Sacrificed Sons

Sacrificed Sons is the seventh song from Dream Theater's album Octavarium. Written by vocalist James LaBrie (lyrics) and the entire band (music), the song is AbOUT the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

The song starts with unintelligible chattering by foreigners, an effect which carried from the previous track, "Never Enough". For the next minute or so, actual footage from the 9/11 newscasts are heard, which are broken up newscast by newscast by static noises, meant to represent the changing of channels; it is meant to emphasize the constant footage on every channel. The footage is then broken up by Jordan Rudess' haunting piano, in E minor. The lyrics by LaBrie describe the horror of the disaster, with lyrics including "A complete surprise, who'll be coming home tonight" and "Heads all turning towards the sky, towers crumble, heroes die".

This song continues the trend of the Octavarium album; all eight songs are in a different minor key, staring at F minor. "Sacrificed Sons" is in E minor, and is the 7th song on the album. The first song, "The Root of All Evil", is in F minor; the second song, "The Answer Lies Within", is in G minor, and so on. The final song, "Octavarium", is in F minor, to complete the octave.