Which song was composed first for each album?

[MirrorMask]

Saw this idea elsewhere and I thought it would be cool to do it here as well.

Do we know which song was written first for each DT album, as the recording sessions were unfolding? I believe that interviews and comments from Mike Portony mainly (when he was in the band of course) are all out there with the information, but it could be fun to try and make a complete list. Maybe I could update this post once the search is done.

Off the top of my head I can say I'm quite confident that The Glass Prison was written first for Six Degrees, and I believe it was said that At Wit's End was written first for d/t. It could be difficult to pinpoint which was the first "song" written for Scenes from a Memory since it all started from the demo that was supposed to be a single 25 minutes song.

But what about the other albums? DT geeks, assemble!

============== Here's the list gathered so far:

WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE: Ytsejam
IMAGES AND WORDS: Metropolis pt I
AWAKE: Scarred
FALLING INTO INFINITY: Raise the Knife; Take Away My Pain considering album songs
SCENES FROM A MEMORY: Overture 1928 as in "most recognizable song on the Metropolis pt. 2 demo"
SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE: The Glass Prison
TRAIN OF THOUGHT: In the Name of God
OCTAVARIUM: As a leftover, I Walk Beside You, otherwise Sacrificed Sons
SYSTEMATIC CHAOS: In the Presence of Enemies
BLACK CLOUDS AND SILVER LININGS: A Nightmare to Remember
A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS: On the Backs of Angels
DREAM THEATER: Surrender to Reason
THE ASTONISHING: Possibly The Gift of Music
DISTANCE OVER TIME: At Wit's End

[Mladen]

What I remember from the interviews are the information regarding the albums that came out since I became a fan. Surrender to reason was the first one written for the self titled album, At wit's end for Distance over time, Nightmare for Black clouds and In the presence of enemies for Systematic chaos. If I recall correctly, On the backs of angels was the first track written for A Dramatic turn of events.

[MoraWintersoul]

I know Scarred was the first song composed in their sessions for Awake*, and in those demo notes MP mentioned that they always seem to come out with a 10+ minute song first, and he mentioned several from the albums that came after it in those notes, I just don't have the reference now. But that is where you can find the information for several post-Awake pre-MM albums!

*if you don't count Eve and the intro to The Mirror. And we don't know whether Kevin started/completed demos for any of the songs he wrote solo for this album before Scarred, no one ever asked him. So yeah, Scarred was the first.

[MirrorMask]

Now that I think of it, wasn't Raise the Knife the first song written for FII and more in general the first song written with Derek?

[MoraWintersoul]

Yes, I think it was.

[Ben_Jamin]

Wouldn't I Walk Beside You be the first song written on 8VM?

[Madman Shepherd]

Pretty sure the dream theater official demo bootlegs go in order for when they were written.

[bosk1]

Wouldn't I Walk Beside You be the first song written on 8VM?

That is true, since it came from the TOT sessions.  But what I don't recall (if I knew) is whether it was basically complete at that time, or was just an idea, and what point in the 8VM sessions that it came back out on the table.

[Max Kuehnau]

I know that AWE was the first piece of the D/T sessions. I'm not sure about Surrender To Reason or False Awakening being the first one for DT12. I don't know how JP and Jordan started TA.

[Setlist Scotty]

Off the top of my head:
Ytsejam
Metropolis pt I
Scarred
Raise the Knife / Take Away My Pain if only counting what appeared on the albums
Overture 1928
The Glass Prison
In the Name of God
Sacrificed Sons
In the Presence of Enemies
A Nightmare to Remember

I don't remember specifically which songs were written first for the MM-era albums, except for At Wit's End being first for d/t.

I say Overture 1928 as opposed to anything else on SFaM because I'm pretty sure that they wrote the original Metropolis pt II chronologically, and that's the first part of the song. Plus it pretty much is the same as what ended up on SFaM.

Regarding how it should be decided, from the band's perspective, it's when the song was completed both musically and lyrically. So some songs may have been completed musically early on, but the lyrics weren't written until later. If I'm not mistaken, this was the case for either or both Burning My Soul or Lines in the Sand. And the original Metropolis pt II would also fit, having been completed musically before most of the songs from FII, but never completed lyrically. So I think this would hold true for I Walk Beside You as well, even if it was complete musically during the ToT sessions.

Finally, regarding what was the first song written for WDaDU, Afterlife was also written while Chris Collins was in the band, but it had different lyrics and vocal melodies back then. So while it was a complete song (musically and lyrically), it wasn't close to what it ended up being on WDaDU. So I'd say at least technically, Ytsejam was the first song written that ended up on WDaDU.

[Lonk]

I say Overture 1928 as opposed to anything else on SFaM because I'm pretty sure that they wrote the original Metropolis pt II chronologically, and that's the first part of the song. Plus it pretty much is the same as what ended up on SFaM.

Not saying you are wrong, since I know nothing about this, but I find it hard to believe Overture 1928 was the first piece they wrote for the album. It’s supposed to serve as an “introduction” to the rest of the album but the entire overture is composed of different phrases and passages from the rest of the album. Unless they already had an idea for what the rest of the album was going to be, but recorded Overture 1928 first, I personally don’t see how it would be the first written piece.

