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Space-Dye Vest
Awake
Length 07:29
Working title (Unknown)
Release date October 4, 1994
Lyrics Kevin Moore
Music Kevin Moore
First live performance Jan 24th, 2011, Tarrytown Music Hall (Jordan Rudess and James LaBrie)

Jan 15th 2014, Coliseu do Porto, Portugal (full band)

Total live plays 94
Recorded One On One Studios and Devonshire Studios
Other appearances Breaking the Fourth Wall
Previous song Scarred
Next song A Change of Seasons (album)

Space-Dye Vest is the eleventh track on Dream Theater's third album, Awake. Space-Dye Vest was written by Kevin Moore, who brought the piece into the studio as a completed song. The song The Mirror contains several reprises and musical references to Space-Dye Vest.

John Petrucci recorded this song using a 6-string guitar in drop-D tuning (D-A-D-G-B-E).

Personnel[]

Lyrics[]

Falling through pages of Martens on angels
Feeling my heart pull west
I saw the future dressed as a stranger
Love in a space-dye vest

Love is an act of blood and I'm bleeding
A pool in the shape of a heart
Beauty projection in the reflection
Always the worst way to start

[Sample is Julian Sands from the film "A Room With A View".]
"But he's the sort who can't know
Anyone intimately, least of all a woman. 
He doesn't know what a woman is. 
He wants you for a possession,
Something to look at like a painting or an ivory box.
Something to own and to display. 
He doesn't want you to be real, or to think or to live. 
He doesn't love you, but I love you.
I want you to have your own thoughts and ideas and feelings, 
Even when I hold you in my arms. 
It's our last chance... It's our last chance..."

Now that you're gone, I'm trying to take it
Learning to swallow the rage
Found a new girl, I think we can make it
As long as she stays on the page

This is not how I want it to end.
And I'll never be open again.

[Sample from "The Trouble With Evan", from the Canadian series "The Fifth Estate".]
"...I was gonna move out...ummm...get,
Get a job, get my own place, ummm,
But... I go into the mall where I Want to work
And they tell me, I'm, I was too young..."

[Sample is Jim Hill from a news commentary about the OJ Simpson freeway chase.]
"Some people, gave advice before, 
About facing the facts, about facing reality. 
And this is, this without a doubt, is his biggest challenge ever. 
He's going to have to face it. 
You're gonna have to try, he's gonna to have to try and,
Ah, and, and, and get some help here. 
I mean no one can say they know how he feels."

[Sample from the Conan O'Brien show.]
"That, so they say that, in ya know 
like, Houston or something, you'd 
say it's a hundred and eighty degrees, 
But it's a dry heat.
In Houston they say that? 
Ah, maybe not. I'm all mixed up.
Dry until they hit the swimming pool."

[Sample from "The Trouble With Evan", from the Canadian series "The Fifth Estate".]
...I get up with the sun... Listen.
You have your own room to sleep in, 
I don't care what you do. I don't care when. 
That door gets locked, That door gets locked at night by nine o'clock.
If you're not in this house by nine o'clock, 
then you'd better find some place to sleep. 
Because you're not going to be a bum in this house.
Supper is ready..."

There's no one to take my blame
If they wanted to
There's nothing to keep me sane
And it's all the same to you
There's nowhere to set my aim
So I'm everywhere
Never come near me again
Do you really think I need you?

I'll never be open 
I could never be open again.
I'll never be open
I could never be open again.

And I'll smile and I'll learn to pretend
And I'll never be open again
And I'll have no more dreams to defend
And I'll never be open again.

Lyrics[]

The lyrics are about Moore falling in love with a picture of a model in a fashion magazine wearing a space-dye vest. "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," LaBrie explained. "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."

Trivia[]

Some fans have taken notice that James LaBrie sounds dramatically different on this track than on any other track on the Awake album, or any track for that matter. When the song was played live for the first time, LaBrie revealed to the audience that Moore actually sang the song in unison under LaBrie after he recorded his vocals.

The debut performance can be found here.

The isolated vocals of this song, where Moore can clearly be heard underneath LaBrie can be found here. (Vocals start at 34:52)

Tone[]

The style of the song is rather more subdued and stripped back than Dream Theater's usual style. 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.'

Live Performances[]

Mike Portnoy claimed that if they had known Kevin Moore was going to leave the band, they would not have included it on the album. Portnoy considered "Space-Dye Vest" totally 100% Moore's song,' and refused to play the song live without Moore during his time in the band.

The track later surfaced on the Along for the Ride tour, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Awake, with a slightly modified arrangement.

It also appears on their Breaking the Fourth Wall DVD (at Boston Opera House) in a version very close to the original with an extended guitar solo near the ending.

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