Is there anywhere I can hear a sample of their music? Preferably a piece that most people think what makes them so great.
Well, first, while I do like Rush I am not a rabid Rush fan. I haven’t bought a Rush album since Roll the Bones and I thought that CD was just ok.
Second, had GuanoLad posted the same thoughts about say, K.D Lang, Black Sabbath or Elvis Costello I would have responded in a similar way. (FTR, I HATE Elvis Costello) My point was that you should listen to a band before making a judgement about that band.
Third, I should have phrased my first post in a better way. I meant to state that GuanoLad needed to learn more about music history and listen to more music. What I posted came across wrong. I did not mean to imply that only people with refined tastes can understand Rush. My post sucked because it did imply that. Sorry about that, my first drafts suck.
Forth, I like all kinds of music. I like Rush but I also like the Angry Samoans, who are probably the funniest and stupidest band ever to release an album.
Last GuanoLad, I googled on ‘Rush MP3’ and found a bunch of sites. Here is one site for you to check out. I don’t know if the quality is good but it was the first link I came upon.
Slee
When I say their music is too deep for the likes of some people, I meant it. When I turn on the radio and every song I hear is about getting laid, breaking up, killing people or getting wasted in some way or another, I get the feeling that maybe the majority of listeners aren’t interested in the type of music Rush is known to put out. I do tend to listen to classic rock stations, so if it’s changed, just call me a dinosaur.
From my experience most people say they don’t like Rush because they don’t relate. Nothing wrong with that; I don’t relate to George Jones or Brittney Spears. I do like U2. Not sure if you have to be a snob to like them. Oh, and green day is fun to play around with.
Honestly, I have been put down for being a big fan so often I tend to be defensive about it. Just seems like Rush fans are a dying breed and it just makes me sad. Nobody understands, dammit!
(By the way, I don’t think my tastes are really that refined considering I have three tapes; two of which are Rush, and the third is Weird Al. )
Isn’t it a rule that Coldfire has to make a minimum of one post to every Rush-related thread? If not, then I suggest we make that a rule.
Don’t sweat it - I love Rush, and I take it as a complement that so many people don’t. 
After all, I dislike the music that many others find popular - why should I get upset if they dislike what I like?
Quite a lot of Shakespeare was about getting laid and breaking up. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Sorry, but writing songs about allegedly “Deep” subjects - and come on, the Kyoto Accord is not “deep” - does not make you a great poet or lyricist. The art of language lies in the USE of language, not the subject. Any 14-year-old can blather for hours about things s/he thinks are “deep,” but that doesn’t make them a skilled poet.
I don’t see Rush’s lyrics as really being all that impressive. They may be about things Britney Spears songs aren’t about, and they may use words Britney can’t even pronounce, but that’s not poetry. They aren’t BAD, but… Here’s some typical Rush lyrics:
That reads like bad teenaged poetry. Or:
Those lyrics are BAD. A few cliched rhymes, no real use of poetic devices at all. “People smiling through the tears”? Contrast this with - hell, I’ll just pick other Canadian bands, to show how easy this is.
The Barenaked Ladies:
Terrific line. It goes beyond the literal - this is a line that tells you more than the sum of its parts. It also evokes the familiarity of the narrator and the subject in a way we can all relate to - the dirty, unglamourous familiarity of a couple. (One thing that BNL does very well in lyrics is evoke really insightful imagery around love and relationships, stuff way more interesting than Britney lyrics. Very good stuff in a lot of their songs, even though I don’t like their music anymore.)
The Tragically Hip:
Now, ladies and gentlemen, that is a METAPHOR.
The perceive IMPORTANCE, or how much you AGREE, with lyrics tells you nothing about their quality. Lyrics should evoke emotion, imagery, and cause the listener to identify with them. Just because a song is about love and pain does not make it bad - the question is, how well does the lyricst write about love and pain? Is it just Britney Spears blabbering “ooh baby please don’t leave me,” or is it something like
I read Rush lyrics, and they just look like teenaged poetry to me. Crude, literal, ranty, and very issues-based rather than having any insight into the human condition. I can see why people say they grow out of them. I grew out of teenaged poetry too.
