Roads To Madness

I always saw this song as an amalgamation of H.P. Lovecraft characters. All attempting to search for hidden/forbidden knowledge and only upon finding it they realize their search is not only futile but deadly.

This song can only really be understood in the context of the rest of the album. It's not quite the concept album of Mindcrime, but it's pretty close. And as with all great QR albums, it's the killer last track that sums things up.

Seems pretty clear that this is written from the perspective of a typical doomed HP Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith-type mystic anti-hero. Even the title seems borrowed from Lovecrafts' At the Mouth of Madness.

It starts with a typical HPL introduction where the figure explains from the beginning that this has already taken place in the past, and he is recounting the events from some changed and maybe unpleasant perspective. He's opened up some occult portal in search of power or secret knowledge, only to discover the truth is too terrible to comprehend without going mad, and he's released some terrible entities from the other side who seek to destroy him for what he's done, and prevent him from using the powers he's tried to gain. He tries to escape, thinking in his madness he can eventually outrun his fate and become the being he sought to be in the first place, but there is nowhere he can go where is isn't pursued. Everywhere he goes (maybe to the end of time and space), he sows insanity and destruction, until he is eventually caught and either destroyed or dragged back to the realm of his phantom pursuers.

[Edit: because]

Anyone know what he's reading / speaking in the middle?

I\'m sure this tune has a different meaning to about everyone and would refect thoughts of ones beliefs. So to me it is the watchers and the giants having sarrow for teaching Gods children the knoledge of good and evil. Just what it men\'s to me.

I think its about an out of body experience. He gives it away in the very last line "I\'ve passed away" . To me, he begins by describing the moments immediately after death and then the subsequent journey to the Great Beyond. He has thoughts and visions along the way of good and evil and feels he\'s going crazy because he\'s unaware that he\'s dead. Its quite possible that Geoff Tate wrote this while on mushrooms and therfore the reference but I think he\'s really describing frustration with leaving earthly life for the afterlife and feels hes gone crazy until at the end he realizes he\'s dead.

Amazing that nobody voiced any opinion on this great classic song. My favorite sone from Queensryche and one of my favorite songs of all time. Whats its about? I'm thinking its about a guy looking into the face of death and kinda wondering what will happen next. He is certain he will die soon so i'm guessing a death sentence. Hell? Heaven? and then the scenerio plays out for both. By the way there are many mistakes in the lyrics

Maybe it is about the "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg"?

I also heard it was about the madness of the nuclear arms race, but I like to think it's about the descent into madness of a mathematician going after figuring out some complex formula of dark energy and string theory.

WTF? How does the only guy to guess somewhat correct get voted down? haha. this isnt opinion by the way its fact from GTs own mouth

The song isnt about shooting up, but it is about drugs. Shrooms to be specific.

Tate explains this himself during the Building Empires tour introducing the song as being about "something very sily-cybin" referring to psilocybin (shrooms)

This song is about fuckin heroin and shootin up and shit. Its about junk man.