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Rush - Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres

Rush - Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hemispheres
Released: 1978

Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres Lyrics

Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres

This song continues the story from Cygnus X-1 on the album A Farewell to Kings. It uses the Greek mythology of Apollo, the god of reason, and Dionysus, the god of love.

The followers of Apollo believe straight logic can lead them while the followers of Dionysus believe that love will lead them. Civil war ensues until the adventurer from Cygnus X-1 comes across this world. Since traveling through Cygnus X-1, a black hole, his body has been destroyed but he can still see and think. He becomes upset with the war and cries out to the people, Apollo, and Dionysus. The people hear his cry, stop fighting, unite, and proclaim the hero Cygnus, the god of balance.

Kicking off the Rush album Hemispheres, this song runs 18:08 and is an exemplar of the band's progressive rock leanings at the time. For their next album, Permanent Waves, they took a different approach, with more compact, tuneful songs like "The Spirit Of Radio" and "Freewill." These radio-friendly songs earned Rush a much wider audience.

According to Rush lead singer Geddy Lee, recording vocals for this song and the others on the Hemispheres album was a miserable experience, since they recorded the music first without making sure he could properly sing over the tracks.

Rush - Different Strings

Rush - Different Strings Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Permanent Waves
Released: 1980

Different Strings Lyrics

Who's come to slay the dragon
Come to watch him fall
Making arrows out of pointed words
Giant killers, at the call
Too much fuss and bother
Too much contradiction
And confusion
Peel away the mystery
Here's a clue to some real motivation

All there really is
The two of us
And we both know why we've come along
Nothing to explain
It's a part of us
To be found within a song

What happened to our innocence
Did it go out of style?
Along with our naivete?
No longer a child
Different eyes see different things
Different hearts
Beat on Different Strings
But there are times
For you and me
When all such things agree

Writer/s: GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Different Strings

This song's lyrics were written solely by Geddy Lee. It's the last Rush song in which Neil Peart does not have lyric credit.

The song reminds us to choose our words carefully. Do not ruin what we have. Be kind, as we all see life just a bit differently, yet we're all the same.

Rush - Lessons

Rush - Lessons Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: 2112
Released: 1976

Lessons Lyrics

Sweet memories flashing very quickly by
Reminding me, giving me a reason why
I know that my goal is more than a thought
I'll be there when I teach what I've been taught

You know we've told you before
But you didn't hear us then
So you still question why
You didn't listen again

Sweet memories, I never thought it would be like this
Reminding me just how close I came to missing
I know that this is the way for me to go
You'll be there when you know what I know

Writer/s: ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Lessons

Although drummer Neil Peart is responsible for most of the lyrics beginning with Rush's second album Fly By Night, when he joined the group this song was written solely by Rush founder and guitar player Alex Lifeson.

Rush - Dog Years

Rush - Dog Years Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Test For Echo
Released: 1996

Dog Years Lyrics

In a dog's life
A year is really more like seven
And all too soon a canine
Will be chasing cars in doggie heaven

It seems to me
As we make our own few circles 'round the sun
We get it backwards
And our seven years go by like one

Dog Years
It's the season of the itch
Dog years
With every scratch it reappears

In the dog days
People look to Sirius
Dogs cry for the moon
But these connections are mysterious

It seems to me
While it's true that every dog will have his day
When all the bones are buried
There is barely time to go outside and play

Dog years
It's the season of the itch
Dog years
With every scratch it reappears
Dog years
For every sad son of a bitch
Dog years
With his tail between his ears

I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos
Or a span of geological time
Than be living in these dog years

In a dog's brain
A constant buzz of low-level static
One sniff at the hydrant
And the answer is automatic

It seems to me
As well make our own few circles 'round the block
We've lost our senses
For the higher-level static of talk

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE TOREADOR
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Dog Years

The line, "Every dog has his day" is from a 1863 children's book called Water Babies by the English novelist and clergyman Charles Kingsley.

This song (on their 23rd album) contains the line "One sniff at the hydrant" - Rush's (13th album) Signals features on the cover a dog sniffing at the hydrant.

The line, "In the dog days, People look to Sirius" is a clever pun. One meaning is that in the summer people are often serious but as written it means that people are looking to the dog star "Sirius."

