Falling into Infinity Demos liner notes

After the success and extensive touring of Images and Words and Awake, we assumed it would be “business as usual” to begin the writing and recording process for our next album... boy, were we wrong!

Our record company was in a state of transition (merging from Atco Records to EastWest Records and then to Elektra Records), which meant the staff was ever-changing from month to month, making it very hard for us to establish any kind of relationship with anybody there... and given we weren’t exactly everybody’s cup of tea to begin with, it was very hard to get the attention we needed to move forward with planning a new record.

To a lot of these new people, we were simply a name on the roster that had a hit a few years earlier with “Pull Me Under”... so they were simply looking to hear what we were writing and keep us at bay until they started to hear “singles” before giving us the green light... of course, that was never supposed to be the path for Dream Theater at all... we were meant to be an” album oriented, slow-building, career minded act”, but these new suits didn’t have the patience or insight for that kind of nonsense and we now found ourselves solely existing in the shadows of the success of “Pull Me Under” (which at the time was a great door opener, but now was beginning to feel like an albatross starting to sink the ship)!

Our only remaining ally at the label was the man who signed us several years earlier, Derek Oliver. And as much as he wanted to be behind our long term vision, he was forced to play by the corporate rules of a major label for the sake of holding on for dear life to his job and career...

Making matters worse internally, our managers Jim Pitulskli and Rob Shore were at conflict and were slowly dissolving their partnership. This not only created a major distraction and problem to our business at hand with trying to prepare for a new album and dealing with the label’s bullshit – but it also created a bit of a split within the band when we needed to ultimately choose between the two managers. Unfortunately, the band was split on which manager to stay with which wasn’t a great thing for us to have to debate over internally. (It was like having a child choose its own custody of a parent in a divorce case...)

And as if this wasn’t all bad enough, 1996 started out with a string of personal losses within the band. My grandmother – who was like a surrogate mom to me after my mother died in 1984 – died within the first few days of 1996, John Petrucci’s father lost his battle with cancer in February (his battle inspired “Another Day” years earlier, and the lyrics to “Take Away My Pain” were written in his dad’s final days and recited at his funeral). Also throughout this period, John Petrucci lost both his mother-in-law and father-in-law and John Myung lost his father-in-law as well.

It’s safe to say that 1996 was turning out to be one of the worst years of both our career and personal lives (and the unbelievable part is that things didn’t improve much throughout 1997 and 1998)! However, throughout all of this turmoil, frustration and disappointment – we continued forging ahead... still getting together 5 days a week to write and demo new music... and as it did during our other incredibly dark period throughout 1989 & 1990, it somehow kept us alive, inspired and full of hope and optimism. (Music can indeed be an incredibly strong force!)

We kept writing and writing... ultimately churning out almost 2 albums worth of material. Like most DT writing sessions, we tried to range the music from the metallic (Burning My Soul, Peruvian Skies, Just Let Me Breathe) to the melodic (Take Away My Pain, Anna Lee, Speak To Me) to the epic (Lines In The Sand, Trial of Tears and the long-awaited Metropolis Pt. 2). In addition to the typical range of DT styles, there was a string of “single-conscious’” songs written that would hopefully appease the label and finally get us our green light (Hollow Years, Cover My Eyes, You Or Me).

Frustrated of the waiting game, we finally decided to get out and play some of these new songs and re-connect with our patient fans (see Ytsejam CD 011 – Old Bridge, New Jersey 12/14/96). During this period, we were finally moving forward with the label in plans to start the recording process. Derek Oliver felt very strongly we needed a dominating producer to help guide the music to meet the label’s needs for “singles” (Derek was a David Prater “fan” – why I’ll never know!? – and felt that Baron and Purdell didn’t step up to the plate in delivering strong enough singles on Awake), so the main search at this stage was to find the right Producer for the album.

