A Penny for your Songs (2) - A Handy Guide to the Human Psyche

Week 2

Hey guys.
Last week, emboldened by the wisdom of some Steemit users, I started this little series of weekly posts where I will share some songs with the community that have that special extra meaning to me, and ideally give you people a space to do the same.

Although, as it was kinda predictable for a measly plankton such as myself, the post wasn't exactly what I would call popular, I was extremely happy with the result, as those feelings and meanings that I wanted to let out became, indeed, the means to create a connection, and to share a part of what makes me me.

Less whining, more pondering

This week I would like to go in a slightly different direction, though. I don't really feel like ruining someone's weekend over some overly sad song from my past. I'd rather leave that for some other time (of that, we have plenty). So instead I will share something that had a huge impact on my mind, my way of thinking and seeing myself.

During this week I had an interesting conversation with another Steemit user (guess who? @honeydue ! Not my fault if we keep having interesting conversations, sorry. And it rhymes, yo!) about listening to the voices in our heads and identifying the threads that drive us to act the way we do. This immediately brought to my mind an album that I've been listening over and over in the past, and that's responsible for a lot of different things in my mind.

The album is called The Human Equation, by Ayreon. In a nutshell, Ayreon is the project of one guy, called Arjen Lucassen, who composes these long progressive rock\metal operas and then invites a bunch of different musicians and singers to perform the various parts in his albums. The result is often very interesting, and I firmly believe The Human Equation to be his masterpiece.

It is the story of a guy (performed by James Labrie, Dream Theater) who finds himself in a coma after having a car accident. As his conscious self wakes up, he finds himself in front of all of his different emotions, personified, and he proceeds to re-live the events of his life leading to his accident with the contribution, or the commentary if you will, of these figures, these emotions. And he learns about himself in the process, of course.

I love this album for two reasons: first, it taught me a lot about who I am and how I process things. It taught me how to identify my instincts, my feelings, those "voices", and it taught me that no emotion is ever really negative, if experienced at the right time and place.
But this album has also been my first translation ever. I liked it so much that I felt the need of translating all of its lyrics to show them to people, and that is part of what led me to do that for a living translating. Of course, the job is not even half as fun as I thought it would be, but what job is, right?

I warmly recommend you to experience the whole thing, when you have some free time, especially if you're into old school progressive stuff (you will find it unbearable if you're not into prog at all). It doesn't really get into metal sounds very often, except in some songs (notably, when Mikael Akerfeldt lets loose his magnificent growl, or when Devin Townsend does...whatever it is that he does). Since I can't really post two albums worth of songs in here, I'll just share the opener (so I won't spoil anything for you), which is by no means the most interesting or pleasurable song of the album.

Of course the voice of Reason is my favorite.

Some slightly trippy stuff

As a little bonus I'll add a song that I've been listening to a lot lately. It's just a relaxing\atmospheric piece, but it has its perks. It will make any vacation day instantly better, it will let you feel lighter and forget about everything you need to do, and it will give you goosebumps every time that guitar kicks in. You'll know what I'm talking about.

What about you? Any songs that helped you understand a little about yourselves or that convinced you to make certain choices in life? Share freely, and have a good weekend.