"We also began a series of puns with that album, in that the King is a puppet King. There have been a lot of criticisms of the Throne over the past couple of decades as being a heritage that we really can't disregard, but certainly don't take as seriously as we used to."
Xanadu
This song was inspired by a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem is titled "Kubla Khan" and was written back in 1816.
Closer To The Heart
"A Show of Hands" brings us the third rendition of "Closer to the Heart." Is this the ultimate Rush song?
Alex Lifeson (Guitar for the Practicing Musician, 1991): "There was a feeling that the song had changed a bit. It opens up into a bit more of a ham towards the end. It probably translates better live, visually, than it does on the record. But there is an energy to it, and it's a very positive song. It's been connected with the band for over 13 years."
Cinderalla Man
From the Rush FAQ: The song is loosely based on a movie called "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", starring Gary Cooper as a man from a small town who inherits lots of money and moves to the big city.
Cygnus X-I
Where does the name Cygnus X-1 come from?
From the Rush FAQ: It is the name given to an X-ray source in the constellation of Cygnus, believed to be a black hole. For a more detailed explanation, check issue 567 of TNMS, available via anonymous ftp from syrinx.umd.edu in the rush/digest directory.
Where does the name Rocinante come from?
From the Rush FAQ: In Greek mythology, Rocinante is the name of the horse that Zeus rides. It was the name of Steinbeck's motor home in Travels With Charlie. It was also the name of Don Quixote's horse.
Hugh Syme (1983 interview): "Not as well as I feel about most of them."
"The band told me, "Go ahead, we'll see it when we get back," because they were In Wales for the whole album and all my conversations with them were over the telephone. They didn't see it until it got out. Technically, it's an abomination.
"Once again, it's an effort in the progressive area of punning. They talk about Apollo and Dionysius in the lyrics, so I figured that Apollo would be the severe, Magritte business man, and that Dionysius would, again, be the reinstitution of a figure."
The Recording of The Album
Have you ever written as you recorded?
Geddy Lee (Guitar Player magazine, April 1986): "Yeah. Hemispheres was done that way. It was a lot of pressure and a lot of strain on the brain. And it took us a long time to achieve what we wanted. In the end, we had a certain confidence that we'd never really be stuck. It's good to do that, I think. It's like on-the-spot training. "Okay, we need one more song. Let's write it." You can do it. You know you can reach back and put something together, but the more time you have to live with the material, the better record you can make."
Hemispheres
How did the lyrics to Hemispheres come about?
From "Success Under Pressure": Neil Peart came up with the lyrics for the "Hemispheres" piece after reading the book Powers Of Mind. He wrote about the division of the brain into hemispheres, with the characters Dionysis and Apollo controlling the left and right sides, respectively. Cygnus arrived on the scene as the bringer of balance.
Circumstances
What do the French lyrics in "Circumstances" mean?
From the Rush FAQ: "The more that things change, the more they stay the same."
The Trees
Is there a message in "The Trees"?
Neil Peart (Modern Drummer, April/May 1980): "No. It was just a flash. I was working on an entirely different thing when I saw a cartoon picture of these trees carrying on like fools. I thought, "What if trees acted like people?" So I saw it as a cartoon really, and wrote it that way. I think that's the image that it conjures up to a listener or a reader. A very simple statement."
La Villa Strangiato
Alex Lifeson (Guitar magazine, 1984): "I always enjoy playing that solo. I like the changes and it's a very emotive bluesy kind of solo. It too stays basically the same every night. The band is in the background modulating between two notes and it gives me a chance to wail."
What does "La Villa Strangiato" mean?
From "Visions": "Weird City" is a rough translation of the title. Atthe Tossavainen (d37690r@kaira.hut.fi): "La villa, be it Spanish or Italian, doesn't mean a village or a city, but rather a HOUSE. Strangiato is probably just pidgin Spanish, a made-up word."
jdinkins@polyslo.alpoly.edu: The song itself is based on several of Alex's nightmares and some cartoon themes. Much of this music can be heard on a CD called The Carl Stalling Project - "Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons 1936-1958." Warner Bros. - 26027-2 (approximately 77 minutes on CD). These are the original soundtracks from Loony Tunes/Merrie Melodies, mostly in the '40s and '50s.