I myself had a bit of a “Wishlist” – starting with a guy who I thought would be a great, creative asset to the band: Kevin Gilbert (whose work in Toy Matinee, with Sheryl Crow and as a solo artist would’ve been a great medium between prog and commercial). I talked with Kevin several times who was indeed interested in the job and I had even sent him some of the demos we were working on... only soon after to get the shocking news of his untimely passing.

Another person on my wish-list was Paul Northfield, who came out to meet with us at the aforementioned Old Bridge, New Jersey show. Ultimately, the label didn’t feel Paul would be a strong enough “singles” Producer to re-shape our material to their needs, so he was passed on (only to get his day in the sun 10 years later!)

Derek Oliver finally found his man with Kevin Shirley. An up and coming producer who had just finished producing the new Aerosmith album and had previously worked with acts ranging from Rush to Silverchair. We met with Kevin and hit it off immediately. He seemed to “get it” and saw us as a powerful cross between Yes and Deep Purple. He came out to see us live in Amsterdam in April1997 at one of these one-off shows we were doing and seeing the passion of our fan base, he decided to sign on for the album.

With “the waiting game” finally over, we began preparations for the next frustrating hurdle. As we expected, Derek Oliver and Kevin Shirley wanted to shape our album to the label’s needs... and after being beat-up for a year a half waiting to start the process, we were finally willing to give in and play the game. Kevin had a #1 album with Aerosmith at the time, so we figured “what the hell – maybe these people know what they’re doing” so we opened our minds and lowered our defenses.

The first step was picking from all of the material that was written. Half was chosen and the other half was shelved... then came the process of Kevin Shirley dissecting, editing and re-assembling all of our songs. Under any other circumstances, this would’ve gutted me... but I was determined to play along and trust them. As much as some of the arrangement decisions made me totally cringe, I didn’t want to have another miserable recording experience like we had with David Prater... so I went along with it. And luckily, I really did LIKE Kevin Shirley and got along great with him, so I played nice with this whole new open-minded attitude.

The hardest pill to swallow in this game was accepting the suggestion of Desmond Child to re-write our song “You Or Me”. At any other time, this suggestion would’ve been utterly preposterous – but at this point, we were willing to try anything just to get back in the game. It made me crazy that it was solely John Petrucci that was sent to Florida to work with Desmond. As we typically write the music TOGETHER, I couldn’t stand the fact that a single member of the band was going to reshape one of OUR songs with an outside writer. But the “new me” bit my lip and went with it... Ultimately, it ‘was only lyrics that were rewritten and the music stayed pretty much the same other than a few arrangements and a key alteration. (So in my eyes, Desmond served more of the role of a Producer than a “writer”.)

Making Falling Into Infinity was an experiment in open-mindedness and a willingness to “play the corporate game” in order to survive... if it had become a HUGE success, I dread what what’ve become of the band. But ultimately, it did nothing more for the band’s commercial success and only served to alienate a huge portion of our existing fans who sensed the “outside influence” on the music.

By the time we were approaching the end of the FII tour in Summer of 1998, I had enough of “the game” and wanted out. (read any of my 4 lyrics from this period: “Raise The Knife”, “Burning My Soul”,” Just Let Me Breathe” and “New Millennium” and you’ll see the frustration from these years in plain black & white). I actually quit the band, only to be talked back into seeing out the remainder of the tour and then re-evaluating the situation.

By the end of the tour, we decided to stick it out – hired new management and vowed to only forge ahead if we could self-produce our albums from now on and work COMPLETELY on our own terms. Personally, my “open-mindedness” in this whole FII process, proved to be a failure and I vowed to never let go of creative power (externally or internally) ever again. The band’s new “birth” is documented in Ytsejam CD 003 – The Making of Scenes From A Memory... so our story continues there...

In the meantime, this CD represents Falling Into Infinity as WE wrote it.

I do think we wrote some great, inspired songs during this period, so although the FII album is shrouded in frustration and compromise, these demos show our true artistic representation of the songs.

