Under a Glass Moon

Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci wrote the lyric to "Under A Glass Moon," which runs 7:03 - not an unusual length for the band. The song is rich in imagery; we hear about "liquid shadows" and "silver teardrops." The storyline is open to interpretation. Speaking with Songfacts in a 2020 interview, Petrucci said: "That song I wrote while I was listening to the song, trying to think of lyrical content. I went out in my car, sat in my car at night during a rainstorm, and I just got all this imagery. There was a full moon out, it was raining. I just came up with the title and started writing from there."

This is part of Images And Words, the band's second album, and their first with lead singer James LaBrie. After forming at Berklee College of Music in 1986, the band signed to a small label and released their debut album, When Dream And Day Unite, in 1989. It went nowhere, but they were able to get a deal with a bigger label, Atco, which released Images And Words in 1992. The album defied expectations, selling about 600,000 copies in America and establishing Dream Theater as one of the top progressive metal bands (along with Queensrÿche). It was not all wine and roses in the aftermath: Atco was absorbed into East West, which was absorbed into Elektra, which drove the band to the brink when they pushed for a hit on their 1997 album Falling Into Infinity. The band survived the ordeal and were later given total control of their work, which they used to keep pushing their musical boundaries.