Frank Schaapherder (schaaphe@serc.nl): The first part of "La Villa Strangiato," "Buenos Nochas, Mein Froinds!," is based on the German song "Gute Nacht, Freunde," written by A. Yondrascheck. I noted the resemblance between the two songs immediately when I first heard "La Villa." The notes until the fast part are almost identical. Also note the similarities in the titles - they have the same meaning, and the reference to German in Rush's title (Mein Froinds).
Where do the different parts of "La Villa Strangiato"
start/end?
Note: Danforth and Pape is an intersection in Toronto. Actually, it's Danforth Ave. and Pape St. This is a heavily Greek section of Toronto, and even the street names are written in English and Greek. The actual intersection has a donut place (there are LOTS in Canada) like two banks and a random store.
"La Villa Strangiato (An exercise in Self-Indulgence)"
Studio Live (ESL CD)
I. "Buenos Nochas, Mein Froinds!" 0.00 0.16
II. "To sleep, perchance to dream ..." 0.27 0.49
III. "Strangiato theme" 2.00 2.18
IV. "A Lerxst in Wonderland" 3.16 3.36
V. "Monsters!" 5.43 6.09
VI. "The Ghost of the Aragon" 6.09 6.30
VII. "Danforth and Pape" 6.45 7.07
VIII. "The Waltz of the Shreves" 7.26 7.48
IX. "Never turn your back on a Monster!" 7.52 8.14
X. "Monsters! (Reprise)" 8.03 8.24
XI. "Strangiato theme (Reprise)" 8.17 8.40
XII. "A Farewell to Things" 9.21 9.14
Neil Peart (1983 interview): "That cover was a real headache for me, because Geddy was off producing Lionel's at the time, and I think maybe Alex was away or something, and I was the only one that was around. And I kept getting these phone calls about, well, you can't do this and you can't do that, and there was, in fact, in the back of the hurricane scene there was a little Coca-cola sign, and the Coca-cola people wouldn't let it go on there, because it was too close to the semi-naked thighs of this girl, you know, this.... They didn't want the connotations of sexuality."
The artist Hugh Syme on the cover he designed
Hugh Syme (Creem, 1983): "Permanent Waves is the result of a conversation which I had with Neil out at his home in the country. We spoke all evening about Rush growing up, and how we were going to do these EKG readings of each member as they were recording. We were going to tape their temples and chests and have real heartbeats of them while they were playing. So Permanent Waves was going to be a technical statement, and we were going to treat that with red and gold foil, and do a nice study in design- as opposed to a photographic thing.
"I walked out and, in the doorway, said 'Wait! Let's try something with Donna Reed, with her permanent Toni hairdo, and have her walking out of a tidal wave situation.'
"Neil gave me this blank look and said, 'Get out of here.'
"The following day, he asked me to consider doing just that because he'd discussed it with the band, and they'd all thought it was more likely for a cover than the serious approach.
"We shot the newspaper with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman," which now looks like "(Arabic)-Daily-(Arabic)," because we got a threat from the legal people at the Chicago Tribune, who are still embarrassed about their over-anxious printing of that headline.
Interviewer: I noticed that the "Y"in "Dewey" has been changed to an "I" in the headline.
"That's because anything that pertains to that headline, according to the Chicago Tribune, is an embarrassment, and is subject to litigation if we were to print up any facet of it.
"To boot, Coca-Cola asked that we strip out their billboard way off in the background because it was too close to a cotton-clad mons pubis."
What does the woman represent?
Neil Peart (Sounds, April 1980): "The woman on the cover is really a symbol of us. If you think that's sexist in a negative way -- well, it's really looking at ourselves so I don't think it can be. The idea is her perfect imperturbability in the face of all this chaos. In that she represents us.
"In the basic sense, all that cover picture means is forging on regardless, being completely uninvolved with all the chaos and ridiculous nonsense that's going on around us. Plus she represents the spirit of music and the spirit of radio, a symbol of perfect integrity and truth and beauty and..."
The Spirit of Radio
Neil Peart talks about the lyrics:
Asked about whether he was conscious of emulating Paul Simon:
"This is where a sense of humor comes into it. I was sitting there thinking of the conclusion of the song and the parody came into my mind. And I thought, 'Well, either this is very stupid or it's very great.'