So finally... enjoy OUR version of Falling Into Infinity!!

MP

CD1

1. Raise The Knife

2. Where Are You Now

3. Take Away My Pain

These were the first 3 songs to be written for FII and they were demoed in March 1996.

Raise The Knife actually dated back to 1995 as we originally wrote it while preparing to record “A Change of Seasons” and it marked our first composition with Derek in the band. After being left off of FII, it remained on the shelf until it was finally resurrected in 2005/2006 and released on the Live Score CD and DVD.

Where Are You Now was the first song written at the start of our 1996 sessions and although it’s a bit of an undiscovered gem, you can tell we were still trying to find our footing with where we wanted to go with the next album. (It also marked the beginning of mine and John’s vocals becoming present in the songwriting.)

As already mentioned, Take Away My Pain was written (mainly by John musically as well as lyrically) as a very powerful reaction to his father’s passing. (History will indeed show that Gene Kelly did pass away only days before his dad.) Personally, I think this version is an incredibly moving and emotional piece of music and I’ve made no secrets about my absolute dislike of the Kevin Shirley re-arrangement that ended up on FII (I think my quote was that it took some of the most heart-wrenching lyrics written and placed them in the middle of a Disneyland ride in the Caribbean!). The live version on Once In A LIVEtime was a bit of a musical cross between the two...

4. You Or Me

5. Anna Lee

Written and demoed in May 1996.

You Or Me is the other song on FII (in addition to Take Away My Pain) that really broke my heart. I think the version on FII (You Not Me) has become infamously hated by our fans because of Desmond Child’s involvement, but I really think our original song (You Or Me) was a very cool tune... combining a great, almost Rage Against The Machine-like groove and riff with catchy melodies. I have no idea why this version was fucked with at all to begin with. This song was taken away from us over 10 years ago and now I think it’s about time we took it back! Look for it to return in future live setlists...

Anna Lee is another song that gets a bad rap, but I honestly have to say it was one of my favorite songs from these sessions. The song’s progressions and melodies were very much arranged between Derek and James with a little help and suggestions from me and JP. And the Beatles fanatic in me had a field day with production ideas: deadening the drums, flanging the cymbals, Leslie guitar, slide guitar solo, mellotron, harpsichord, lush vocal harmonies, etc. You’ll notice our original version has an additional verse after the guitar solo and does not modulate keys.

Chronologically the next song to be written was Metropolis Pt. 2, but that story will come a little later in these liner notes...

6. Burning My Soul

7. The Way It Used To Be

8. Lines In The Sand

Written and demoed in July 1996.

Burning My Soul is obviously a VERY different song here in its original form. The entire instrumental middle section was surgically removed by Dr. Shirley and re-arranged for FII to become Hell’s Kitchen and serve as an instrumental to bridge together Burning My Soul and Lines In The Sand. There were also a few other changes to this arrangement (the song’s intro, moving the 2nd verse to follow the keyboard solo on the album version, etc.) We resurrected this original version on the 2002 World Tour which I think really confused the people that never heard this original demo arrangement!

The Way It Used To Be is another lost sleeper. A bit of a straight ahead song with a great pumping groove, a lot of really cool parts and a final jam/guitar solo where JP morphs from Steve Morse to Eddie Van Halen to The Edge to Trevor Rabin! This song was played live the night we recorded Once In A LIVEtime in Paris, so it’s possible a live version may still someday see the light...

Lines In The Sand is one of the truest DT songs from the FII sessions. Derek was fiddling around with some cool jazzy piano bits and some big proggy progressions and melodies and we then turned them into a true DT epic. I think this song stands the test of time as a true DT classic with some amazing piano/keyboard work and an incredible guitar solo. The album version differs a bit as well by moving around the 2nd half of each verse and I also really miss the extension of the final verse (“baptized, enlightened, surrounded and frightened”) that ended up being removed. As we did with Burning My Soul, we also resurrected this original version on the 2002 Tour.