Really, really good lyrics are not just literal rants about the state of the world. There’s no artistry in that.
Read the lyrics to “The trouble with the trees”. I really liked that one. I would value your critical opinion on it.
Yeah, but rarely was it just about getting laid and breaking up, and he could write about other things besides.
I find this:
to be far better than this:
The first bit deals with the changing geopolitical structure of the world in the nineties and mourns what was lost to individuals for many years due to other people’s political beliefs, the other is song #1,000,000 about a jilted lover. Yeah, never heard naked used in song with a double meaning concerning sex/a person’s true self.
Why should lyrics have to invoke any of those things? I’m not saying there is any reason they shouldn’t, but why can’t they just make you think?
Too bad you didn’t grow out of teenaged thinking. You may not find Rush’s lyrics to be “deep” and find any real meaning to them, but that doesn’t mean others don’t. Maybe they’re seeing something you’re not (and in fairness, vice versa on the Barenaked Ladies lyrics).
**
Cite? Not that I’m too concerned because I often see Rush doing more than that.
Overall I’d say you’re dislike for Rush is making you come up with some pretty poor arguments for why they are untalented lyricists. You don’t like them, fine. It’s a big world and there’s no reason we can’t have varying opinions on music and still get along. But you seem to be a bit of a snob in assuming that anyone who enjoys Rush’s lyrics hasn’t grown out of “teenaged poetry”.
You may find something deep in a set of lyrics that others don’t see and yet can’t stand the lyrics of songs that others love. That doesn’t automatically make the first good and the second bad. Don’t see why that can’t work for fans of Rush.
And on a general note to everyone: Let’s remember that music is just a series of noises that people but down in a specific order. No music is innately “good” or “bad”, there’s is only what you as an individual like and dislike. I’ve noticed more than a few Rush fans not realizing that.
Excellent post, RickJay.
I was the one who quoted “Kyoto Now.” As I noted in the post, it’s not Rush, but rather Bad Religion, another group mentioned in this thread. I never claimed that it was deep, only that it was “catchy, political, and has great lyrics.” Obviously, it’s not about the meaning of life or anything, but at least it’s not another love song. I enjoy songs of varying subject matter, which is one of the reasons that I’m a big fan of Rush.
One of my very favorite Rush songs (at least in the lyrics category) is “Losing It,” about very talented people losing the abilities that made them famous:
The dancer slows her frantic pace
In pain and desperation,
Her aching limbs and downcast face
Aglow with perspiration
Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,
With just the briefest pause —
The flooding through her memory,
The echoes of old applause.
She limps across the floor
And closes her bedroom door…
Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about the things we’d like to be
Sadder still to watch it die than never to have known it
For you the blind who once could see,
The bell tolls for thee
I will admit that I still have a weakness for the song Trees from the album Hemispheres and the exploration of Objectivism in song is interesting. (One side of 2112 is a musical adaptation of Anthem by Ayn Rand.)
However, I don’t know if my tastes have changed with age or their lyrics have gotten weaker. Many of the rhymes in their latter songs (from sometime in the mid/late 80’s onwards) make me cringe. I agree with RickJay that much of it reads like teenaged poetry.
But if you want to talk about the changing geopolitical structure of the world, then talk about it. Arranging the words in the form of verse does not make it poetry or good song lyrics.
You COULD write exceptional lyrics about the changing geopolitical structure of the world, I have no doubt. I would even go so far as to say that such lyrics might be more meaningful than lyrics of similar quality about love. But these are not exceptional lyrics - there’s just no poetry there at all. The fact that it deals with something important does not make it good poetry. Observe, I’ll write a poem about something important:
Roses and red
Violets are blue
AIDS is a terrible scourge in Africa but North Americans seem unaware of its impact
And dysentery is a killer of millions, too.