"But all it says is...salesman as artists I can see as an ideal, but they have no place telling us what to play onstage and they have no place in the recording studio telling us how to write songs...any more than a car salesman.'"
Freewill
What is "Freewill" about?
Geddy Lee ("Rockline", Dec 4 1989): "The song is about freedom of choice and free will, and you believing in what you decide you believe in."
In "Freewill" which lyrics are correct (the ones on the album sleeve or the ones Geddy sings)?
Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, December 1985): "That's a funny question. I've had a few lately from people who are so sure that what they hear is correct, that they disbelieve what I've put in the lyric sheets! Imagine! People have quoted me whole verses of what they hear, as opposed to what's printed, sure that they are right and the cover (me) is wrong. Scary stuff, these egocentric individuals. I assure you, other than perhaps dropping an "and" or a "but," we take great care to make the lyric sheets accurate."
Where is "Lotus-Land?"
Neil Peart: "Lotus-land as it appears in 'Free Will' is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a 'land of milk and honey.' It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it."
From the Rush FAQ: Lotus-land is mentioned in an episode in "The Odyssey" where Odysseus goes to the land of the lotus-eaters, where the people hang out and eat lotus petals or some such and are perfectly happy but are basically brainless.
Jacob's Ladder
What is the song about?
Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, December 1985): This song simply describes the phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, as it sometimes does after a rain or on a cloudy day. The actual name seems to be one of those traditional names for natural things which has probably been around for ages. I think Geddy actually suggested the idea to me, after hearing his mother-in-law use the name. It had a nice sound to it, and of course the event itself is a beautiful and inspiring one.
Neil explains how the song was written
Neil Peart (Sounds, April 1980): "Whereas most of the ideas we were dealing with this time were on the lesser side, and in some cases, like in 'Jacobs Ladder', looked at as a cinematic idea, where we created all the music first to summon up an image -- the effect of Jacobs Ladder -- and paint the picture, with the lyrics added, just as a sort of little detail, later, to make it more descriptive."
Natural Science
I heard something about a song called "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."
From "Visions": Apparently it was supposed to be on Permanent Waves, but was dropped and never recorded. Some bits from it ended up in "Natural Science."
Moving Pictures:
The Album Cover
The building seen on the cover is the current seat of the Government of Ontario, at Queen's Park.
Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, December 1985): "When Hugh Syme was developing the multitude of puns for the cover, he wanted the guys 'moving pictures' to have some 'moving pictures' to be moving past the people who were 'moved' by the 'picture' - get it? So he asked us to think of some ideas for these pictures. The 'man descending to hell' is actually a woman - Joan of Arc - being burned at the stake (as per 'Witch Hunt'), and the card-playing dogs are there because it was a funny, silly idea - one of the most cliche'd pictures we could think of - a different kind of 'moving picture.'"
Q: OK, let's move on to Moving Pictures, which is- Hugh Syme (Creem Magazine, 1983): A pun, a pure pun. It became pertinent to me later that the Queen's Park building In Toronto where it was shot had all the right elements: three arches, three pillars per arch; there are three members of Rush, and all of that.
Q: Who decided on what paintings would be carried? A: That's was the band's decision. I asked that the witch be in there, only because of the song "Witch Hunt," which I played on.
The one painting had to be of Joan Of Arc as far as I was concerned- which ended up being a bit of a nightmare because I couldn't find any archival pictures or paintings which were suitable. So I ended up getting some burlap, and a pine post, two sticks and a bottle of scotch.
Deborah Samuel, the photographer who I used on that session, got wrapped up in burlap so she could make her cameo appearance. We just lit lighter fluid in pie plates in the foreground. It was basically a half hour session because we had no other alterative but to do it ourselves.
Tom Sawyer
Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, December 1985): "Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be - namely me I guess."
Red Barchetta
What inspired the writing of Red Barchetta?
This song was inspired by a short story written by Richard S. Foster. The story first appeared in Road & Track Nov,1973 pp.148-150 and is titled: A Nice Morning Drive.
What is a barchetta?
From the Rush FAQ: The barchetta is a type of Ferrari race car. Barchetta is actually pronounced "Barketta", according to 2 Italian friends of mine. Another source of information is: "The Complete Ferrari" by Godfrey Eaton; 1986 by Cadogan Books Ltd.