CD2

1. Just Let Me Breathe

Written and demoed in August 1996.

2. Peruvian Skies

3. Trial of Tears

Written and demoed in October 1996

These 3 songs were pretty much just left intact... so for once, I have nothing to add! : )

4. Cover My Eyes

5. Hollow Years

Written and demoed in January 1997

These two song are very rare cases of somebody bringing a pretty much finished song into the band. (John also did that with The Silent Man). Over Christmas break, John wrote these songs at home and presented them to us when we reconvened in January. They were 2 obvious attempts to give the label “singles”. We made a few minor adjustments to his original compositions, but for the most part they remained pretty close to what he brought in.

Cover My Eyes temporarily went onto the shelf... but not for long, as we recorded a live acoustic version of it for the Five Years In A LIVEtime video that came out in 1998.

The interesting difference on the Hollow Years demo is the original Beatles-esque set-up to the 1st and 2nd choruses as well as the extension at the end of the final chorus. Also, the drumming on the 1st chorus is more Lion King than John Bonham!

6. New Millennium

7. Speak To Me

Written and demoed in February 1997

New Millennium was the first song to be written with John Myung’s new toy: the Chapman Stick. In fact, it’s one of the only songs in DT history to be written without John Petrucci as he was not present (for whatever reason I can’t remember) while me, John Myung and Derek continued working. We had a few industrial sounding riffs that we used in a live reworking of Caught In A Web a few months earlier (see the Old Bridge CD), so we figured we’d start with them to create a new song... and voila!

Later on the Metropolis 2000 tour, we combined them both to create something entirely new once again (see the Live Scenes From New York CD).

Speak To Me was the last song to be written before we were finally given the green light. Ultimately, it ended up shelved in favor of the other material – but also was quickly resurrected for the Five Years In A LIVEtime video the following year (and is still occasionally played live as recently as 2006).

8. Metropolis Pt. 2 (AKA Metropolis ‘96)

This is probably “the holy grail” of all unreleased DT recordings in my archives and it has remained very protected... until now!

I figured the FII story would be incomplete without including this recording as this song was indeed supposed to be the centerpiece of the next album.

Since the original Metropolis contained a “Pt. 1” after its title (thanks John!), we were forever plagued with the question “when will you write Metropolis Pt. 2?”

So after getting a few songs out of our system, by mid-1996 we decided to tackle the challenge and finally write the sequel. And in typical DT “more is more” fashion, we decided to make it a 20-minute epic in the vein of “A Change Of Seasons”...

The reason this song hasn’t seen the light of day until now is that there actually doesn’t exist a “proper” demo of it... what you hear on this CD is a “work in progress” live rehearsal recording (filled with many major clams and all!!) We spent most of May and June writing the song little by little and just as we finished it, we were scheduled to take a break as I had a drum clinic tour booked in Australia... so we laid down this quick (and very sloppy) live rehearsal recording just for a “reference” with the intention to do a “proper demo” when we reconvened after my clinic tour.

Of course, we now know that never happened... as when we returned to work, we instead opted to forge ahead writing something new (figuring the live reference recording was enough to document the arrangement until it was time to make the real record...) So this recording is all that exists!!

Lyrics were never written for this song, so this version will forever remain an instrumental – but the intent was to ultimately have lyrics (John Petrucci was to write them), but many sections were indeed already planned to be instrumental ala ACOS (we knew the Overture and all the crazy stuff in the middle was going to stay instrumental).

Of course, when you listen to this you’ll immediately recognize how much of this 1996 version was lifted when we decided to revisit the idea (once again) and expand it into an entire album with Scenes From A Memory. Pretty much the entire Overture 1928 and the entire One Last Time was written during these ‘96 sessions... as well as the start of Strange Deja Vu and many riffs and parts that ended up in The Dance Of Eternity!

So here it finally is... in all its primitive, naked glory...

Proving we leave no stone unturned here at Ytsejam Records!!

Enjoy!