Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (song)

"Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is the sixth song and title track on the album of the same name, written and performed by American progressive metal band Dream Theater. Though the song is essentially broken up into eight movements on separate tracks, it lasts 42 minutes in full and takes up the entire second CD of the album. The song was conceived when keyboardist Jordan Rudess wrote what would become the "Overture" section, and the band took various melodies and ideas contained within it and expanded them into segments of the complete piece. The song explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses. Particularly represented are bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, post-partum depression, autism, and dissociative identity disorder.

The song contains influences of the classical, metal, folk and progressive genres and weaves through many time signatures, including 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, and 7/8. Clocking in at 42 minutes, it is the longest song Dream Theater has recorded; to ease scrolling through the song, Mike Portnoy gave each movement their own track, and split the full song into eight tracks.

The song was played in its entirety on Score, with the "Octavarium Orchestra" playing "Overture" and backing for the rest of the piece, except for "The Test That Stumped Them All".

Sections

• "I. Overture" – 6:50 (instrumental)
• "II. About to Crash" – 5:50 (Petrucci)
• "III. War Inside My Head" – 2:08 (Portnoy)
• "IV. The Test That Stumped Them All" – 5:03 (Portnoy)
• "V. Goodnight Kiss" – 6:17 (Portnoy)
• "VI. Solitary Shell" – 5:47 (Petrucci)
• "VII. About to Crash (Reprise)" – 4:04 (Petrucci)
• "VIII. Losing Time/Grand Finale" – 5:59 (Petrucci)

Personnel

• James LaBrie - lead vocals
• John Petrucci - guitar, backing vocals
• John Myung - bass
• Jordan Rudess - keyboards
• Mike Portnoy - drums, backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "War Inside My Head"

References

1. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
2. Six degrees
3. Six degrees of separation
4. Twelve-step Suite
5. Train of Thought (Dream Theater album)
6. John Myung
7. Octavarium
8. Space in Your Face
9. Score (Dream Theater album)
10. Misunderstood
11. Dream Theater
12. 6
13. Disappear
14. Blind Faith (disambiguation)
15. Great Debate
16. List of songs recorded by Dream Theater
17. Dream Theater discography
18. Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory
19. Images and Words
20. John Petrucci