Songfacts®:

• This is "Scene Eight" in Dream Theater's concept album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory. The album follows the character Nicholas, who goes under hypnosis and discovers a past life where he was a woman named Victoria. In this song, Nicholas is at peace, no longer frightened of dying, as he knows his spirit will live on. Victoria appears to affirm this, but makes a request: "never let your memory of me disappear."
• Unusually for a concept album, different group members contributed lyrics to the various songs. Guitarist John Petrucci wrote the lyrics to this one, which follows "One Last Time," a lyric by lead singer James LaBrie.
• The opening lyrics, "Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go when we die?" are very similar to the title of a 1897 painting by French post-impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. >>>

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  Adrian - Malta
• The Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory is a sequel to their 1992 song "Metropolis - Part I: "The Miracle And The Sleeper"." On that song, they added the "Part 1" as a lark, but when fans started asking about Part 2, they decided to deliver it. They wrote Part 2 and planned to released it as part of their 1997 album Falling Into Infinity, but that would have made it a double album, and Dream Theater's label wouldn't allow it. The band ended up reworking it in 1999, making Metropolis Pt. 2 the entire album.