“Silent Lucidity” by the progressive metal band Queensrÿche will be the point of discussion today.  The song was released on Valentine’s Day in 1991 and was on their triple platinum selling album ‘Empire’.  “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s top selling single ever in the U.S. where it reached #1 on the Album Rock Tracks and all the way to #9 on the Billboard Top 100.  The song was even nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Song.

The version I have is a 2 CD set out of the UK. It was released individually each a week apart, but the version I have has them both compiled in to one set. In the UK, it doesn’t look like this was released until August 1992. There is supposed to be a Free Fold-Out Banner Poster, however, my version does not have it included…darn it. In the 2 CD set, “Silent Lucidity” kicks off both discs so we will only discuss the song once. The set then has three songs from ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ all performed Live and one bonus track called “Last Time in Paris”.

“Silent Lucidity” was a ballad, which was not something the band was known for doing.  The song is absolutely beautiful with the whole lullaby feel, the wonderful orchestration added and lastly, Geoff Tates vocals perfectly fit the mood of the song.  It felt like you were in a dream state while listening to the song which was exactly the impact the band was intending.

The song was supposedly inspired by the book ‘Creative Dreaming’ by Patricia Garfield, PhD which explains how to control your dreams…which I don’t think I have ever been able to do that.  The song is about lucid dreaming which is the where you are actually aware that you are dreaming and as the book states, you can actually have control over parts of the dream.  During the song, there is actually a voice that is explaining how to do just that.  They state…”Visualize your dream. Record it in the present tense. Put it into a permanent form. If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve dream control.”

The song started out as really just acoustic guitars and vocals.  It was late in the process that the orchestration was added to really take the song to the dream-like state.  They even added at the 5:26 point in the song Brahms’ Lullaby which is quite possibly played by a cello.  The orchestration was done by the great Michael Kamen who you might have heard of if you are big into movie scores as he is slightly famous for that kind of work. An interesting factoid, the song almost didn’t make the record as the producer wasn’t overly thrilled with where they were with the song, but thankfully, the boys in the band persisted and the song ended up there and was one of their biggest hits.  Funny how that sometimes works out.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jhat-xUQ6dw%3Fsi%3DoX6PHeEHAkM_09E_

The next two songs are “Eyes of A Stranger” and “Operation: Mindcrime” which are from the band’s prior album called ‘Operation: Mindcrime’. For those that don’t know, ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ was a concept album and the song, “Eyes of a Stranger” was the final track on the album and a culmination of the whole album story. You can read more at my post on the 12″ single – “Eyes of a Stranger”. The other song talks about how Dr. X, the head of the mysterious organization, is able to have mind control over the protaganist, Nikki. These versions are live, but it doesn’t state where and when it was recorded as there are no notes on the song. I want to say these live tracks have to be from ‘Operation: Livecrime’ which was recorded back in 1991.

The second CD kicks off with “Silent Lucidity” as well, but we discussed that above. The next track is another live version of a song from ‘Operation: Mindcrime’. This one is “Suite Sister Mary” and is one of my favorites. The song is tells the tale of when Nikki was ordered to kill the nun Mary and the Priest when Dr. X discovered how much Nikki was falling for her and she was going to disrupt their plans. Does he kill her??? You need to listen to the album and find out. They call it “Suite” as it is just that. A 10 minute track that is very orchestrated and almost operatic. A brilliant track with Pamela Moore on vocals accompanying Geoff Tate.

Then we get one of all time favorite B-Sides from the band, “Last Time in Paris”. It is a straight up rocker with some killer playing by DeGarmo and Scott Rockenfield on drums. Geoff struts through those vocals in the only way he can with gusto and such killer vocal harmonics. The song now makes me think of my trip to Paris and makes me want to go back every time I hear it. I see why it didn’t make the album ‘Empire’ as the sonics of it don’t match, but it is better than some of the songs on the album in my opinion.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tR42l1bPsvM%3Fsi%3D_pspYIOrnGSQzP1m

And that is the 2 CD set for the single “Silent Lucidity”. Now, there is nothing on here that hasn’t been released before so not a necessity, but still killer nonetheless. I like having the UK version and in looking at Discogs, this version is not even listed correctly I don’t think. It shows this is strictly CD 1. Who knows, but I like it. Thanks for hanging around as I walked through this one. If it is Queensryche and I am out and see it, I’m going to buy it if I don’t have it so hopefully we will get more stuff down the line.