Umm… bob2_2, it’s Alex Lifeson, not Eric. (:
bah, yeah my bad; thats what i get for posting at 1am.
Leave out the fiction
The fact is this friction
Can only be worn by persistence
Leave out conditions
Courageous convictions
Will drag this dream to existence
-Vital Signs
I see the Middle Kingdom - between Heaven and Earth
Like the Chinese call - the country of their birth
We all figure that our homes - our homes are set above
Other people than the ones - the ones we know and love
Better the pride that resides - in a citizen of the World
Than the pride that divides - when a colorful rag is unfurled
-Territories
Science like Nature - must also be tamed
With a view towards its preservation
Art as expression - not as market campaigns
Will still capture our imaginations
The most endangered species - the honest man
Wi-ill still survive annihillation
-Natural Science
It’s cold comfort - for the ones without it
To know how they struggled - how they suffered about it
If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane
-Mission
We’ve got nothing to fear but fear itself?
Not pain, not failure, not fatal tragedy?
Not the faulty units in this mad machinery?
Not the broken contacts in emotional chemistry?
With an iron fist in a velvet glove
We are sheltered under the gun
In the glory game - on the power train
Thy kindom’s will be done
-The Weapon
Seeing “Rush” in quotes in the thread title keeps making me want to come in here and defend the Jason Patric /Jennifer Jason Leigh movie where they are undercover cops in the drug world.
It’s actually not bad from what I remember. The grittiness is palpable.
Now back to your Rush discussion. (Not “Rush” discussion).
Hey kids, you’ll never convince anyone by just quoting the lyrics.
In a sense I agree with Rick, and I’ve been a fan for decades (literally). Rush lyrics are smart. They are frequently not clever. And there’s can be a difference. However much the three members of Rush might actually have fun and enjoy themselves on stage and off the sometimes take the music so seriously it can leech some life out of it.
Actually, Jonathan Chance (aka Tommy Shaw), it’s up to those who think they suck to do the convincing.
Oh, and that may be true. But just quoting several passages isn’t going to do any good.
Feel free to continue…but that comes perilously close to preaching to the converted.
The rich didn’t want to see the world; they’d made it such a mess
They covered their windows with mother-of-pearl to deflect the ugliness
It was then that the witchhunt started and clarity fell out of fashion
It was whispered that the rich regarded our lot with suspicion
They took away our permits and imposed a window tax
The people became like hermits sitting in their pitch-black flats
And though we remained intransigent and our pride in our work lived on
There was a series of mysterious accidents and we died off one by one
–Momus, The Last of the Window-Cleaners
I prefer clever and political. And I agree with Jonathan.
My thanks to RickJay for saying so well what I’ve always felt. I’ve listened to Rush. I’ve listened to Rush for better than twenty years.
I appreciate the skill that all the members of Rush possess. I will even resist the urge to criticize that Neil Peart is quantifiably the world’s greatest drummer (okay, I can’t resist, he isn’t. No one is). He does possess a level of mastery of his craft of drumming that no one can rightly deny. Does that make him a better drummer than Bernard Perdie? I can’t say anything to convince you otherwise. I’m not going to say that Peart’s drumming lacks soul, as that is a cop out. But the realm of music is hardly a level playing field, and to compare Peart, to someone like, say, one of my favorite drummers, Joey Baron, is just ridiculous. All I know is they’re both better than me.
I, personally, do not care for the lyrics of Rush. I won’t restate what RickJay has so carefully stated, and so well. Please, don’t tell me that I don’t get it. Really, I do. Would you like to see my record collection? This doesn’t mean that the lyrics of Rush are bad, though some may argue that. But every lyric I’ve read that’s been posted, to me, speaks very literaly about a specific event, in a manner that doesn’t invite much reflection outside of the event itself.
Here’s a sample of some lyrics by the supremely underrated group, the Mekons, pulled from their website , which unfortunately won’t let me link directly to a song (sections omitted to avoid breaking any board rules about song lyrics). I’m not saying they’re better than Rush, but this is what I personally look for in lyrics; it’s not a book report of emotion or event, it’s, well, it’s poetry.
