Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (song)

Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence (song)

"Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is the sixth song and title track on the album of the same name, written and performed by progressive metal band Dream Theater. Though the song is essentially broken up into eight movements, the track itself is one 42-minute song and takes up the entire second CD of the album. The genesis of the song came when Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess wrote what would become the "Overture" section of "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence", and the band took some different melodies and ideas contained within it and expanded them into chapters of the complete piece. The song explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses. Particularly represented are bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, autism, post-partum depression, and dissociative identity disorder.

The song also contains musical influences from classical, metal, folk and progressive genres. Some parts of the song are direct nods to some of the band's musical influences. The piece's main theme bears resemblance to the ending of Kansas's "The Wall", and "Solitary Shell" is similar to Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" and the keyboard arrangement on the acoustic intro reminds of Yes's "And You And I".

The song is the longest that Dream Theater has recorded. In order to ease the scrolling through the song, Mike Portnoy decided to split it into eight different parts, each with their own distinctive styles.

The song was played in its entirety on Score, with the "Octavarium Orchestra" playing "Overture" and backing for the rest of the piece, except for "The Test That Stumped Them All".