Rush - Losing It

Rush - Losing It Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Signals
Released: 1982

Losing It Lyrics

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
The writer stares with glassy eyes

Defies the empty page
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage

Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision
And he stares out the kitchen door
Where the sun will rise no more

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, bell tolls for
For you, the blind who once could see
Bell tolls for thee, bell tolls for thee

Writer/s: ALEX LIFESON, NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Losing It

The lyrics refer to author Ernest Hemingway and 2 of his novels: The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club Newsletter, March 1990): "The dancer is no one in particular, though partly inspired by the movie The Turning Point (starring Shirley Maclaine)."

Rush - Beneath, Between and Behind

Rush - Beneath, Between and Behind Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Fly By Night
Released: 1975

Beneath, Between and Behind Lyrics

Beneath, Between and Behind

This is about the discovery of America and the birth of the nation. It refers to the rapid growth, immigration, wars, and American dream.

According to Geddy Lee on VH1-Classic's Hanging With, this was the first Rush song with lyrics written by Neil Peart.

Rush - Emotion Detector

Rush - Emotion Detector Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Power Windows
Released: 1985

Emotion Detector Lyrics

When we lift the covers from our feelings
We expose our insecure spots
Trust is just as rare as devotion
Forgive us our cynical thoughts
If we need too much attention

Not content with being cool
We must throw ourselves wide open
And start acting like a fool
If we need too much approval
Then the cuts can seem too cruel

Right to the heart of the matter
Right to the beautiful part
Illusions are painfully shattered
Right where discovery starts
In the secret wells of emotion
Buried deep in our hearts

It's true that love can change us
But never quite enough
Sometimes we are too tender
Sometimes we're too tough
If we get too much attention

It gets hard to overrule
So often fragile power turns
To scorn and ridicule
Sometimes our big splashes
Are just ripples in the pool
Feelings run high

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Emotion Detector

Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson (Guitar Player, April 1986): "There's always one song that you're terrified of doing. You think it's going to be really tough, and 'Marathon' was the one. We wrote it and thought, 'This song is going to be like pulling teeth once we get in the studio.' Of course, we get into the studio and it's a breeze. And a song like "Emotion Detector," which we thought would be a breeze, was the killer. It was very, very difficult to get the mood right. I'm still not really sold on that song. It never ended up sounding the way I had hoped it would. Half of 'Emotion Detector' was done in one pass. Actually, that song had a whole different solo that took quite a bit of work. We left it, went ahead with some other parts, lived with it for 4 or 5 days, and Neil didn't feel quite right about it. He didn't think that it made the proper kind of statement to the song, so we re-examined it and I gave it another whirl. That was tough. It's one thing to rewrite a rhythm guitar part - you've got stuff to lock onto. But it was so hard to divorce what had been in my head as a solo for three months and come up with something that was a totally different feel. But I am satisfied with the results."

Rush - Middletown Dreams

Rush - Middletown Dreams Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Power Windows
Released: 1985

Middletown Dreams Lyrics

The office door closed early
The hidden bottle came out
The salesman turned to close the blinds
A little slow now, a little stout

But he's still heading down those tracks
Any day now for sure
Another day as drab as today
Is more than a man can endure

Dreams flow across the heartland
Feeding on the fires
Dreams transport desires
Drive you when you're down
Dreams transport the ones
Who need to get out of town

The boy walks with his best friend
Through the fields of early May
They walk awhile in silence
One close, one far away
But he'd be climbing on that bus
Just him and his guitar
To blaze across the heavens
Like a brilliant shooting star

The middle-aged Madonna
Calls her neighbor on the phone
Day by day the seasons pass
And leave her life alone
But she'll go walking out that door
On some bright afternoon
To go and paint big cities
From a lonely attic room

It's understood
By every single person
Who'd be elsewhere if they could
So far so good
And life's not unpleasant
In their little neighborhood

They dream in Middletown

Writer/s: GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON, NEIL PEART
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Middletown Dreams

