It’s appropriate to state here that Neil Peart is one of the biggest Ayn Rand nerds that ever walked, and that many Rush lyrics are thinly camouflaged devotionals to Objectivism. Not all, but many.
You all may ponder the lyrics further; I will continue to rock out to Lifeson’s guitar virtuosity, and not pay as much attention to what the bass player is saying.
But do pay attention to what the bass player is playing, as Geddy’s bass playing is top notch.
I’ll also add to the “Wha…?” regarding Rush not being lyrical masters. I don’t know Alice’s tastes, but I’ve always felt Rush was pretty good at delivering above average lyrics throughout their history. Compared to other big rock bands like Zep and the Stones. Give me Tom Sawyer and his mind not being for rent anyday over “I’m so hot for her, I’m so hot for her, I’m so hot for her…she’s so cold! So cold socold so cooooold! She’s so cold she’s like an ice cream cone.”
“He knows changes aren’t permanent…but change is.” That’s good stuff.
…or Billy Mueller was up at bat.
Okay, it’s about a young adult of the day (in this case the early 1980’s), who is more sophisticated, perceptive, prideful, and determined than his predecessors. If you don’t like him, it’s a comment on the society he grew up and exists in, and not completely his fault.
Too late to be a hippie, too early to be slacker, what’s a kid to do but cast a cold eye on all of it? Watch out for him! Such are many of our current productive citizens.
Peart could punch out some great lyrics from time to time, unusual for a drummer. This song is among them. Many other times he is just didactic and obvious, and his drumming just plods along. You just know he isn’t trying that hard. Geddy Lee with his whining, strident vocalizations occasionally hit it just right, and this is one such instance.
There.
I’m actually not het up at all. I’m just pointing out that your first complaint was that the lyrics were nonsensical, and now your complaint is that they are… overly sensical. It really matters zip to me if you like or dislike the song.
I like the song (it was the first Rush song I learned to play on the drums), but it bothers me that it is so overplayed and that it has become the song the band is best known for. Witch Hunt and The Camera Eye, as Sam Stone noted, are much better songs musically and lyrically from the same album, but you’ll probably never hear them on the radio. Likewise, you may occasionally hear Limelight as well, but they won’t use that one in car commercials either.
Sam, how about “Grim faced and forbidding, their faces closed tight. An angular mass of New Yorkers.” Whenever I’m in a crowd on a large city street (okay, except for Toronto) that song comes back to me. “My feet catch the pulse and the purposeful stride.”
“Nonsensical” was not the right word. I think “nonsense” is maybe more what I was thinking of.
It’s like the lyrics are trying WAAAAAY too hard to say something without actually saying something. However, I suppose, were I a young rebelious fella perhaps I would identify with them more.
That being said, I’m surprised more people aren’t giving props to Rush’s instrumentation - IMHO that’s where they’re great. Of course, I’m not exactly an expert on these things. 
the lyric
“…his mind is not for rent
to any god or government…”
is definitely a reference to John Galt of ATLAS SHRUGGED.
I recall really liking the song years ago. I clicked over to read the actual lyrics. I am currently rereading Atlas Shrugged. My response to the lyrics was “wow, read Ayn Rand much?” BEFORE I read your post.
I’m pretty gobsmacked that anyone would think that Rush isn’t far above the crowd lyrically. The fact their songs have actual words should count for a bunch.
Then again, I had occasion lately to reread some Boston lyrics. I didn’t have a clue that someone was a fan of AA, being clean and sober, etc.
I like Rush’s mid-career lyrics. The early stuff, like the stuff on 2112 sounds like someones reading a Dungeons and Dragons Module.
I don’t even think Neil Peart thinks he’s a particularly talented lyricist. I’ve heard him dismiss his lyrics as a very small part of what he does, something he spends a couple of weeks on every few years, and only then because the other two have even less inspiration. It seems to me that he has about three or four not particularly interesting ideas which he recycles endlessly. His lyrics are just so cold and joyless. Good songs should have some emotion behind them.
And so what that they have “actual words”? “Womp-bomp-a-loom-op-a-womp-bam-boom” is a far better line than anything Peart ever wrote.
