Misplaced

It's about a guy who feels like he was born in the wrong time period. He feels that society today has no values, nothing he can identify with. He feels old fashioned for valuing honor, courage, and sacrifice. He feels like a "misplaced man".

I always felt the lyrics very strongly, and it wasn't until last year that I was diagnosed autistic that I found out the reason why I didn't quite feel like I fitted right - because I experienced everything so differently to neurotypical people.

So I've ended up feeling like the lyrics are almost about not understanding why you are different, but knowing that you are, almost painfully obvious. And feeling a longing for some other time/place where you might just fit better.

Parts like "The values I should keep in high regard don't mean a thing to me" could be interpreted as not understanding the social norms of others which is the main diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

"How much suffocated anxiety can be held within?" - anxiety seems to be the prevalent emotion for most autistic people. "Suffocated" because you're continuously having to mask and pretend like you're just fine.

"How could this backward land, Learn to understand my dance, What it's like, when every single smile hurts..." - Other people frequently misinterpret or misunderstand autistic stimming and they also often don't realise how much effort and pain it can be to put on the act of appearing neurotypical. Autistic people are often hypersensitive to many senses, so smiling can physically hurt too. So yeah "Every single moment pains me..." can really fit being autistic, especially if undiagnosed!

"Always missing something, People aren't connecting"- Common autistic feeling. Like everyone automatically views you as an outsider as inherently different and so treats you that way (there have been scientific studies on this and neurotypical kids will avoid/exclude autistic kids even without knowing that they have that diagnosis, the scientists found the avoidance is almost instant after first meeting the autistic child.) The same continues into adulthood.

Basically lots of descriptions of it being painful and difficult trying to connect on a social level with other people. And just experiencing life differently, always noticing stuff, feeling like you're in a dreamworld at times because you retreat to your mind to feel safer..... Or at least that's how it has been for me over the years!

"How much suffocated anxiety can be held within?" The only thing that comes to my mind, is homosexual. "My soul's in a wrong shell" Girl likes boys, good. Boy likes boys, hes a girl in male body. Maybe, maybe not.

That's odd observation, IMHO song is about a guy, who is tired of the dull and grey world he lives in (aren't we all at some point?), or at least thinks life has got nothing interesting to offer him and dreams full day of his fantasy world. "The values I should keep in high regard don't mean a thing to me" Referring to the cycle of average person's life: education, army, job, family. Making money to consume, to buy crap you don't actually need (reminds me of Fight Club). So when he doesn't give a dangling sh!te about it he becomes parted from the society, misfit etc. "A bird without a nest".

Or it is simply about suicide: "I was found guilty to a crime against myself." Don't bash me just because nothing else comes to mind this second.

I'm ftm (female to male) transexual so this song for me has that kind of interpretation, as well as other aspects. Bits of the song remind me of that but I don't think that was the intention, then again the best songs are made to be up to the listener to interpret as to how they feel.

Definitely about the feeling of being in a wrong time period, IMO. My best friend and I have always had the constantly lingering feeling that we were born in the wrong time period, and I can truly say there is much to relate to here. This includes the values of today (education, job, etc.). Powerful lyrics, and a nice change from all of Sonata Arctica's love-gone-wrong songs.