Neil Peart (April 1986 Canadian Composer interview): "I used the exact thing which 'Territories' warns against as a device in 'Middletown.' I chose 'Middletown' because there is a Middletown in almost every state in the US. It comes from people identifying with a strong sense of neighborhood. It's a way of looking at the world with the eyeglass in reverse. I spent my days-off cycling around the countryside in the US, looking at these little towns and getting a new appreciation of them. When you pass through them at 15 miles per hour, you see them a little differently. So I was looking at these places and kind of looking at the people in them - fantasizing, perhaps romanticizing, a little about their lives. I guess I was even getting a little literary in imagining the present, past, and future of these men, women, and children. There was that romantic way of looking at each small town, but also each of the characters in that song is drawn from real life or specific literary examples. The first character as basedon a writer called Sherwood Anderson. Late in his life, Anderson literally walked down the railroad tracks out of a small town and went to Chicago in the early 1900s to become a very important writer of his generation. That's an example of a middle-aged man who may have been perceived by his neighbors, and by an objective onlooker, to have sort of finished his life and he could have stagnated in his little town. But he wasn't finished in his own mind. He had this big dream, and it was never too late for him, so he walked off and he did it. The painter Paul Gauguin is another example of a person who, late in life, just walked out of his environment and went away. He too became important and influential. He is the influence for the woman character of song. The second verse about the young boy wanting to run away and become a musician is a bit autobiographical. But it also reflects the backgrounds of most of the successful musicians I know, many of whom came from very unlikely backgrounds. Most of them had this dream that other people secretly smiled at, or openly laughed at, and they just went out and made it happen."

Peart (Guitar For The Practicing Musician, 1986): "There's so much chemistry involved and there's so many intangible things that happen. There are songs where the music has been better than the lyrics or the lyrics better than the music. I think 'Middletown Dreams' is a good marriage of lyrics and music. 'Mystic Rhythms' is another one."

Alex Lifeson (Guitar Player, April 1986): "The original guitar part was laid down, and then Ged redid his bass. Because he had some time to spend, he changed some of the bass patterns. Then the keyboards came on, and suddenly the mood of the song was totally different. So, it was a bit of experimenting when it came to putting down the basic tracks for the guitar. And that one took a couple of rewrites. I'd do something, come back the next day, and they'd say, 'You know, as the night went along, we got a little bit better towards the end there. Why don't we go back to the beginning and look at the guitar part and maybe think about rewriting it?' This was constantly happening."

Rush - Grand Designs

Rush - Grand Designs Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Power Windows
Released: 1985

Grand Designs Lyrics

A to be
Different degrees

So much style without substance
So much stuff without style
It's hard to recognize the real thing
It comes along once in a while

Like a rare and precious metal
Beneath a ton of rock
It takes some time and trouble
To separate from the stock
You sometimes have to listen to
A lot of useless talk

Shapes and forms
Against the norms
Against the run of the mill
Swimming against the stream
Life in two dimensions
Is a mass production scheme

So much poison in power
The principles get left out
So much mind on the matter
The spirit gets forgotten about
Like a righteous inspiration
Overlooked in haste
Like a teardrop in the Ocean
A diamond in the waste
Some world-views are spacious
And some are merely spaced

Against the run of the mill
Static as it seems
We break the surface tension
With our wild kinetic dreams
Curves and lines
Of Grand Designs

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Grand Designs

Geddy Lee on working with Neil Peart's drumming (from Power Windows): "I don't remember any difficulty with that song. One of the best things about playing with the same person for a very long time is you have this kind of telepathic connection in a way. You know each other so well stylistically that there's a whole range of probabilities that you have in common. So if I hear him going in a direction or he hears me going in a direction, we can shift to that direction. I think we've figured out a way to complement each other so that it's comfortable. It's something that comes with time and work. And knowing when to simplify and when not to simplify. Sometimes when a bass player is playing with a rhythmically difficult drum part, that's the time to simplify, help the part cruise by playing more consistently. That can help knit the parts together. At the same time, if there's another drum part coming up where he's going to be more solid and fundamental, that will enable the bass to stretch out a bit and get more active. So it's give and take."

Alex Lifeson (April 1986 Guitar Player magazine interview): "Most of Grand Designs is one guitar that's not even doubled. We may have put it through an AMS [digital processor] at about 40 milliseconds and split it left and right. I know we did that with the bouncing echoes in the first verse, where the main guitar is in the middle and the harmonic line is on the outside. That one's fairly straightforward, except for the acoustic guitars in the second chorus. I was very much influenced by Allan Holdsworth a number of years ago, the way he uses the whammy bar to slur notes and move around. That got me interested in using one and trying to develop a style with one. So many people use it now that it's not that unique, and actually I've started to move away from it a bit. I've gotten a bit lazy with my natural vibrato since I've been relying a lot more on the whammy bar. It's time for a change."

