Space-Dye Vest
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"Space-Dye Vest" is the eleventh and final song from American
progressive metal Progressive metal (often shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven sound of the former with t ...
band
Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 in Boston, Massachusetts. The band comprises John Petrucci (guitar), John Myung (bass), Mike Portnoy (drums), James LaBrie (vocals) and Jordan Rudess (keyboards). Dream Theat ...
's 1994 album, '' Awake''. The song was written entirely by the keyboardist
Kevin Moore Kevin Moore (born May 26, 1967) is an American former keyboardist, composer and the founder of the Chroma Key music project. He was also a member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater, co-founder of the progressive rock supergroup O.S. ...
, and its demo featured Moore on vocals. It is structured around a dark, brooding duet between Moore playing the piano and vocalist James LaBrie. The rest of the band kick in for a dramatic outro, fading out until Moore ends the song with the piano passage that opened the song. The song is interspersed with samples from '' A Room with a View'', '' The Fifth Estate'', ''
Late Night with Conan O'Brien ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the second installment of the ''Late Night (franchise), Late Night'' franchise originally established by David Letterman. Hosted by Conan O'Brie ...
'', ''The Trouble with Evan'' and a news commentary by Jim Hill during the
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freeway chase.


History

The song was composed by Moore while touring for '' Images and Words'' in 1993, and surfaced as part of a series of demos composed by him and that were not suitable for Dream Theater, but for his own experiment. Kevin Moore spoke to a Japanese interviewer regarding the meaning behind the song:
I was looking through a clothing catalog and saw a picture of a girl modeling this piece of clothing called a space-dye vest. And, so, I fell in love with her aughsfor some strange reason and so the minute I did that, the minute I was just like obsessed with this person, I was like, "why am I doing that?" and I noticed that I was doing it a lot lately. And I think the prime reason that I was doing that, and this is what I figured out at the time, was that I had just come out of a relationship where I'd gotten dumped, basically, and so I think the situation was that I wasn't finished giving all that I was ready to give, so I was just, like, throwing it around, you know, just aiming it in different directions. It was a total case of projection. And this song is just trying to sort it out and just kind of admitting that I'm just kind of lost. So it's kind of a dark song. It was very cathartic though.
Singer James LaBrie said "Kevin Moore saw this photograph in a fashion magazine of a beautiful model wearing a space-dye vest and he fell in love with her. ... He carried that magazine around with him for ages, but he realized that the only way the innocence could be kept, so that he could retain that love for her, was if she stayed on the page. If he'd met her, all that would have been lost." Portnoy recalled that when the rest of the band first heard the song "we thought it was so very, very different we didn't think we even wanted to fuck with it."


Aftermath and live performances

Moore left Dream Theater after ''Awake'' was released on October 4, 1994. Out of respect, some members of the band had expressed that they were not willing to perform it without Moore. Portnoy commented that if they had known Moore was going to leave the band, they would not have included it on the album. He considered "Space-Dye Vest" "totally 100% oore'ssong", and for that reason the band would never play the song live without Moore. Jordan Rudess, however, in an interview stated that he would like to play it live whenever the rest of the band is ready. Rudess performed the song live during a solo concert, with LaBrie featuring as a guest vocalist. In 2009, the band begun jamming on the song during their tour for '' Black Clouds & Silver Linings'', though the song was never played in its entirety until 2014, when it was performed at almost every concert of their "Along for the Ride Tour", along with the other songs making up the second half of the ''Awake'' album, in honor of the album's 20th anniversary. The song was included in the live album ''
Breaking the Fourth Wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th centu ...
''.


Personnel

* James LaBrie – vocals *
Kevin Moore Kevin Moore (born May 26, 1967) is an American former keyboardist, composer and the founder of the Chroma Key music project. He was also a member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater, co-founder of the progressive rock supergroup O.S. ...
– keyboards * John Myung – bass guitar *
John Petrucci John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. He produced or co-produced (often with Mike Portnoy before Portnoy's absence from the band 2010-2023 ...
– guitar *
Mike Portnoy Michael Stephen Portnoy (born April 20, 1967) is an American musician who is primarily known as the drummer, backing vocalist, and co-founder of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. In September 2010, Portnoy announced his departure fro ...
– drums, percussion


References

{{Authority control Dream Theater songs 1994 songs 1990s ballads Rock ballads