Then again, I know nothing so there’s a huge chance you are right.

[Setlist Scotty]

I don't have time to dig up any interviews, but I believe in this case they wrote the overture with plans to expand many of the musical ideas throughout the rest of Metropolis pt II. Of course, there are other situations where the overture is written last, where they go back through all the other songs that were already written, and pick bits and pieces of those songs and basically create a medley which ends up being the overture. But I don't think that was the case here.

[hefdaddy42]

I know that the 6DOIT Overture was written before the rest of the song was.  So that definitely happens.

[bosk1]

I think Scotty is definitely right, and it is provable merely from the standpoint that, if you listen to the Metropolis Pt. II demo, it basically is Overture 1928 with a bunch of extra stuff. 

But as far as the spirit of what I think the question was aimed at, if we take away instrumentals and just focus on full songs, do we know which one of those was first?

[gzarruk]

Interesting thread

It’s a bit tricky for TA, but I’d say TGOM was the first song they wrote as, IIRC, they wrote the music specifically for and with the story in running order. Considering they took this approach, the overture should’ve been written at the end, with TGOM being the first “real” track.

[Lonk]

I just listened to overture 1928 and I appreciate the piece on a different level. Thanks for clarifying 

For TA I think I heard an interview were TGOM was mentioned as the first song they wrote.

[MirrorMask]

I've updated the initial post with all the info gathered so far.

I believe too that a point in favor for Overture 1928 could be made - I can't remember where I read it, but I remember a quote from Mike Portnoy where he said that they "consciously" (I remember this exact word) wrote the beginning of Overture 1928 to connect it musically with the end of Metropolis pt. 1 (only to discard the plan to play them back to back when it turned into a concept album), and I too remember, like hefdaddy42, that they wrote Six Degrees' Overture first and then went from there, so it's only safe to assume they started from Overture 1928.

It's been ages since I've listened to the demo, can we deduce which songs were written only when they were in "let's write a full album" mode, judging by which themes and musical ideas are nowhere to be found in the demo?

[IDontNotDoThings]

I remember having a discussion with someone else a while ago regarding this subject. I'll have to go through my post history to find it, but I'm pretty certain I remember them finding an ADTOE-era interview where someone from the band said that OTBOA was the first song written for the album.

(Edit: oh, that didn't take long to find:)

As for ADTOE, according to this interview, OTBOA was the first song written for the album, although John has said that BTS and TITL were songs he had written beforehand and brought for the band to finish.

I'm also pretty sure that I remember hearing that Surrender To Reason was the first song written for DT12.



As for TA, I swear I remember them saying in one of the "Inside The Astonishing" videos that the Overture & the Entr'acte were written last, but again I'll have to double-check.

[MirrorMask]

Updated and basically completed the list 

[IDontNotDoThings]

Bosk, you have JP's contact, right? Would you be able to ask him if he remembers which Astonishing track he wrote first?

[RaiseTheKnife]

Bosk, you have JP's contact, right? Would you be able to ask him if he remembers which Astonishing track he wrote first?

I wouldn't ask Bosk to use his business relationship to contact JP over this kind of stuff, especially since its likely already in the public sphere.  Somewhere along the line I heard that Gift of Music was the first track written, setting the tone for The Astonishing.  This might be in a Guitar Word interview - I'd have to double check.  Or I can ask the band on Monday in the Meet & Greet in Riverside.  After all, that's why they offer the fans the opportunity.

[Ben_Jamin]

Bosk, you have JP's contact, right? Would you be able to ask him if he remembers which Astonishing track he wrote first?

I wouldn't ask Bosk to use his business relationship to contact JP over this kind of stuff, especially since its likely already in the public sphere.  Somewhere along the line I heard that Gift of Music was the first track written, setting the tone for The Astonishing.  This might be in a Guitar Word interview - I'd have to double check.  Or I can ask the band on Monday in the Meet & Greet in Riverside.  After all, that's why they offer the fans the opportunity.

Darn, if I would've snapped, I could've asked him last night

[LCArenas]

Wait, if we're adding Overture 1928 to SFAM because it was the most recognizable out of the Metropolis Pt. II demo, shouldn't we be adding The Mirror to Awake because of Puppies on Acid? I just don't understand
I just don't understand

[Setlist Scotty]

Wait, if we're adding Overture 1928 to SFAM because it was the most recognizable out of the Metropolis Pt. II demo, shouldn't we be adding The Mirror to Awake because of Puppies on Acid? I just don't understand
I just don't understand

No, because PoA is just a part of The Mirror - it wasn't the complete song musically or lyrically. Overture 1928 was complete as it is in the original Metropolis pt II song.

And you have to remember, if we were going into the nuances of different parts of songs (as opposed to completed songs), we wouldn't be able to come up with complete answers for all of them since the band hasn't mentioned when most parts of songs were initially written. In fact, I doubt even MP could name what section of what song was the very first thing written for each respective album. That said, there have been some, besides the aforementioned IWBY. For instance, part of TGP was written during soundcheck in 1997. And if you listen to bootlegs from 1995, there's a couple where you can hear DS working out the main keyboard melody to LitS during his solo.

[ReaPsTA]

If you really want to get technical about Metropolis Part II, the last section is an almost entirely intact version of One Last Time.