Author: Tony

Back to a Reason (Part II)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)

The night seems to care

The dreams in the air

The snow’s coming down

It beckons me dare

In 2001, Savatage released the album Poets and Madmen which featured the track Back to a Reason.

They revisit the song as part of Trans-Siberian Orchestra and in the process of rewriting much of the lyrics make the song fit the narrative of the story, that of a man who many years earlier put a child who was born without the advantages that most of us take for granted in a fully formed mind and body.

And in the night and in the snow and in the dark and on Christmas Eve he’s brought back to a place in his life where he can bring himself to face what he’s done and hope that on this night he can start to build the bridge to the past, and the child, that he abandoned all those years ago.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Christmas Nights in Blue
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)

Suddenly, all are laughin’

This nights smart, always craftin’

Building bridges nearly everywhere

Hits a wall, it just builds a stairs

As with the story in Christmas Eve and Other Stories, our angel ends up back in a bar.

I absolutely love the imagery and the pure join in this song. TSO’s lyrics often ask us to believe that Christmas has a magic to it, that people will be different just because we’re at the end of the year, but his song really let’s you breathe that belief.

And in of all places the joy of being in an old bar in New York City where blues are played and everyone just comes together because it’s Christmas.

If I ever find myself annoyed because of some aspect of Christmas and craziness and spending money, this is one of my go-to songs. I let those colors all come down to one and find myself carolized…. carolized.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Wish Liszt (Toy Shop Madness)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)

In the story and in my mind, this story represents the mind-blowing madness of toy stores at Christmas Time… Back you, know, when we had toy stores.

It’s just that mania of everyone shopping and the sounds of movement of toys on display as we begged our parents for them or made a note to put it on the list for the big guy.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

What is Christmas?
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)

This Christmas trees with colored lights

Underneath they still are only trees

Do you think that one day perhaps they might

Find that Christmas is kind of a disease?

Within The Lost Christmas Eve, the angel finds himself in a bar where everyone is enjoying Christmas and being filled with joy in the celebration. Everyone save a businessman who came to the bar to rest his feet and get a drink on a night where he was away from home.

This man couldn’t be made to be happy about Christmas despite everyone celebrating around him. He found only one soul in the whole place who he could commiserate with and that was a character on the television complaining about Christmas, the Grinch.

This song is so fun and festive in the music and it just reminds me that some people seem to take a real bliss in being annoyed by Christmas, as if they are really trying too hard and looking for excuses to to be happy when everyone around them celebrate.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Who is this Child?
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Beethoven’s Last Night (2000)

I learned the trick is

That we just avoid her eyes

And the question

What she means to …

Through the course of Beethoven’s Last Night, Mephistopheles attempts to acquire the music of the Maestro in exchange for his soul. When all other attempts fail, he offers up the life of a child lying in a gutter outside his home. He lists the horrors and tragedies that will befall the child in her short life, showing that the has a claim on her soul.
The Devil then offers to make an exchange to Beethoven. He will relinquish his claims on the child and free her from the evils that will visit her in exchange for the Tenth Symphony.

This song represents the struggle that Beethoven goes through, balancing his final Symphony for the life of a street urchin that he doesn’t know and has never seen before this night.

As we know that there is, in reality, no Tenth Symphony. We can assume that we know the choice that Beethoven made, but there is more to the story and more to the album, even after this.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

I’ll Keep Your Secrets
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Beethoven’s Last Night (2000)

WHAT IS THIS THING YOU KEEP INSIDE

OUT OF THE LIGHT AND WRAPPED IN PRIDE

ALWAYS AFRAID THAT ONE DAY IT WILL SHOW

In Beethoven’s last night, we also hear from Therese. Historically, this is the woman that he composed the piece ‘Fur Elise’ for which is an interesting story in its own right, but not the story we hear here.

Therese was his pupil and he loved her, but in this story he doesn’t propose to her, as he intended with the song, but instead pushes her away over embarrassment of the great secret he was hiding, his deafness.

This song is sung from the perspective of Therese who was concerned and just wanted to be there and care for her friend who was clearly hurting, clearly in pain over a secret that she knew he was keeping though knew not what the secret was.

And quietly, not that his pride would have ever let him learn, she would have been there and her love would have kept his secrets safe within her heart.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Wizards in Winter
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)

The story of The Lost Christmas Eve brings us back to the angel from Christmas Eve and Other Stories. This time he has a mission to find the name of the person who best continued his son’s mission on Earth

He is only allowed to use is his wings to come down to Earth and to return to Heaven, so he decides to land in New York.

The first person he sees is a street performer entertaining a group of street kids, the world-weary, cynical sort who have had the belief in elves and fairies and the like ground out of them at far too young an age.

And as he weaves the tale of the Wizards of Winter and how they create the snow that falls all around them, the children recapture that part of themselves that shouldn’t have been lost, and the Wizards, through the story, work their magic.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Music Box Blues
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Christmas Attic (1998)

But the music box continues to turn

Candle in the window continues to burn

But I know they’re just memories

Like Christmas past, girl, and you and me

In the story of The Christmas Attic, the girl finds a music box amongst the letters and other artifacts. The story goes that a woman gave her love a music box for Christmas, an inexpensive gift at the time, but considering what she had it was so much for her to give to him. In the time since giving the man the gift, he’d left, seeking his fortune. This is the woman left behind by the man who was in the story told through the songs, Find Our Way Home and The Snow Came Down.

The song as it’s presented in the story is beautiful and sad and, appropriately, sung by a female artist, Katrina Chester. Within the context of the story, it’s simply called Music Box. It’s fantastic and if you aren’t familiar with it, give it a listen.

My favorite version of this song though is a bonus track to the album. It’s performed by one of the distinct voices on those first few TSO albums, the late Daryl Pediford. Between Daryl’s soulful voice and the choir that joins him for the chorus half-way through the song, I always feel it so much more painfully with this version.

I’m the sort of person who really allows myself to FEEL the music, to experience the emotions of the song. This one gets to me and plucks at my heart strings. Maybe not as much as The World That She Sees, but it’s all there.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

The Snow Came Down
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Christmas Attic (1998)

He saw the city lights arrive and fade away

While all that night

All that night

The snow came down

Continuing from yesterday’s song, Find Our Way Home, the child calls the man from the article and tells him to get on a train and come to the station in the town where she lived. Then she found the woman who used to own the house, now living next door, and told her to go to the train station as well.

This song picks up with that man’s train ride back from the big city, heading back to the town he left so many years before. He didn’t know what he would find there, but he knew that he was missing something.

All that night, the only thing that he knew and that he could count on was that the snow would continue to fall…

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO

Find Our Way Home
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Christmas Attic (1998)

And mistakes, well, he thought that time
Always would forgive
Each transgression
For his intention
Forgetting
Years he squandered
On things he now was regretting

This song directly ties into the song that I’m planning to share over the next two days, albeit out of order in terms of story.

In the story of The Christmas Attic, as mentioned before, there are various items in a chest which tell stories from the past. The item related to this song is an article about a successful businessman, someone who seemed to have everything that this life could offer in terms of material possessions. He gave his life to his business, forgoing love and family and home for traveling the world and building his business.

At least that’s how he lived his life until the number of days he had in front of him were far shorter than the days behind him. And on Christmas, as the year was winding its way to an end, he found himself looking for his way back home.

To hear the full Twenty-Five Days of TSO Playlist on Google Play Music, click the link below.

Twenty-Five Days of TSO