Geddy Lee (Guitar Player interview, April 1986): "Invariably, every time we decide we're going to fade out, we start getting into the fade and everyone loosens up and the track starts getting better. That happened with Mystic Rhythms. The fade-out is about a minute long because we liked every little nuance. The end of Grand Designs is also like that. There are about 7 phrases, and they're all different. None of that was planned; Neil was doing the drum track, and at the end, the sequencers were going and he just kept punching-in and going, basically flailing and hacking through it. Everybody loved it, so we decided to keep it in. Then we had to learn to play it onstage."

Rush - You Bet Your Life

Rush - You Bet Your Life Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Roll The Bones
Released: 1991

You Bet Your Life Lyrics

Just another hunter, like a wolf in the sun
Just another junkie on a scoring run
Just another victim of the things he has done
Just another day, in the life of a loaded gun

The odd get even, you name the game
The odds get even, the stakes are the same
You Bet Your Life

Just another winner, pours his life down the drain
Just another island in a hurricane
Just another loser, like a cat in the rain
Just another day, in the path of a speeding train

The odds get even, you name the game
The odds get even, the stakes are the same
You bet your life

Anarchist, reactionary, running-dog, revisionist
Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, creation, evolutionist
Rational, romantic, mystic, cynical, idealist
Minimal expressionist, post-modern, neo-symbolist

Armchair rocket scientist graffiti existentialist
Deconstruction primitive performance photo-realist
Be-bop or a one-drop or a hip-hop lite-pop-metallist
Gold adult contemporary urban country capitalist

Just another gypsy with a plastic guitar
Just another dancer with her eyes on the stars
Just another dreamer who was going too far
Just another drunk, at the wheel of a stolen car

The odds get even, you name the game
The odds get even, the stakes are the same
You bet your life

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

You Bet Your Life

In this song the delay is synched to the tempo. In the November, 1991 issue of Guitar Player magazine, Alex Lifeson explained: "I did it originally, then Stephen (the engineer) added a little bit more DDL to one of the other cleaner guitars to give it more energy. The song seemed quite same as we went through different sections - something was lacking. We wanted to get the first verse seesawing a little more. Edge, from U2, is a pro at that." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Nocturne

Rush - Nocturne Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Vapor Trails
Released: 2002

Nocturne Lyrics

Did I have a dream?
Or did the dream have me?
Did I have a dream?
Or did the dream have me?

Set off on a night-sea journey
Without memory or desire
Drifting through lost latitudes
With no compass and no chart

Flying through hallucination
Distant voices, signal fires
Lighting up my unconscious
And the secret places of the heart

Dream temporary madness
Dream a voice in the wilderness
Dream unconscious revelations
The morning says, the answer is yes

Did I have a dream?
Or did the dream have me?
Did I have a dream?
Or did the dream have me?

Floating through a darkened mirror
Deep reflections in disguise
Soaring through lost altitudes
Without wonder, without fear

Symbols on a field of visions
Behind the curtain of sleeping eyes
On the instant of waking
Another world of dreams appears

Dream temporary madness
Dream a walk in the wilderness
Dream unconscious recreation
The morning says the answer is yes

Dream temporary madness
Dream a voice in the wilderness
Dream unconscious revelations
The morning says, the answer is yes
The morning says, the answer is yes

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE TOREADOR
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Nocturne

Geddy Lee, Rockline, May 13, 2002: "Nocturne was one of the later songs that we wrote for the record after the break that we had. There was a group of about 5 or 6 songs that came from a two week period of just what I would consider the best jams Alex and I have ever had. I really love this song, I love the drum pattern, especially the way it starts. Its kind of about the questions you can subconsciously answer in your dreams without realizing it." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Heresy

Rush - Heresy Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Roll The Bones
Released: 1991

Heresy Lyrics

All around that dull gray world
From Moscow to Berlin
People storm the barricades
Walls go tumbling in

The counter-revolution
People smiling through their tears
Who can give them back their lives
And all those wasted years?
All those precious wasted years
Who will pay?

All around that dull gray world
Of ideology
People storm the marketplace
And buy up fantasy

The counter-revolution
At the counter of a store
People buy the things they want
And borrow for a little more
All those wasted years
All those precious wasted years
Who will pay?

Do we have to be forgiving at last?
What else can we do?
Do we have to say goodbye to the past?
Yes, I guess we do

All around this great big world
All the crap we had to take
Bombs and basement fallout shelters
All our lives at stake

The bloody revolution
All the warheads in its wake
All the fear and suffering
All a big mistake
All those wasted years
All those precious wasted years
Who will pay?

