Feedback from M. Parker

I also did an analysis of Voices, based in part on
what was going around on Ytsejam when Awake was
released. It was for a poetry analysis, for a basic
literary composition class. Sadly, the essay is
long gone, and it wasn't particularly well put together.
*grins* I've also a great many friends with multiple
personality disorder, so it colored my view in that
direction at the time.

The gist of I wrote was that the narrator of the song was
a mad prophet. Petrucci likes writing dark Twilight Zone-
style tales, and this appeared to be one of them. Things
I interpreted:

The narrator is in a self-imposed isolation. He refuses
to speak with the other characters in the song. He is
doing this because he needs to in order to be accepted
by his messiah.

Easter is not a celebration of Christ's death. That's Holy
Thursday. Easter is a celebration of his return. With
'Easter never coming', the prophet is worried that he
will not be saved.

He has seen things that are apparantly happening now in
the present. Thus they 'read his mind on the radio' -
the news reports tell of things he has seen. His 'diary
on the newstand' is the same thing - the fulfilling of
things he has seen. However, his expected savior has not
appeared ('Where is the Garden of Eden?' 'I guess Easter's
never coming' (he's been expecting it, but it hasn't happened))
and he's beginning to doubt that it's all ('Cassandra fleeting')
No one seems to believe him, either, as the song has a very
resigned tone to it... things are going to happen and there's
not much he can do to stop them (another reference to
Cassandra).

The voices he calls demons. In several cases of people that have
fallen to cults, they are 'demonized' by having their personalities
split (several violent and evil 'selves', created through
torture and pain, can earn the title Demon by their actions, but
they still seem to be facets of the host personality
('we reflect your hopes and fears')). The voices could be a cause
or a side effect of his prophetic ability. Echoing his fears
and thoughts, they cause him to withdraw from other people.

I didn't see a whole lot to do with politics, beyond the first
verse. I believed the reference to the old man and widow was
one of the things the narrator had foreseen, the spider and angel
(a fountain statue) merely the few things he could see from his
room away from the world. Beyond this confirmation of his
prophecy, the song seems to focus more on himself.

There's my thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em :) Glad to see
I wasn't the only one fascinated by this tune.