Joshua Macas

Mr. Dayton

AP English Language and Composition

25 May 2022

Final Essay

Images and Words is an album by the progressive metal band, Dream Theater, released

on July 7th, 1992. There are a total of 8 songs. The titles of these songs are “Pull Me Under”,

“Another Day”, “Take the Time”, “Surrounded”, “Metropolis - Part I: “The Miracle and the

Sleeper”, “Under a Glass Moon”, “Wait for Sleep”, and “Learning to Live”. All of these songs

have things in common, they are classical in tone and convey either a lesson or story.

Pull Me Under: This song has a lot of repetition with “Pull Me Under” being said

multiple times in the song. This is followed by “I’m not afraid”, this means some kind of

acceptance of death or failure. The song seems to talk about accomplishing something for

someone no matter the sacrifice even if it’s themselves. A huge portion of the song is figurative

language but almost every song's like that. Multiple ways of talking about the passage of time

and how it is being inefficiently used by them. Such as “This world is spinning without me and

Every day sends future to past”.

Another Day: This song (with all of the other songs in this album) has a lot of repetition.

This time it is “ You won’t find it here…So die/try another day”. I believe this song talks about

savoring the moment and not rushing through your life or trying to stop yourself from living. It

talks about perserverance and trying to make the best of a bad situation. It also has a somewhat

forcing tone about not giving up.

 Take the Time: The repetition in this song is “You can feel the waves coming on…You

can find all you need in your mind”. This song talks about mindfulness and assessing the

situation around you. With the ending lyrics being “ Find all you need in your mind If you take

the time” twice. It has a lot of lyrics about overwhelming situations and how you should know

how to overcome them with lyrics like “A man must learn to cope”. You begin to see the pattern

here with how there is a lesson or even the story about someone growing as an individual.

Surrounded: This song's repetition is “Light to dark, Dark to Light” twice. This song talks

about a man and a woman who are far away from each other but are in love. The man feels like

time is slow and his life has no light. The woman says “Let the light surround you” and at the

end of the song the man hears that and feels the light but he still feels like it isn’t enough. This is

one of the songs that convey a story instead of a lesson.

Metropolis - Part I: “The Miracle and the Sleeper”: This song is different from the rest of

the songs in the album because its other parts are in a completely different album which is titled

“Metropolis - Part II: “Scenes from a Memory”. This song is my favorite in the album because

it’s very epic. The beat and the way the song is sung make this my favorite. This song is also a

story, a story of a person dreaming of another world and telling us what is in it, with a little girl

moving from two places. The dream is somewhat of a nightmare due to the person saying “I’m

asleep, yet I’m so afraid”. There is also a large portion of the song that doesn’t have lyrics but

has the instrumental part of it playing a bunch of different tones and moods. The story has a

happy ending with “When the struggle between our children has ended Now the Miracle and the

Sleeper know That the third is love. Love is the Dance of Eternity!”. Now what it really means is

a father struggling with divorce.

 Under a Glass Moon: This song’s repetition is “Outside the soundness of your

mind…Praying for a time to disappear”. This song (from reading the lyrics) is about marriage

and the relationship between the groom and the bride up until the wedding. The song kind of

implies wedding vows, that is the repetition of the song. “Bear this honor in my name” which is

followed by the repetition of this song is what makes me believe that what I think the meaning is

behind this song is correct or at least close. Again, another story of some kind.

Wait for Sleep: I think this song is a continuation of Metropolis - Part I, because the song

talks about what sounds like a teenage girl struggling with issues with her parents. She keeps

herself isolated from them but at the end of the song she opens up to them. Throughout the song,

the lyrics describe how she wants to forget all the problems and be free of them. This is the

second to last song in the album and there is definitely a story of some kind here but it’s a little

bit difficult to follow.

Learning to Live: This song talks about freedom. The song is from a person who has

found a new opportunity to discover the world around them. I think this is the husband due to it

mentioning love again. I’m going off from the other songs in the album to support my case here.

He seems to have moved on from the divorce and is now using his freedom to do something fun.

The repetition of this song is “I’m learning to live”.

My conclusion of the album is that the song talks about someone’s life mainly from the

husband's perspective. The song talks about the struggles of divorce and how love is a

complicated thing. The story and the lessons told in the songs are somewhat easy to understand if

you pay close attention to the lyrics. This album has great songs though and I would recommend

giving it a listen. This album was somewhat difficult to analyze because of its poetic lyrics and
me being a student. Maybe the lyricist was going through a divorce and that’s what made him put

it into this. A way to get it off his chest perhaps?