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Heresy

This song is about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fall of communism in Germany, ending 40 years of dictatorial Communist rule. The song also address the fall of communism in Moscow (Russia) and details the waste of time that pasted before freedom was brought to these places, the joy of democracy and emotions of the times.

In the February 1994 issue of Modern Drummer, Neil Peart said he heard the drum pattern when he was in Togo: "I was laying on a rooftop one night and heard two drummers playing in the next valley, and the rhythm stuck in my head. When we started working on the song I realized that beat would complement it well."

Geddy Lee (from the RTB CD Launch radio broadcast): "It's that horrible and wonderful moment all mixed into one when somebody realizes that they've been, you know, had their freedom removed for so many years, and they finally get it back. It must be such a bittersweet moment. All those years.... all those lives that were lost and all the struggle, all the people that were fighting, all the years, and suddenly.... it's all over. And what do they do about all the people that did not survive, who were not lucky enough to be around when the wall fell down. It's an unanswerable question, but it's certainly one to think about."

Alex Lifeson (Guitar Player, November 1991): "Occasionally we do things that are slightly out just to give a particular character to the music. On "Heresy" I'm playing my acoustics in the chorus - especially the second chorus - to get a 12-string, Byrds kind of sound. We wanted to create the effect of a bunch of guys sitting around playing who aren't quite in tune. You can hear it in the acoustic - particularly the [Gibson] J-55, which has a Nashville tuning. Of course you're gonna get that kind of fluctuation anyway when you're playing high up the neck, because the strings are so light." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

Rush - Circumstances

Rush - Circumstances Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hemispheres
Released: 1978

Circumstances Lyrics

A boy alone, so far from home
Endless rooftops from my window
I felt the gloom of empty rooms
On rainy afternoons
Sometimes in confusion
I felt so lost and disillusioned
Innocence gave me confidence
To go up against reality

All the same we take our chances
Laughed at by time
Tricked by Circumstances
Plus ca change
Plus c'est la meme chose
The more that things change
The more they stay the same

Now I've gained some understanding
Of the only world that we see
Things that I once dreamed of
Have become reality
These walls that still surround me
Still contain the same old me
Just one more who's searching for
A world that ought to be

All the same we take our chances
Laughed at by time
Tricked by circumstances
Plus ca change
Plus c'est la meme chose
The more that things change
The more they stay the same

Writer/s: GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX ; LIFESON, NEIL PEART
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Circumstances

Neil Peart wrote this about his time in Europe before returning to Canada and eventually joining Rush. He traveled to London to go to where he thought the hot music scene was at the time. While in London, since he wasn't getting anywhere with his drumming, he ended up working at a tourist gift shop just to get by. He returned to Canada about a year and a half later. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington and Chuck - Downingtown, PA)

Rush - Broon's Bane

Rush - Broon's Bane Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Exit... Stage Left
Released: 1981

Broon's Bane Lyrics

Broon's Bane

This is an instrumental guitar solo by Alex Lifeson.

The song is named after their longtime producer Terry Brown (T.C. Broonsie), who produced this and Rush's first 11 albums. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

Rush - Vapor Trail

Rush - Vapor Trail Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Vapor Trails
Released: 2002

Vapor Trail Lyrics

Stratospheric traces of our transitory flight
Trails of condensation held
In narrow paths of white
The sun is turning black
The world is turning gray
All the stars fade from the night
The oceans drain away

Horizon to horizon
Memory written on the wind
Fading away, like an hourglass, grain by grain
Swept away like voices in a hurricane

In a Vapor Trail

Atmospheric phases make the transitory last
Vaporize the memories that freeze the fading past
Silence all the songbirds
Stilled by the killing frost
Forests burn to ashes
Everything is lost

Washed away like footprints in the rain

In a vapor trail

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE TOREADOR
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Vapor Trail

In Neil Peart's book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road , he wrote that his brother Danny read the poem Funeral Blues (W. H. Auden) at his daughter Selenas funeral, the poem contains the lines "The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing now can ever come to any good." This inspired the lines in this song "All the stars fade from the night The oceans drain away." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Turn The Page

Rush - Turn The Page Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hold Your Fire
Released: 1987

Turn The Page Lyrics

Nothing can survive in a vacuum
No one can exists all alone
We pretend things only happen to strangers
We've all got problems of our own

