the first degree) where we left off, and the song is from her point of view, under another hypomaniac episode ("I'm invincible, despair will never find me"). Then she knows that she will come out soon and have another manic depressive episode ("And when I fall out of the sky, who'll be standing by"). The lyrics here possibly show the bipolarity is getting better; the sufferers tend to become more conscious of the syndrome when they are starting to feel ba little more themselves.
VIII: Losing Time
The last degree is suffering from DID (dissociative identity disoder, and is a disorder which results in an amount of multiple personalities. The lyrics tell us that she hasn't got many friends ("She never wears makeup, no-one would care if she did anyway"), this is probably because half the time she is actually someone else. This results in her relative amnesia, as she cannot keep track of life in her multiple personalities ("She doesn't recall yesterday, faces seem twisted and strange"). The "Losing Time" title derives from the fact she isnt living half of her life due to her DID, implying that she is "losing time". We have some reprieve; it seems that through daydreaming ("She learned to detach from herself, a behaviour that kept her alive"), she had found a way to relieve the pain a little.
Grand Finale
Hope in the face of our human distress
Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside
That takes hold of our lives
Shame and disgrace over mental unrest
Keeps us from saving those we love
The grace within our hearts
And the sorrow in our souls
In this section, the lyrics advise us to be more understanding of the people who carry these and similar afflictions, and to accept them as if they were normal. The six degrees are then summed up:
Deception of fame
The Test That Stumped Them All
Vengeance of war
War Inside My Head
Lives torn apart
Goodnight Kiss
Losing oneself
Losing Time
Spiralling down
About To Crash (and reprise)
Feeling the walls closing in
Solitary Shell
This is similar to the "Intervals" section in the song "Octavarium", in which the songs on the album are summed up in a verse of lyrics. The song ends with a gong from Portnoy.
Trivia
- The song is the longest song Dream Theater have ever recorded, clocking in at 42 minutes.
References
1. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_Of_Inner_Turbulence (album article) 2. [[1]]