I read a good review of the show Frasier, which I really enjoy. But let’s be honest, making jokes about expensive restaurants and classical music does not, in a of itself, make the show any more sophisticated than Three’s Company. The humor still derives from the same misunderstandings and miscommunications. For me, kind of like Rush’s lyrics. Sophisticated subject, lackluster delivery. Arguing about poetry becomes a bit pointless, as I understand it’s all a matter of taste. But, please, don’t say that because I don’t like Neil’s lyrics that I don’t get it. I do. I just prefer someone to whisper it in my ear instead of hitting me on the back of the head with a board.
Don’t get me wrong. I think there’s wisdom in some of Peart’s writing. He delivers some lines that make people think about the basics of their beliefs and that’s always valuable. I just wish he used the language better.
That said, the vast vast vast majority of rock and roll lyrics are in the same boat. They lack the power to deliver without the emotional assist of the music behind them.
Very well said.
I’m actually pussy footing around in posting my response to RickJay. I’ll post a complete response eventually, but he’s making a definitive claim lyrics are bad (“Those lyrics are BAD.”) if they are not poetic. And I’m saying that’s BS. While it is debatable that the best lyrics are poetic that doesn’t mean if they aren’t they’re bad.
The Beatles, Paperback Writer
Now what is poetic about that? And yet few people would call those bad lyrics.
I’m not claiming that some people don’t “get” Rush’s lyrics, and I can understand that giving a literal account of the world’s economy in a song can be off putting to many people. I just don’t think that you can come up with an objective measure of the quality of lyrics that RickJay and others are claiming.
I’ll chime in and second RickJay’s emotion.
Of course there are no objective standards by which to judge lyrics. But one applies the same critical methods one uses when evaluating any art, like painting, writing, and music. C’mon, we all should be able to recognize trite when we see it.
And I say all this as a Rush fan since 1978. Okay, so Neil’s not the greatest lyric writer. I can live with that. It doesn’t bother me at all when I’ve got “The Spirit of Radio” or “Limelight” cranked up. It’s just rock. Some rock lyrics err on the side of dumbness (Foreigner, Bad Company) and some err on the side of pretension (Rush, Zeppelin) and some don’t mean a whole lot but just sound good (Yes).
I don’t think there’s any shame in a Rush fan admitting that there are more than a few embarassingly bad lyrics in their canon. It doesn’t bother me. I think Neil would probably admit to as much himself.
<<<<I have never heard their music. I would not recognise any of their songs as being by Rush.
This, I feel, is an indicator of how good they are - they just don’t get heard.
Good bands get heard.>>>
this makes me laugh…he must be right, tho. that is why no one ever heard of britney spears. also, that’s why john mclaughlin and jack bruce are on MTV all of the time. only the great get heard.
now, down to business. rush is great, no rush is GREAT!!!
no need to embarrass yourself by arguing otherwise. there is a caveat with that. they have a bunch of crap. sorry, them’s the facts. but, their good easily outweighs the bad. tenfold.
we are trying to defend them, but it isn’t easy. how can one defend ANY rock musician? i don’t think that it can be done. try and explain robert plant’s singing. he blew, but at the time he was answering a need of the audiences and developed quite a big reputation in the pantheon of the great. but, if you know what rush is about, and that isn’t easy to define in a newsboard, then you know that rush is celestial. their bad lyrics were tripe, but their good lyrics were great. IIRC, i heard in the 80s that some of the required curriculum for the high school english classes included a bunch of rush poems/lyrics. they do have bona fides as intellectuals, but that is in the context. do not get lured into the trap that we have to use their social statements to qualify them. that is not rush’s point. if social statement was what rock and rollers were about, they wouldn’t be charging half a testicle for their tickets. Rush is about rushness! Like the old saying goes "Don’t try to teach a pig to play the harmonica. it wastes your time and annoys the pig. the people who dis rush are probably the ones who think that rolling stone is the ultimate canon for rock. if people are so wrenched out of joint that they have to discount rush’s greatness, then our work here is done!