It's enough to learn
To share our pleasures
We can't sooth pain with sympathy
All that we can do is be reminded
We shake our heads at the tragedy

Every day we're standing
In a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past
Every day we're standing
In a wind tunnel
Facing down the future coming fast

It's just the age
It's just a stage
We disengage
We Turn The Page

Looking at
The long-range forecast
Catching all the names in the news
Checking out
The state of the nation
Learning the environmental blues

Truth is after all a moving target
Hairs to split,
And pieces that don't fit
How can anybody be enlightened
Truth is after all so poorly lit

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Turn The Page

Geddy Lee (Bass Player, Nov/Dec 1988): "It's not the easiest thing (playing and singing at the same time) in the world to do. You have to put a lot of hours into practice. As a matter of fact, on this tour I had a major problem with "Turn The Page." It's a very busy bass part, and the vocal part doesn't really relate to it very much. Eventually I got it, but it took a lot of practice. You can do those things, but you have to practice them a lot. You have to split yourself, as they say. Split your hands. Split yourself in two really, and let your hands do something, and let your voice do the other."

Alex Lifeson (Guitar magazine, August 1988): "It's more the musicality of the song than the lyrical content. For the solo I think it's the mood that's created by the music. I suppose in a way that makes it attached to the lyrics. But it's more the music that provides the trigger for what the solo does. If it's a dark, melancholy sound to that particular song, then the solo will reflect that. An example is "Open Secrets." It has that lonely mood to it from a musical point of view. I think the solo in that song reflects that wailing loneliness. Something like "Turn the Page" is much more manic and crazy."

Alex: "I had a rough idea for that, the direction and the eccentricity of the sound of the solo. It wasn't until I got in the studio that it came together." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

Rush - Fountain of Lamneth

Rush - Fountain of Lamneth Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Caress Of Steel
Released: 1976

Fountain of Lamneth Lyrics

I am born
I am me
I am new
I am free
Look at me
I am young
Sight unseen
Life unsung

My eyes have just been opened
And they're open very wide
Images around me
Don't identify inside
Just one blur I recognize
The one that soothes and feeds
My way of life is easy
And as simple are my needs

Yet my eyes are drawn toward
The mountain in the east
Fascinates and captivates
Gives my heart no peace
The mountain holds the sunrise
In the prison of the night
Till bursting forth from rocky chains
The valley floods with light

Living one long sunrise
For to me all things are new
I've never watched the sky grow pale
Or strolled through fields of dew
I do not know of dust to dust
I live from breath to breath
I live to climb that mountain to
The Fountain of Lamneth

Listen

Crying back to consciousness
The coldness grips my skin
The sky is pitching violently
Drawn by shrieking winds
Seaspray blurs my vision
Waves roll by so fast
Save my ship of freedom
I'm lashed helpless to the mast

Call out for direction
And there's no one there to steer
Shout out for salvation
But there's no one there to hear
Cry out supplication
For the maelstrom is near
Scream out desperation
But no one cares to hear

Remembering when first I held
The wheel in my own hands
I took the helm so eagerly
And sailed for distant lands
But now the sea's too heavy
And I just don't understand
Why must my crew desert me
When I need a guiding hand

The whiteness of confusion
Is unfolding from my mind
I stare around in wonder
Have I left my life behind

I catch the scent of ambergris
And turn my head, surprised
My gaze is caught and held
And I am helpless, mesmerized

Panacea, liquid grace
Oh let me touch your fragile face
Enchantment falls around me
And I know I cannot leave

Here's a meaning for my life
A shelter from the storm
Pacify my troubles with
Her body, soft and warm
Naked in our unity
A smile for every tear
Gentle hands that promise me
Comfort through the years
Yet I know I must be gone
Before the light of dawn

Panacea, passion pure
I can't resist your gentle lure
My heart will lie beside you
And my wandering body grieves

Another endless day
Silhouettes of grey
Another glass of wine
Drink with eyes that shine
To days without that chill at morning
Long nights time out of mind

Draw another goblet
From the cask of '43
Crimson misty memory
Hazy glimpse of me
Give me back my wonder, I've something more to give
I guess it doesn't matter
There's not much more to live

Another foggy dawn
The mountain almost gone
Another doubtful fear
The road is not so clear
My soul grows ever weary
And the end is ever near

