Story behind "The Count of Tuscany"

zhifmcd

So the Count's brother is Anthony Hopkins??

Try the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter.

Do a wikipedia search for Pietro Pacciani

I think the chorus is trying to tell us something.

Maybe he thinks he's going to die, but doesn't want to? Not sure.






I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND :')

Ok, hats off to the count picture.  that's just epic. I may wear that to the meet and greet in NC.

LittleKezza


Check the next issue of New Voice for a bit more info!

K x

This is why I renewed. 

zhifmcd


That's what I don't get.  Musically the song is great, but as a storytelling device it doesn't quite work.  The protagonist appears to be in a perfectly ordinary situation, yet he fears for his life.  We never understand why.  There's no establishment of basis for this fear.  It's just like let's go for a ride, check out my house, check out my wine cellar.  Um, you thought what?  Uh, no, wasn't planning on killing you.  By the way, tell everyone about my brother and me, and how we didn't kill you and stuff.

I don't mean to mock the song--I do like it a lot.  Just doesn't hit home with me lyrically.  Maybe in time it will.

Umm...

"maybe you recall a cannibal curator a character inspired my my brother´s life" "history recalls during times of war legend has been traced back inside these castle walls whjere soldiers came to hide in barrels filled with wine never to escape these tombs of oak are where they died"

Totally logical.

The protagonist is in a foreign country and meets a random guy invites him into his car to tour his crazy old European estate. Then he proceeds to tell a local legend about a cannibalistic historian that was based upon his brother. This includes the bit about soldiers hiding in wine barrels. When they go down to the cellar, given that information, wouldn't this be a little bit creepy to hear? "All the finest wines improve with age"

TrueSagan


Thing is, JP probably isn't used to the way European people act, we are much friendlier than you'd expect, and it might have seemed suspicious to him. In some countries we even kiss people (on the cheek) as a greeting, in America that will probably earn you anything from a slap to a sexual assault charge.

Borat tried that in America and he got accused of being gay.

NOW WAIT A MINUTE MAN

that's not how it is.

I think the good Count made JP a man that day in Tuscany.

There's no lovin' like Italian lovin.'

I'm curious how they actually meet, i think that the Count is/was probably a Dream Theater fan :) , i bet he is a forum member reading all our posts and laughing :D
 

You all keep saying "The Count" and I can only think of this: "I have one! One brother! Ah ah ah!"

(/Sesame Street)

WAIT A MINUTE, MAN

I've mentioned this in another thread, but this song really strikes me as an Edgar Allan Poe homage, at least in inspiration.

The intro to the song:

Seven years ago
In a foreign town
Far away from home
I met the Count of Tuscany

A young eccentric man
Bred from royal blood
Took me for a ride
Across the open countryside

Reminds me quite a bit of the intro to "The Fall of the House of Usher". A little later the comparison continues but is inverted:

At last we came upon
A picturesque estate
On sprawling emerald fields
An ancient world
Of times gone by

Whereas the Usher estate was dead, with rotted trees and such, the Count's estate is "Picturesque" and specifically "sprawling emerald". This selection is curious, because emphasized at the end of the House of Usher is the description of the land surrounding the house as a "deep and dank tarn" (A tarn being a large, mostly stagnant-water lake), so here we have contrast between an open field and a closed body of water, the former free and alive and the latter restricted and dead. The "I" choruses later on echo the sentiment of the protagonist in Usher, emphasizing a sense of the place just not feeling right and being afraid for his life while his guide (Usher in the Poe story, the Count here) is unmoved.

Then we seem to get a switch to another of Poe's stories, "The Cask of Amontillado". The skeleton of the saint seems to be another inversion of the story -- instead of the Poe story, where we have a drunkard (Fortunato) chained up behind a brick wall at the end as a punishment(The protagonist of this story, Montresor, was also a mason, which might be a cross-reference from here to A Rite of Passage), we have a saint behind a glass wall for the purposes of prayer. The same allusion runs with the wine stanzas below in a little mix with the plot of "The Masque of the Red Death" (Which could explain the booklet artwork, at least in the Special Edition, of the red picture of the man in the hood accompanying the lyrics to this song). These stanzas below:

Could this be the end?
Is this the way I die?
Sitting here alone?
No one by my side

I don't understand
I don't feel that I deserve this
What did I do wrong?
I just don't understand

Give me one more chance
Let me please explain
It's all been circumstance
I'll tell you once again

You took me for a ride
Promising a vast adventure
Next thing that I know
I'm frightened for my life

Mirror Fortunato's situation after being chained up and imprisoned in Montresor's dungeon, but in another inversion, the Count lets him go instead of keeping our protagonist locked up.  Note that the count mentions

The chapel and the saint
The soldiers in the wine
The fable's and the tales
All handed down through time

And from here we get to the ocean sounds at the end of the story. They seem to me to be a reflection of a poem of Poe's called "Annabel Lee", which is set in a seaside location and happened to be the last of Poe's poems before his death, as the sounds are the last on the album.

Thematically, Petrucci could be using the inversions to reject Poe's dark and tragic view of life, illuminating a "people are better than they seem" theme in contrast to Poe's "people are worse than they seem" themes running through his work.