Important subject? Absolutely. Insightful? I bet most people reading this thread didn’t know dysentery (e.g. diarrhea) kills millions of children a year, but it’s true. It even rhymes. But good poetry? Of course not, it sucked donkey ass. Would it make a good song lyric?
There is, I think, a broad belief that art has to mean something important to be good art, and if art means something, it’s good art. That simply is not true. My poem above proves the importance of the subject doesn’t confer quality, and you can walk through any museum of art and see paintings of fruit, of landscapes, and portraits that aren’t really “about” anything important but are magnificent works of art.
Use paintings as an example. Let’s say I were to paint a picture of a battlescape - Bosnia in 1993, let us suppose. Now, I have to tell you that I cannot paint for crap, so let us suppose my painting is little more than stick figures with sad faces on them. Is my painting about something important? You bet it is. Would it be a GREAT painting? No, it would look awful. I can’t paint.
Now look at Picasso’s “Guernica.” It’s about the same subject as my painting - the suffering of civilians and the horror of total war. But it’s a masterpeice, a work of stunning brilliance. Why, when it’s about the same subject? Well, because it’s a great PAINTING - because Picasso uses light, color, imagery and form to create an image on canvas of great artistry and genius. Poetry (and song lyrics are a type of poetry) is painting with words.
Well, I’m not suggesting Rush be banned, so they certainly CAN. But there’s nothing poetically or artistically interesting about it when it’s just a laundry list of what’s in the front section of the newspaper and/or the drummer’s personal ground axes. I mean, textbooks can make you think. Doesn’t make them great art.
Understand, I’m not saying Rush sucks. They don’t suck; their music is decently written and it’s very well performed. They are a better band than Creed, I’ll tell you that. In fact, I would say they’re a better band than the aforementioned Barenaked Ladies - Rush’s lyrics arent as good, but the Barenaked Ladies haven’t written any interesting MUSIC in ten years. But this “If you don’t like them you don’t understand them” stuff is silly, the same tired old nonsense people trot out whenever their favourite band is maligned. “You don’t understaaaaaaaaand!” I understand Rush fine, I just think their lyrics are sophomoric - bad teenaged poetry, basically. You’re welcome to disagree.
Personally, I think that Rush at its best is very good indeed - and they succeed in doing something that very few bands even attempt: to give intellectual wieght and meaning to their songs.
Take for example the album “Hemespheres”. The title tracks fuse concepts from greek mythology and physiology into a coherent musical whole - with, I might add, very good lyrics and music as well.
It works for me. If others don’t like it, they have that right. But I most vehemently dis agree with Rickjay where he characterizes them as “…just a laundry list of what’s in the front section of the newspaper and/or the drummer’s personal ground axes.” I just don’t get that sense of them at all.
In the same way, he has a perfect right to like “Guernica”. I think Piccasso is a perfect example of the “emp has no clothes” in modern art - worshipped because everyone says it is good. I think Piccasso cannot hold a candle to real painters like the Group of Seven, or a real unique genius like M.C. Escher - either in professional skill, choice of subject matter, or in excecution. I do not think “Guernica” is the epitome of artistic genius. His paintings, of which “Guernica” is a representative example, seem to me like a bunch of disjointed images strung together by a reasonably competent artist fueled by a load of half-baked theory. But I would not go around calling everyone who likes Picasso “a bunch of pretentious art wankers”; so, in the same way, I would be hesitant to call the lyrics of a truly great band “sophomoric - bad teenage poetry, really”.
As a serious Rush fan for the last 20 years I feel like I’m qualified to chime in on thise thread. I have every album, and I probably know every lyric by heart. While I appreciate all kinds of music an groups, Rush will always have a special place in my heart because of the way their music has been with me for over half of my life.
That said. Too many Rush fans act as if Neil Peart’s lyrics are some superhuman, new age religious message of clarity and higher understanding.
