Octavarium

Alright, I'll try to take a crack at this... This song is not meant to be an explanation in the literal sense. Rather, it completes the cycle, and by doing so, things finally fall into place. This is also connected by how the eight step is the realization that everything has been in a loop all along.

First, I just want to say how amazingly intertwined and interconnected this song is, along with the entire album. While the music is, of course, great, it's the constantly-branching meanings and connections that are truly extraordinary.

Basically, the entire album is the "Octavarium." The Octavarium is the full-circle cycle of life which the band claims we are all confined to and forced to live. Each track of the album represents a particular stage of this cycle, and it thus progresses until this song as its conclusion. I figure the best way to go into detail about this would be to break the cycle and songs down, one by one:

First/The Root of All Evil The odds are impossible. You give up. Bitter defeat is acknowledged, but this time, you can gather the strength to move on. But, through this, you begin anew. You give up all hope, all pride in order to start fresh. Welcome.

Second/The Answer Lies Within Finally finding the strength to rise above the problems that have been obscuring your life as of now. Hope, motive, "the answer" is, at last, found! But from an unlikely place-- yourself. Confidence and determination is gained, and you choose to strive forward with your life.

Third/These Walls Reality. Stark and dim. Finding that your new-found dreams are conflicted by the world around you. The first taste of failure. Resorting to ask for help. But the will to keep pushing forwards through the hardships of life.

Fourth/I Walk Beside you Bliss. Love. Definitely love. Your struggles are rewarded. Finding somebody who you can put your trust, faith, and care into-- somebody you want to walk beside forever. And no matter what may happen, you know that absolutely nothing could tear you apart--

Fifth/Panic Attack Death. Horror. Sheer, hopeless panic. Everything that was given was snatched away in an instant. You're left without knowing what to do, without knowing what to do. You want to run, you want to fight, you want to just breathe.. But you can't. It's all gone.

Sixth/Never Enough You're a shell of what you once were. Life goes on, but nothing can repair that hole inside of you. Nothing could make life better. These people take, but they never give back. They hear you, but they never listen. Hopelessness. Despair. You live only on wishes that things will change-- but you know they won't. You don't know how much more you can take. You feel like you're going to crack. And all of these people who said they would be there for you... They don't care...

Seventh/Sacrifice Emptiness. Your despair and pain have turned into numbness. You lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, for hours. You want to go back and change things. You can't. Why live? Why try? Nothing is going to change. You're going to live day in and day out, only holding on to dreams of what could have been. You aren't alive.

Eighth/Octavarium Temporary recovery. You can live again. You can breathe. You can feel. You haven't moved on, though. You are still haunted by the loss-- you still want to go back and change things. But, now, there's a trickle of light.

The cycle then begins anew. After finding that bit of positivity, you finally acknowledge what happened, give up your past, and decide to start again. And, therefore, the process is restarted. Ultimately, you will find new hope, new love, and new life. And this time, it will feel completely different. But, it will end the same-- it will be lost, and that short time of golden bliss will meet a tragic end.

Octavarium (song) goes more in-depth into this cycle. The beginning is obvious-- the singer describes his aspirations, probably as that of a little kid, to be different from the others. To live each day like it's his last-- to get the most out of life. This is similar to the first four songs of the album.

But then, half of his lifespan later, it is found that the described person has unwittingly developed a lifeless cycle. They realize that their old aspirations are nothing, and are shocked and unnerved by the fact that they've wasted their life not living. This can be associated with how, during the last two songs of the album, the themes are of how somebody is able to come to terms with what happened and start to move on. Between Panic Attack and Sacrifice, the character had been stuck in a day-by-day loop of mundane routines. While in this particular case it was due to a tragic, heart-breaking event, it could also consist of a more typical scenario relating to modern-day society and conformity.

Medicated is entirely an analogy. It isn't absolutely rare for a person who has been in a permanent coma to awaken after many years. The singer goes on about how it must feel for that patient. How they spent the last 30 years of their life without thinking, without living, without experiencing. This symbolizes the ongoing message of Octavarium where the character realizes that he's been spending a great deal of his life in a mundane situation.

Another theme is how, when the character finally realized his situation, it was too late for him to change anything, for he was too old.

Also, there's a prevalent theme of being trapped in this Octavarium. That no matter what you do or what you try to change, you will always have potential at first, but then wind up falling into a cycle of nothingness. Whether this is via society or the loss of a significant other, is up in the air. Even if you went back and tried to do things over again, it will occur again. There is no escaping it. It's similar to how, in Medicated, the coma patient was only awake for a short period of time. They experience a short time of experience and happiness (The Root of all Evil to I Walk Beside You), but in the end, they will always fall back into an endless sleep.

The Root of all Evil could also reference to how the beginning of the cycle is truly "evil," which I would agree to be true. That simply by living, you will fall into the loop with this first step, and henceforth, it is the root of all that is evil. Thus, by reaching Octavarium, you will inevitably loop back to The Root of All Evil (like how the last note of Octavarium is the same as the first note of Root.)

And thus, you have Octavarium. All in all, the album is both very depressing, but also very brilliant. I think it's Dream Theater's way of trying to get us to wake up and not be caught in the Octavarium. To not get into a routine of Work-Home-Sleep-Work-Home-Sleep, but to open our eyes and breathe the fresh air. It's clear that the Octavarium, in the real world, doesn't need to exist. In a way, I believe Dream Theater expresses this. They take their influences ("beginning") and implement them extensively throughout their latest work ("end",) but it isn't a loop this time. They're continuing onwards. Rather than circling back to their roots, they are instead an unstopping band that carries it's past with itself.

And that's my interpretation and analysis. Hope you all like it.