| Dream Theater – The Shattered Fortress Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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As others have already mentioned, this song contains the last three steps in the 12 Step Suite, which is about Portnoy's alcohol problem. Speaking in a general way, this song could be understood as someone who is figthing with himself, his inner-demon, so to say. "Freedom calls my name" - He wants to break free. But "free" from what? We will get to that soon. "Serenity keeps me sane" - A calm mind. Usually we have all kinds of thoughts running through our mind, but thinking too much about some of these thoughts can lead to insanity. Especially the thoughts which are about "self-righteous hatred". "Happiness, it dulls the pain" - This world consists of opposites, which will exist forever. The only thing to do is to decrease the intensity of unwanted emotions, such as "pain". To do that, you kind of force yourself to feel the opposite emotion "happiness". "Honest to see my place" - Usually we like to lie to ourselves, especially our own Egos. Especially if we are being controlled by our Egos. Our Egos will never admit that it had a wrong opinion or that it did something wrong. We are being afraid of telling ourselves the truth because we are afraid that our Egos might not like the answer, but telling ourselves the truth is the only way to let our Egos see their places. "Open to other way" - Usually we see our own ways of solving problems as the best ways and we completely ignore other people's ways of solving problems. But being open to other way's might get us to the state of mind of serenity and happiness. "Willingness to understand" - The willingness to understand other people's thoughts and way of thinking or solving a problem instead of laughing at them or labeling them as dumb. "Justice but do not judge" - Justice is important, but we shouldn't use it to examine and judge every little step other persons take in their life, because this way of thinking won't lead us to "Serenity". "Courtesy for others' flaws" - Accepting that we are humans and that every human can make mistakes. We are no perfect beings. "Kindness, it's not that hard" - Yet, not everyone will act with these thoughts mentioned before in mind. People will judge, people will blame others, but this shouldn't derail you from your path, in fact by being kind and trying to understand that other people might not have the reached serenity yet, will bring yourself closer to that calm state of mind. "Self-restraint of tongue and pen" - This goes with everything said before. After you realized what you have to do to reach serenity and to free yourself from your Ego's bad thoughts, you will also have to put this knowledge into action. "Inventory, my daily friend Analysis let down your guard Look in the mirror What do you see? The shattered fortress That once bound me" - You actually look into your Ego and see the shattered fortress. The fortress could be something that was defending possible danger from getting into you. But now you saw that that "Wall" or "Fortress" was actually hindering you from being free. The Fortress "bound you" and took your "freedom" but now it is "shattered" because you took the steps above and broke free. "You're smart enough for me to trust go live your life now Just keep these steps in your life and you'll know how If you're not sure, ask yourself, "Have I done to them as I would have them do to me?" -This is rather philosophical. It's about the question "how should I act to be a good person?". One theory says that you should treat other people in a way that if they treat you in the same way you'd end up being glad and thankful. "Look in the mirror What's that you see? The shattered fortress Fly now be free" - Be free, get your "freedom". "I once thought it better to be right But now I have finally seen the light Sometimes you've got to be wrong And learn from mistakes I live with serenity now Not self-righteous hate" - This is again about our own Egos'. Our Egos' always want to be right, but if we want to reach serenity and if we want to stop bad thoughts from entering our mind, we have to show our Ego its place by being honest, being kind hearted, tolerance and courtesy. At the end of the day, we sometimes can't see why something is wrong until we did that mistake. But we shouldn't dwell in "selft-righteous" hate there, we should rather accept that we can't be always right and that we can use those mistakes to reach the path of serenity. "All your sins will help to make you strong And help you break right through the prison wall" - The prison wall could be also considered as the fortress, or your Ego. The prayer intensifies this post, because in the prayer you are praying to be there for others instead of others being there for you. You are praying to take action and therefore you stop building up your fortress instead you break free out of it to be able to help oher people. "Keep all of me, The desires that once burned me deep inside Help me live today And help to give me grace To carry out your way" - You are finally in harmony with yourself today. "The desires that once burned you deep inside" could be desires like being rich, successful or having a boyfriend/girlfriend/wife. You have come the conclusion that those desires are a part of yourself. You accepted that those desires make you exactly the person who you are. It's the way God created us. And now after realizing that, it's not (only) about fulfilling those desires, it's rather about carrying out "[his] way". |
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| Dream Theater – Surrounded Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[luisyst:24045] very nice interpretation, thank you! | |
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