If you really think their lyrics are completely amazing, go purchase ‘Ghost Rider’ by Neil Peart. It is an excellent book, that is wonderfully written from the heart. And as a result, you will see very clearly that Neil Peart is very human. While he is bright, he has substance abuse issues, self esteem issues, and an occasional “tantrum” from being a rich, spoiled, brat. He has dealt with some incredible loses in his family, but he could afford to veg out, run away, and let other people run his household and life while he got himself back together.
It was one of the best books I’ve ever read because it is very honest and interesting. For example, those that are familiar with ‘Roll The Bones’ understand that the song is basically saying that “Shit happens” and not because some higher power is controlling it. But you will see very, very clearly in his book that he didn’t exactly feel that way when shit was happening to him.
Rush is an excellent group, but their lyrics are nothing more than the poetry, thoughts and comments of a person that is more insightful and smarter than most on the musical scene.
The point of all this? Rush fans, in my opinion, tend to ruin it for many of us with their fanatical and endless discussions about what sort of deeper meaning Peart meant in some lyric he probably pulled out of his ass in a drunken stupor.
Just my thoughts…and I’m fully qualified to share them ;-).
Excellent post, Synthesis.
My personal taste: I don’t care for Rush lyrics for the same reason that I don’t care for Tolkien–not much wit. You can tackle serious subjects without taking yourself too seriously. IMHO, of course.
Clearly, you have never listened to “I think I’m going bald”.
I am a more recent Rush Fan ( I began with Presto) and still high from the Vapor Trails tour ( I flew to LV to see them…for my first time!). I believe I was born the year they began… but as a gothic-euro-80spop-post-punk-loving-teen I did not have exposure to them, and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed them in my narrow-minded peer-influenced HS days.
I am now a raving Rush fan, with a husband who had listened and loved them from the beginning. He and I completed our Rush collections, me with the “newer stuff” and him with the butt-loads old. It was Rush that really got us talking because it was so strange for people in our social-genres to enjoy that kind of music. I knew I had to see Rush before they went away, and was very lucky to have had the opportunity. It was the most memorable show of my 29 years and I hope for more… I absolutely love Vapor Trails and believe they are in their prime…but I wasn’t a raving fan in the 70s… it brings me to disappointment when people say they are over-rated, etc.
I needed this thread after reading the other one, so, just sharing my story…
I’ve always contended that Rush is a musicians’ band; you need a musical background to really appreciate what they do. When you listen to a Rush song, your listening to three musicians at the top of their craft, IMHO. Neil Peart gets all the attention for his talents on the drums, but Geddy Lee and Eric Lifeson are also in the upper echelon on their instruments. In so many of their songs, you’re actually listening to 3 solos at the same time so intertwined to sound complete. I actually play drums, guitar and bass and each time I listen to a Rush song i listen for a different instrument to see what Geddy Eric or Neil are doing to underscore and drive the song. Rush uses off beat time signatures, part swapping b/t bass and guitar and incredibly crisp and tight playing to produce their unique sound.
I can completely understand why some people just hate Rush, they are really a love or despise them band… I enjoy bands which challenge me to listen to them in depth and Rush does that.
For those who were asking what songs to listen to see what people see in Rush, pick up chronicles, which showcases some of their best work. If you just want some individual songs, I recommend:
- La Villa Strangiato - uses a classical melody and warps it
- Limelight - demostrates the used of off beat time and part swapping
- The Trees - great classical/rock combo song with amazing solos
- YYZ - the definition of an instrumental song; very few people can play any of the parts in this song
- One Little Victory - the rebirth song off teh latest album, a return to what they do best
- Freewill - just a great song
- Tom Sawyer - the classic Rush anthem
bah forgot to add about the lyrics; I once heard a quote from Geddy that the only reason he started singing is because noone wanted to see an instrumental group. Neil writes all the lyrics to the songs, and I can take em or leave em for the most part, I listen for the music. I can sing every song of theirs though.