Alex Lifeson on Red Barchetta
Alex Lifeson ("In The Studio" for Moving Pictures): "That was the intention with Red Barchetta-- to create a song that was very vivid, so that you had a sense, if you listen to it and listen to the lyrics, of the action. It does become a movie. I think that song really worked with that in mind; it was succesful with that intention. It's something that I think we've tried to carry on-- become a little more visual with our music, since then. But that one in particular was very satisfying. It was always one of my favorites. I think it's probably my favorite from that album. I like the way the parts knit together. I like the changes. I like the melody of the song. I love the dynamics of it, the way it opens with the harmonics and creates a mood, then gets right into the driving, right up to the middle section where it's really screaming along, where you really feel like you're in the open car, and the music's very vibrant and moving. And then it ends as it began with that quiet dynamic, and lets you down lightly. So it picks you up for the whole thing and drops you off at your next spot."
YYZ
What does YYZ stand for?
YYZ is the transmitter code for Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport. Every airport is assigned a unique 3 letter code, and that code is always being transmitted so that pilots can tell, roughly, where they are and verify that their navigational radios are tuned properly. These codes are also written on your luggage tags when you fly. The intro to the song is Morse code for "YYZ."
Grammy nomination
YYZ was nominated and was the runner up in the Best Rock Instrumental in the 1982 Grammy's losing to The Police's "Behind my Camel"
Limelight
Geddy reflects about Limelight
Geddy Lee ("In The Studio" for Moving Pictures): "Well, Limelight was probably more of Neil's song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time...he was having a very difficult time dealing with. I mean we all were, but I think he was having the most difficulty of the three of us adjusting; in the sense that I think he's more sensitive to more things than Alex and I are, it's harder for him to deal with those interruptions on his personal space and his desire to be alone. Being very much a person who needs that solitude, to have someone coming up to you constantly and asking for your autograph is a major interruption in your own little world. I guess in the one sense that we're a little bit like misfits in the fact that we've chosen this profession that has all this extreme hype and this sort of self-hyping world that we've chosen to live in...and we don't feel comfortable really in that kind of role."
Alex and Neil on Limelight
Alex Lifeson (1983 interview): "We were very, very careful not to let it get the best of us. That sudden success can really change you and you become lazy and you constantly have other people doing things for you and you lose perspective on why you're there and really what you're doing."
Neil Peart (1983 interview): "Success puts a strain on the friendship and it puts the strains on your day-to-day relationship, and it's something that we did go through, you know, we're not immune to it. But we were able to overcome it just through our closeness and we were able to help each other with difficulties like that and then we could deal with the pressures and things and that."
Witch Hunt
On the mumblings at the beginning of the song:
From "Visions": "It is purposely mixed so that you cannot understand what is being said, but the tenor of the situation, the hatred, the ill will, and the fear comes through loud and clear. This effect was created by emptying the studio (in the middle of a snowy night) of production staff, road crew and band, and depositing everyone in the cold outside the isolated facility. With tape recorders rolling, Neil gave his best fanatic's speech, gradually getting more and more whipped up as everyone involved let themselves get carried away."
Alex Lifeson ("In The Studio" for Moving Pictures): "We went outside of Le Studio and it was so cold, it was really cold; we were well into December by then, I think. We were all out there. We put a couple of mics outside. We started ... rauw, raew, wrow ... (starts mumbling), ranting and raving. We did a couple of tracks of that. I think we had a bottle of Scotch or something with us to keep us warm. So as the contents of the bottle became less and less, the ranting and raving took on a different flavor and you got little lines of ... you remember Roger Ramjet (sp?), the cartoon Roger Ramjet? What was the bad guy's name ... his gang of hoods, they always had these little things they would say whenever they were mumbling ... mrrblaarrr ... mrrblaarrr ... crauss. It started to take all this ... we were in the control room after we had layed down about twelve tracks of mob - in hysterics. Every once in awhile you'd hear somebody say something really stupid."