I could be (and I probably am) overreading this, but if I'm right, the raven on the album cover would make a whole bunch more sense, wouldn't it? (And of course I'm not saying that it isn't, as Petrucci said, based on an encounter he personally had, but the details he chooses to write about suggests that he knows his Poe).

Look i just read through all the lyrics, and I'm pretty sure the song is meant to be a joke. I think it's just a song about a guy freaking out about how friendly europeans are.

the music for this song is freakin INSANE
 but the lyrics.. come on, it ruins everything
its like buying a beautiful Ferrari and smashing the hell out of it with a baseball bat and driving around, it makes me want to cry.. serioulsy

I'm totally 90% sure the song is meant to be a joke. The dramatic music is just him overreacting to how freaky italians are.

Now wait a minute, man
You kinda hurt my feelings

That's ALL I can think of when that line comes around... A rather creepy Alanis Morissette nugget? :)

It's not just the lyrics that are hilarious, also the way they're sung.  I was listening on the iPod today in work and was getting strange looks from everyone when collapsing into fits of laughter at the tough guy vocals singing 'SUCKING ON HIS PIPE, DISTINGUISHED ACCENT' and then a little later 'COME AND HAVE A TASTE, A RARE VINTAGE'   It's got to be a joke surely, please someone tell me this is a joke! 

Even taking all of that into account, it is the best thing DT have recorded since ACOS at the very least, maybe even since Learning To Live.  I absolutely love this song!

This is what I get from the lyrics message-wise; the message of the song is basically that you shouldn't judge other Cultures and make rash judgments based on experience that you're given no explanation for. The last verses explain this, the essence all the Stories and Fables that JP was told scared him into thinking he was going to be harmed in some way, when in fact the Count was just telling him Stories that had been handed down through generations and how they learned from them and lived their life in a certain way because of them.
 
Basically it's a Song about Tolerance and Understanding, in my humble opinion.

Hope everyone's well,

Kev

Nick The Newbie


I'm totally 90% sure the song is meant to be a joke. The dramatic music is just him overreacting to how freaky italians are.

Now wait a minute man.  That's not how it is, you must be confused.

I thought it was confirmed (somebody tell me where I can't remember) that all the lyrics on this album were nonfictional.

ViolinTheater

Nick The Newbie


I'm totally 90% sure the song is meant to be a joke. The dramatic music is just him overreacting to how freaky italians are.

Now wait a minute man.  That's not how it is, you must be confused.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA

Why is everyone crying like babies about the lyrics? It's a totally unique story imho. Would you rather have "crossing over into eternity with the vampire of the dark eternal night" pre-pubescent crap?! I stopped reading/writing things like that when I was 13! God forbid JP should write lyrics of substance and take a chance.

All the finest threads improve with age!

joshua12


Why is everyone crying like babies about the lyrics? It's a totally unique story imho. Would you rather have "crossing over into eternity with the vampire of the dark eternal night" pre-pubescent crap?! I stopped reading/writing things like that when I was 13! God forbid JP should write lyrics of substance and take a chance.

While I object to your disrespectful and inflammatory characterization of previous DT / JP lyrics as "pre-pubescent crap," I must also echo your frustration with the distressing and bewildering fact that this band simply cannot win sometimes with its own fans. What exactly will it take to please some of you? Seriously.



-- Jeff

I think the count may be "playing on the other team" if you get my drift.

Another thing:

"Is this the way I die?
Sitting here alone..."

He wasn't alone, according to the background story, he was with his guitar tech.

   

TheNurse


Not really sure, the intro is so beautiful that I always start the song over, over and over again

+17

Smirnoff


Now wait a minute, man
You kinda hurt my feelings

That's ALL I can think of when that line comes around... A rather creepy Alanis Morissette nugget? :)

Bizarre! I picked up on that as well.....Glad I wasn't alone and crazy on that one

I thought that the lyrics to the song told a very compelling and intriguing story. But that's just my opinion... Maybe this Count just gave off a bad vibe to JP. The atmosphere that he described did sound rather eery.

ohmk

toky_world


Imagine to meet someone really deranged. Wouldnt you be scared to death? Aside from all the macho bullshit "I' beat his ass down". Normal people would be afraid.

Then why would you get into a car with him? 

I'm pretty sure the guy he got into the car with was just the Count's brother, and the dude who totally freaked him out was the count himself, at the castle.

The Count of Tuscany is a very obscure song lyrically.

I think we are missing a piece of this story that John may or may not ever disclose to us all.


Perhaps a real freaking good reason to be scared for his life.
I dunno.


I like the idea that the song is basically describing how John feels he is escaping into this cinematic situation for a while, lets his mind run wild, feels as though someone in his situation within a movie would be in for an ugly surprise... and then.... something triggers him to snap back into reality and realize that the situation he is no more than it appears to be. 
It's kind of a life lesson: not everything in your life is going to unfold the way things do in movies.


I dunno

I think someone nailed it in a review where they said the lyrics to this song were a bit like a Scooby Doo plot.  A bit silly.

That said, I don't care.  Still a beautiful, epic, badass song.

