FII Demos Ranking

[IDontNotDoThings]

Which of the songs written for FII, but never got reworked into anything else, was the best?

[Mladen]

Raise the knife, although I love Cover my eyes (could have been a hit, what a mistake to not include it) and The Way it used to be. The other two are also very good, better than most of FII in my opinion.

[Train of Naught]

Cover My Eyes for me without a doubt!

[Zydar]

I kind of like Speak To Me.

[Prog Snob]

It's a toss up between Raise the Knife and The Way It Used To Be, but I chose the latter.

[Stadler]

Cover My Eyes is in my Top Five DT songs of all time (maybe even number one) so I'm going to go with that.  Raise The Knife would be second.

[Another_Won]

Nice to see the different opinions here.  For me though, Raise the Knife is far above any of the other ones.

[BlobVanDam]

RTK is the only one I'd even say I like, so that by default.

[Setlist Scotty]

1. Raise the Knife
2. The Way It Used to Be
3. Speak to Me
4. Cover My Eyes
5. Where Are You Now

[hefdaddy42]

Speak to Me is glorious.

Raise the Knife is also awesome.

[Eldomm]

I always had a soft spot for Where are you now...

[Ben_Jamin]

Speak to Me with Where Are You Now? not far behind.The melodies in WAYN are great.

[TAC]

Raise The Knife

It's really the only track that says This Is Dream Theater. Most of the other songs are nice enough, but they all feel not very serious, with the maybe exception of Speak To Me.

[pdurbin22]

Honestly, with the exception of "Where Are You Now" which is just so-so, these are all top-notch Dream Theater songs. 

[hefdaddy42]

Honestly, with the exception of "Where Are You Now" which is just so-so, these are all top-notch Dream Theater songs.

That is certainly the least of them, IMHO, and all the rest are pretty good.

[OpenYourEyes311]

I like all these songs. Speak to Me (which I picked) and Cover My Eyes are my favorites. The Way We Used to Be and Raise the Knife would be the next best batch. I like RTK, but I've never understood the "It's the greatest DT song never released" hype. Kind of like how I feel about Scarred. It all sounds to me like "ITS LONG SO ITS GOOD." Short songs can be good; in fact, my opinion is that these shorter ones are better!

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant.

[jakepriest]

I don't think I've heard them more than once. Didn't particularly enjoy that one time either.

[MirrorMask]

Voted for Speak to Me for the underdog effect, I noticed Raise the Knife was in the lead already... but both songs are excellent. Speak to Me is my favorite ballad of that era probably, even more or at least on par with Hollow Years, and Raise the Knife is a great song with a strong chorus and very interesting verses, love the "Reading through all of the digests you show me" section for example.

Cover My Eyes is a nice short rocking song, maybe they should have went all the way in making it heavy, I agree it could have had a chance at airplay.

The other two songs I can live without, they're not bad by any means but it's not that I think "Meh if only they'd have been on the album instead".

[CharlesPL]

Speak To Me

[Prog Snob]

1. Raise the Knife
2. The Way It Used to Be
3. Speak to Me
4. Cover My Eyes
5. Where Are You Now

Identical to mine with the exception of the first two being swapped. 

[IDontNotDoThings]

Speak to Me is my favorite ballad of that era probably, even more or at least on par with Hollow Years,

Well that's not exactly saying much.

[MirrorMask]

Well, there are Speak to Me, Hollow Years, Anna Lee, Take Away My Pain and if you see it as a slowish song, Where Are You Now... I'd trade Anna Lee or Take Away My Pain in a heartbeat to have Speak to Me on the album.

[KevShmev]

Based on the actual demos, Raise the Knife is the best.

Based on the best version of any of them, I might take the live version of Speak to Me from 5 Years... over anything.  The live acoustic version of Cover My Eyes is great, too.  Massive upgrades over the demos, neither of which were that good for either of those songs.

The Way It Used to Be is pretty darn good, especially that Camel-esque keyboard solo.

Where Are You Now? is good, although it has a few awkward vocal passages, that likely would have been cleaned up had the song ever been reworked.

