Twelve-step Suite

One song was featured on each Dream Theater studio album from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence to Black Clouds & Silver Linings.

I would never let my drinking and partying get in the way of my playing or my work with the band ... For fifteen years straight I drank and drugged every single day.

He found the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program (which he considers to have "saved his life"),[4] and made it a priority to attend meetings while touring.

After he stopped drinking, Portnoy decided to write a suite of tracks describing the twelve-step program which would span several albums.

Portnoy started with an initial lyrical idea for the entire Suite, but musically the band "approached it fresh" when writing each track.

[6] Before leaving Dream Theater in 2010, Portnoy had planned to play the Twelve-step Suite in its entirety following the Black Clouds & Silver Linings tour.

[10] In May 2014, during an interview for Eddie Trunk’s "Trunk Nation", Portnoy commented on the outcome of American heavy metal band Queensrÿche’s feud (which resulted in the band's ex-vocalist Geoff Tate retaining the rights to the albums Operation: Mindcrime and Operation: Mindcrime II) and said that he would like to have done the same with his Suite when leaving Dream Theater.

[12] The weekend before entering the studio to start work on Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, John Petrucci and Portnoy saw Pantera perform at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City.

Portnoy considers it to be "an archetypal Dream Theater track, tidily mixing heavy riffs with some progressive moments".

Steve Hogarth, Steven Wilson, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Corey Taylor, Daniel Gildenlöw, Neal Morse, David Ellefson, and Chris Jericho all contributed apologies which featured in the final track, while Jon Anderson delivered a "melodic mantra".

[17] Portnoy was disappointed that Dave Mustaine, Geoff Tate, Bruce Dickinson and James Hetfield declined his invitation, but was pleased with the final list of contributors.

Portnoy considers the track as the Suite's "grand finale"[5] and "knew it would really be made up of all the musical and lyrical references from the past, and bring them all together to wrap it all up".

[5] All lyrics are written by Mike Portnoy; all music is composed by John Petrucci, John Myung, Jordan Rudess, and Mike Portnoy (except "The Root of All Evil" and "Repentance," composed by Dream Theater)Dream Theater Guest spoken words on "Repentance" Production