This used to be true, but it hasn’t been for many years. Studying Rush lyrics from their earlier era (2112, “The Trees,” “Red Barchetta,” etc.) you can see a clear Objectivist slant to many of them, but as he got older he moved further away from the viewpoint and hasn’t claimed Objectivist beliefs for more than 15 years.
There is a good bit of that, but I’ll forgive them because By-Tor and the Snowdog rocks hard, as does 2112. 2112 is in fact most clearly linked to Ayn Rand, rather than to the D&D type stuff, as is Anthem, from Fly by Night. I hate Ayn Rand.
Peart seemed to grow out of this Randian individualism by the time he was writing things like “In different circles we keep holding our ground. Indifferent circles, we keep spinning round and round and round,” and “Hand over fist, paper around the stone, scissors cut the paper and the rock must stand alone.”
Speaking of By-Tor and the Snowdog, I wanted to be either By-Tor or the Snowdog when I signed up for the board, but the names were already taken. Yet, in my time here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen either one of those folks. S’okay, though, I think I’ve come to like Hentor the Barbarian pretty well, although I don’t really every go snowshoe-ing.
There’s possibly an argument to be made for this, although I’d need to see it to be convinced. It seems to me that he finds novel ideas to explore.
They might be lacking in joy, but joy is not the only emotion. I think that the lyrics to Witch Hunt evoke very well the mood of the song. Like I said before, The Camera Eye captures the feelings of being an individual and encountering modern society very well. And Analog Kid is a very joyful song, in my opinion.
But yes, I agree that if you are looking for a light and airy kind of joy as a matter of course, you’ll not find it in Rush lyrics. Probably it is better that you stick with “Womp-bomp-a-loom-op-a-womp-bam-boom” or even “mmmm-bop, bop, doo-bop…” or “blue dabba dee dabba di”.
So what does this mean?
Because it’s a given. All three of Rush’s members are widely considered to be among the best players of their respective instruments.
I was thinking more of Lenny Kravitz (who, IMHO, can write a chorus but his songs are disgustingly repetitive) when I was mentally thinking about the lyrics of Rush vs. other fodder.
It has always seemed to me that Rush makes the music Rush wants to make. They aren’t artfully packaged in a predetermined cubby and thrust down our throats via Clear Channel. When I was but a wee lass, very rarely were bands such as Rush or Ozzy Osbourne played on the Radio. It weirds me out that now Ozzy’s songs can be used to pimp Cadillacs. I’ve always liked the individuality of Rush. In a childhood room filled with posters, the main poster I had was of Neil Peart in his drum kit. No, I don’t play drums, no he wasn’t there for his looks, no I didn’t have a crush on him, but the boy could play a mean drum.
Boston and Rush are two bands I would love to see in an open air arena. When I hear their music it seems to extend beyond the bounds of construction. The idea of their music being played out to the universe always appealed to me. My small contribution was sitting on a Smoky Mountain overlook, perched on the top of the truck, blasting out their music to the tune of my teen angst.
Believe it or not, Roger Waters (who wrote most of Pink Floyd’s post-Barrett material) wasn’t much of a drug user. As I recall, he said he’d taken LSD only once; my extremely cursory reseach doesn’t turn up a cite on that, but I did find this interview with Richard Wright, Pink Floyd’s keyboardist, who says:
Granted, he’s got an interest in downplaying the extent of his own drug use, but he seems pretty up-front about things in that interview.
Ah, but in the book, we’re supposed to be DISGUSTED by Tom’s antics. Huck wants to go up and unlock Jim’s door, Tom wants to make it into an adventure, as he is wont to do. How deep do you want to go with this one? Is it the Old World (Tom) versus the New World (Huck)? Huck is a pragmatist. If there’s one philosophy that the United States embraced, it was pragmatism.
Heh…that was my first thought as well.
Ditto. Neal Peart (circa A Show Of Hands) was the best drummer in rock. I haven’t paid much attention since the early 90s, so I haven’t got anything for comparison now and he may still be the best.