[Calvin6s]

1.  Metropolis Part 2:  Not even close
2. Speak to Me: Demonstration of how simply nailing the melody to perfection trumps everything in pop songcraft as the structure and accompaniment is pretty straightforward (yet supportive).  Melody is king.
3.  Cover My Eyes: Better structure and accompaniment.  Even really great melody, but Speak to Me melody was perfection
4.  The Way It Used to Be: Same attributes of Cover My Eyes, but slightly less so
5.  Raise the Knife:  The most DT (of that era) like, but weak tea DT.  And sometimes it seems to meander.
6.  Where are you Now: Way behind all the others.  It is actually promising, but somehow not missing the mark and would probably take a major rewrite to compete with the others.

For all the (at the time) talk of how these songs should have been on FII instead of half the songs that made it to DT, that really was DT fanboyism.  Heard the talk of being forced in a pop direction, but the ones left off were the most mainstream pop of FII+Demos.

Speak to Me could have replaced one of the other ballads.  Especially with further embellishment (but not too much).  Cover My Eyes might have replaced another ballad as well (FII was ballad heavy).  Beyond that, FII was about right for the time.

Finally, I think being forced to really work on pop songcraft I think helped their future songwriting, so it wasn't all for not.

[MirrorMask]

Well, ironically I think the impositions from the label spawned two great results:

1) Hell's Kitchen - removing an instrumental section from what was otherwise a straightforward rocking song made them create the beautiful ending that flows nicely into Lines in the Sand, it would have been a pity to never hear that
2) No double album > Metropolis pt.2 demo being shelved > SCENES FROM A MEMORY!

A good price to pay for all the turmoil the band went through, I'd say (and it seems that Portnoy was the one that suffered most for it, the others took it better, especially Petrucci)

[RaasMah]

Have DT ever release those demos officially? where can I find in good quality, other than youtube?

[MirrorMask]

https://www.ytsejamrecords.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=26&idcategory=6

[RaasMah]

https://www.ytsejamrecords.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=26&idcategory=6

Thank! Thats very interesting, Ive always heard around here of the YtzeJam records but never actually seen it. Is it still running? it seems like MP was the one who ran it, so whos in charge now? Hes also still registered as a band member so it seems kinda deserted.

Anyway, 20$ for a few Demos is a bit steep me thinks, so ill pass for now. Those Live sets though, they really seem interesting, Ill consider them.

[Prog Snob]

https://www.ytsejamrecords.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=26&idcategory=6

Thank! Thats very interesting, Ive always heard around here of the YtzeJam records but never actually seen it. Is it still running? it seems like MP was the one who ran it, so whos in charge now? Hes also still registered as a band member so it seems kinda deserted.

Anyway, 20$ for a few Demos is a bit steep me thinks, so ill pass for now. Those Live sets though, they really seem interesting, Ill consider them.

Check eBay.

[goo-goo]

I prefer the live version of Speak to Me...Love it.

As far as the actual demos, my ranking order would be:

-Raise the Knife
-Speak to Me
-Where Are You Know
-The way it used to be
-Cover my Eyes

[jammindude]

1. Raise the Knife
2. The Way It Used to Be
3. Speak to Me
4. Cover My Eyes
5. Where Are You Now

This may be the first time you and I have agreed on something so EXACTLY!   

[CharlesPL]

My ranking :

1. Speak to Me
2. Where Are You Now
3. Raise the Knife (prefer live versions)
4. The Way It Used to Be
5. Cover My Eyes

[Setlist Scotty]

1. Raise the Knife
2. The Way It Used to Be
3. Speak to Me
4. Cover My Eyes
5. Where Are You Now

This may be the first time you and I have agreed on something so EXACTLY!   

Yay! I guess you're not so bad after all then!   

[Stadler]

You guys are all wacky for putting Cover My Eyes so low.  Yeah, it's concise, and under 6:00 but has everything:  crunch, a great melody, one of James' best vocals... even the lyric isn't bad for DT standards (if not still relatively incomprehensible).

[hefdaddy42]

You guys are all wacky for putting Cover My Eyes so low.  Yeah, it's concise, and under 6:00 but has everything:  crunch, a great melody, one of James' best vocals... even the lyric isn't bad for DT standards (if not still relatively incomprehensible).

Stadler, you are LITERALLY the only person I have ever heard of who likes that song as much as you do.

I mean, it's OK, but the demo version isn't even the best version of that song - the live, acoustic version from FYIALT completely slays the demo.  And the song is still just OK at best, when compared to the rest of their output.

You are certainly entitled to whatever favorite song you want, but by no means is anyone else wacky for favoring anything else.