Interrupted Urlinie as Narrative in the Music of Dream Theater

This research is a Schenkerian analysis of Dream Theater’s “Scene Eight: The Spirit Carries On” from their concept album “Metropolis Part 2: Scenes from a Memory" (hereafter SFAM). A voice leading reduction reveals that the song is in D major — the primary tonic key of the album — but twice fails to descend down to 1̂, subverting the tonic arrival by a leap up to 5̂. This melodic subversion is a text-expressive device with significant implications of narrative in the plot of SFAM.