From the way i hear this song, is john looked back after the few years and realized how silly it sounded, so i believe the lyrics were not meant to be completely serious and DT may had a bit of more fun with the lyrics themselves, and as a closer of the album which starts VERY DARK the album end Quite lightly, comicly even as the "black clouds and storm" subsides

zhifmcd


That's what I don't get.  Musically the song is great, but as a storytelling device it doesn't quite work.  The protagonist appears to be in a perfectly ordinary situation, yet he fears for his life.  We never understand why.  There's no establishment of basis for this fear.  It's just like let's go for a ride, check out my house, check out my wine cellar.  Um, you thought what?  Uh, no, wasn't planning on killing you.  By the way, tell everyone about my brother and me, and how we didn't kill you and stuff.

I don't mean to mock the song--I do like it a lot.  Just doesn't hit home with me lyrically.  Maybe in time it will.

This was what I felt the first time I listened to the song. Musically, it's brilliant, but I was a bit stumped with the lyrics. Being the final 'epic' of the album, I was expecting something like 'Octavarium' but was listening to JP being frightened about a Count.

However, this doesn't stop the song from being crazy awesome. I love it from start to finish.

abydos


It's not like the lyrics are complicated or metaphorical. Should be pretty easy to pick up most of the story.

The funny thing is everyone keeps going on about how literal they are but hardly anyone can interpret them. Makes no sense

 mmm, I don't think you approach the song. Haven't anyone of you had an experience when from the first moment you just have a bad feeling about everything? (Everything about this place just doesn't feel right) and you need just few things too freak out ...

 I personally think that If I was at JP's place, knowing what I know now (after I read the wikipedia about that Count) ... Hanibal Lector - a character inspired by my brother's life ... And I see the things that JP describes in the song ... I would defenetly freak out.

 Call me a cowerd if you will, If I get into that kind of situation - I am running for the hills ...

I personally think this song is just JP's way of telling us that he thinks europeans are totally weird.

Merquise


I've mentioned this in another thread, but this song really strikes me as an Edgar Allan Poe homage, at least in inspiration.

The intro to the song:

Seven years ago
In a foreign town
Far away from home
I met the Count of Tuscany

A young eccentric man
Bred from royal blood
Took me for a ride
Across the open countryside

Reminds me quite a bit of the intro to "The Fall of the House of Usher". A little later the comparison continues but is inverted:

At last we came upon
A picturesque estate
On sprawling emerald fields
An ancient world
Of times gone by

Whereas the Usher estate was dead, with rotted trees and such, the Count's estate is "Picturesque" and specifically "sprawling emerald". This selection is curious, because emphasized at the end of the House of Usher is the description of the land surrounding the house as a "deep and dank tarn" (A tarn being a large, mostly stagnant-water lake), so here we have contrast between an open field and a closed body of water, the former free and alive and the latter restricted and dead. The "I" choruses later on echo the sentiment of the protagonist in Usher, emphasizing a sense of the place just not feeling right and being afraid for his life while his guide (Usher in the Poe story, the Count here) is unmoved.

Then we seem to get a switch to another of Poe's stories, "The Cask of Amontillado". The skeleton of the saint seems to be another inversion of the story -- instead of the Poe story, where we have a drunkard (Fortunato) chained up behind a brick wall at the end as a punishment(The protagonist of this story, Montresor, was also a mason, which might be a cross-reference from here to A Rite of Passage), we have a saint behind a glass wall for the purposes of prayer. The same allusion runs with the wine stanzas below in a little mix with the plot of "The Masque of the Red Death" (Which could explain the booklet artwork, at least in the Special Edition, of the red picture of the man in the hood accompanying the lyrics to this song). These stanzas below:

Could this be the end?
Is this the way I die?
Sitting here alone?
No one by my side

I don't understand
I don't feel that I deserve this
What did I do wrong?
I just don't understand

Give me one more chance
Let me please explain
It's all been circumstance
I'll tell you once again

You took me for a ride
Promising a vast adventure
Next thing that I know
I'm frightened for my life

Mirror Fortunato's situation after being chained up and imprisoned in Montresor's dungeon, but in another inversion, the Count lets him go instead of keeping our protagonist locked up.  Note that the count mentions

The chapel and the saint
The soldiers in the wine
The fable's and the tales
All handed down through time

And from here we get to the ocean sounds at the end of the story. They seem to me to be a reflection of a poem of Poe's called "Annabel Lee", which is set in a seaside location and happened to be the last of Poe's poems before his death, as the sounds are the last on the album.

Thematically, Petrucci could be using the inversions to reject Poe's dark and tragic view of life, illuminating a "people are better than they seem" theme in contrast to Poe's "people are worse than they seem" themes running through his work.

I could be (and I probably am) overreading this, but if I'm right, the raven on the album cover would make a whole bunch more sense, wouldn't it? (And of course I'm not saying that it isn't, as Petrucci said, based on an encounter he personally had, but the details he chooses to write about suggests that he knows his Poe).

Awesome! 

I love the song. I think its great.

Anyone reminded of the game Golden Sun at 1:43? Especially the keyboards