Castle Walls

This is a song about a journey into realms that are beyond are ordinary day-to-day experience, known by many different names: the Dreamtime, the Astral Plane, the Chi Realms, the Collective Unconscious, the Afterlife, the Underworld, Hades, etc. It's about a journey into soul, beyond the ego. "Once in a dream..." Castle walls are a metaphor for the restrictions and defensiveness associated with ordinary ego-oriented consciousness. Music is identified as a means to enter these realms beyond the ego, and a guide once you have entered: "I stood alone while the minstrel sang his song", "his song kept calling me... leading me on..." The keyboard and guitar solos can take you on your own journey if you let them. It takes courage to overcome the fears associated with leaving your ego behind (even though we all do so every night when we sleep) - fear of losing the soul (but the ego is not the soul), fear of facing the raging battles, fear of hell itself. Hell is a metaphor for the intimidatingly deep levels of the unconscious mind. The synth music referencing the Exorcist music is there for more reasons than just a joke about Tommy Shaw's girlfriend at the time. But this realm is only appears evil if you don't get over your fears, and your delusions that the soul and the ego are equivalent. When you take this journey, you leave your ego behind (temporarily), but your soul IS the realm you are traveling into. Tiresias is a prophet or seer from Greek mythology who helped Odysseus when he visited Hades, talked to spirits of the dead, and gained valuable insight into his life's journey. Tiresias had already died and was there awaiting Odysseus, who was just visiting. Tiresias was one of the few spirits in this realm that remained lucid, sentient, and intact - most of the the others had little ability to remember or make sense of matters related to earthly, linear existence. To understand your destiny before you meet it requires both the courage to enter this haunting, fearful realm, and the lucidity to remember and understand what is revealed to you there, and apply it to your everyday life once you get back to the castle. "Every man must meet his destiny" - but what is your destiny, our collective destiny as a species? This music is so melancholic because there is great grief in contemplating all the harm we do to each other in our ignorance of our destiny. For me, the answer is alluded to in the following song on the album "The Grand Finale": we all are destined to realize, sooner or later, that "Deep inside we're all the same... We are the same... Yeeeeeeah - O!" But if you have the courage to take your own journey, you will find your own answer. Listen to the song, close your eyes, let the music take and guide you, and you might get a hint. The bass notes are the sublime footsteps leading you beyond your castle walls. Follow the minstrel's song. Don't be afraid you'll lose your soul - you are going to meet it, to experience a part of it at least. Stay lucid and remember what you're shown. Ask Tiresias to help you too.