Vital Signs
Neil about the last song on the album:
Neil Peart (Guitar for the Practicing Musician, 1986): You picked out a very important thing, because at the end of an album it's impossible for us to judge which songs will truly be popular and which won't. We're inevitably surprised. And then there are songs like "Vital Signs" from our Moving Pictures album. At the time it was a very transitional song. Everybody had mixed feelings about it, but at the same time it expressed something essential that I wanted to say. That's a song that has a marriage of vocals and lyrics I'm very happy with. But it took our audience a long time to get it, because it was rhythmically very different for us and it demanded the audience to respond in a different rhythmic way. There was no heavy downbeat; it was al counterpoint between upbeat and downbeat, and there was some reflection of reggae influence and a reflection of the more refined areas of new wave music that we had sort of takes under our umbrella and made happen. That song took about three tours to catch on. It was kind of a baby for us. We kept playing it and wouldn't give up. We put it in our encore last tour-putting it in the most exciting part of the set possible-and just demanded that people accept it because we believed in it. I still think that song represents a culmination-the best combination of music, lyrics, rhythm. It opens up so many musical approaches, from being very simplistic and minimal to becoming very overplayed. Everything we wanted in the song is there. So that song was very special to us. But we had to wait. We had to be patient and wait for the audience to understand us.
Exit... Stage Left
The Album Cover
Exit ... Stage Left is probably your most ambitious cover to date, what with it reprising all your previous covers.
Hugh Syme (1983 interview): "It was shot in a condemned theatre here in Toronto, which shall remain nameless. We decided to go with the girl pulling the curtain back on the front instead of the back. It was originally intended to be the other way around, so when I flipped the photograph over, I had to write "RUSH" on the equipment box in the foreground, and I had to strip out the information on the Stage Door and write in the word "EXIT," because the album was called Exit ... Stage Left."
Is the stage shot actually from a Rush concert?
"Buffalo shot, yeah. We went out to get that, too. We really wanted the band-. Believe it or not, we went to about 15 shows, trying to get the band saying "Thank you, good night," and at the same time, and walking towards the camera."
The Album
Exit..Stage Left reflections against All The World's A Stage
Neil Peart (From "Success Under Pressure): "Such as it is, we're all very proud of this one. Everything has improved so much since our last, somewhat uneven live effort -- that was by a different group. Once again, it's a kind of anthology album; a summation of the live highlights of our previous four studio albums and a couple of older reincarnations."
Why did the band decide to make another live album?
Geddy Lee (From "Success Under Pressure"): "I guess there were a whole lot of reasons. One was that we felt our live sound had changed so much that we figured we needed to up-date it on record. I mean, All The World's A Stage was a whole lot different. But doing a live record is also a great device to get a sort of hiatus between albums and we really wanted that. We wanted to have a longer gap before going back in the studio so that we could do some writing on our own."
Alex Lifeson (From "Success Under Pressure"): "Live albums are always a difficult thing. It's hard to get excited about them. In terms of a live recording, Exit is very good and I'm happy with it in that respect. As an example of our show, it's not as good as it could have been or possible should have been. Live albums give us some breathing space to cleanse ourselves and start on something fresh and new. When we were in the studio doing Exit, Geddy and I were in another studio working on "Digital Man" and "Subdivisions" from Signals. We were already geared up for another record. I think that had something to do with the fact that we don't go crazy over live records. I don't know if you'll ever hear another live album from Rush. We enjoy the studio recordings much more than we do the live ones."
(Editor Note: As we all know, Rush did eventually do another Live Album)
Geddy Lee/Neil Peart talk about Exit..Stage Left
Geddy Lee (1984 interview): "I really didn't enjoy doing the first live album and I didn't enjoy doing this one any more. I thought I would, but I didn't. It's a very tedious affair for a guy in a band, and if you notice the credits in the album, we didn't produce the album, we didn't have anything r--, well, we were there and we sortof observed and we, you know, we put our opinion in when we thought we should, but generally, most of the chores were handled by Terry. I don't enjoy it, and I don't think the other guys enjoy it really, either."
Neil Peart (1984 interview): "Yeah, there was an awful lot of difficulty there, first of all because it encompassed two complete tours' worth of material and we wanted to span all of the last four albums, you know, fairly equally, and also the fact that there were some tracks that we had good record- ings of that we weren't able to put on, notably, I can bring to mind, Camera Eye and Vital Signs we really had good versions of, but there just wasn't space, I mean, we had to figure out so many long songs and so many short songs and songs that were almost mandatory to get on there because they were better than the original versions."