Look, the mist is rising
And the sun is peaking through
See, the steps grow lighter
As I reach their final few
Hear, the dancing waters
I must be drawing near
Feel, my heart is pounding
With embattled hope and fear

Now, at last I fall before
The Fountain of Lamneth
I thought I would be singing
But I'm tired, out of breath
Many journeys end here
But, the secret's told the same
Life is just a candle
And a dream must give it flame

The key, the end, the answer
Stripped of their disguise
Still it's all confusion
And tears spring to my eyes
Though I've reached a signpost
It's really not the end
Like Old Sol behind the mountain
I'll be coming up again

I'm in motion
I am still
I am crying
I am still
I'm together
I'm apart
I'm forever
At the start

Still, I am

Writer/s: G. LEE, N. PEART
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fountain of Lamneth

The song is divided into 6 parts:
I. In the Valley
II. Didacts and Narpets
III. No One At the Bridge
IV. Panacea
V. Bacchus Plateau
VI. The Fountain

Some lyric explanation:
"Ambergris" is a waxy substance from the intestines of the sperm whale, highly valued for making perfume with.
"Didacts and Narpets" possibly an anagram for "Addicts and Parents."
"Panacea" is a supposed cure for everything.
"Bacchus" was the Roman god of wine. The Greek equivalent is Dionysus.

In the October 1991 news release from the Rush Backstage Club, Neil Peart said: "Okay, I may have answered this before, but if not, the shouted words in that song represent an argument between Our Hero and the Didacts and Narpets - teachers and parents. I honestly can't remember what the actual words were, but they took up opposite positions like: "Work! Live! Earn! Give!" and like that." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

A didact would be a teacher, sharing a root with the word didactic, which is "inclined to teach" or "teaching moral lessons." It would fit with Narpets being Parents, though, seeing as how the major shaping influences in the life of a young person are the teachers and parents, with the two often being one and the same. (thanks, Steve - Farmington, NY)

Rush - Carve Away The Stone

Rush - Carve Away The Stone Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Test For Echo
Released: 1996

Carve Away The Stone Lyrics

You can roll that stone
To the top of the hill
Drag your ball and chain
Behind you

You can carry that weight
With an iron will
Or let the pain remain
Behind you

Chip away the stone
(Sisyphus)
Chip away the stone
Make the burden lighter
If you must roll that rock alone

You can drive those wheels
To the end of the road
You will still find the past right
Behind you

The weight of the load
Try to put the sins of the past night
Behind you

Carve Away The Stone
(Sisyhpus)
Carve away the stone
Make a graven image
With some features of your own

You call roll the stone
To the top of the hill
You can carry that weight
With an iron will
You can drive those wheels
To the end of the road
You can try to deny
The weight of the load

Roll away the stone
(Sisyhpus)
Roll away the stone
If you could just move yours
I could get working on my own

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Carve Away The Stone

Repeated in the chorus is "Sisyphus." According to Greek legend, Sisyphus was a king of Corinth who was condemned to forever roll a huge stone uphill that always rolled down again. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Limbo

Rush - Limbo Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Test For Echo
Released: 1996

Limbo Lyrics

Limbo

In the middle of the song, when you hear, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?", it's a quote from "Monster Mash," a 1962 hit by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. The sounds heard at the beginning of the song (water bubbling, chains dropping and dragging) are also taken from "Monster Mash." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Limbo was the first level of Hell in the book Dante's Inferno. (thanks, Chris - Ocean County, NJ)

Neil Peart (from Jam! Showbiz, Oct. 16, 1996): "I'd been stuck on Monster Mash and we were trying to use the Internet to get the words because I couldn't remember them. One of the guys on the production team is an Internet preacher. So I said, 'Here's your chance, go get these lyrics for me.' Well, he went onto the Internet and found the lyrics - but they were wrong! In all the jokes of that, our co-producer, Peter Collins, went out and bought the CD that had a compilation of some funny songs like that. We got to listening to it, thinking about how funny it was and decided to put some samples of it in there. That's Igor going 'Goo mash goo.' We had to get special permission and pay money and everything. You think it's so strange, when you just want to make a joke, and people want you to get permission and pay money." (thanks, Matthew Daubert - Mequon, WI)

Rush - Chain Lightning

Rush - Chain Lightning Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Presto
Released: 1989

Chain Lightning Lyrics

Energy is contagious
Enthusiasm spreads
Tides respond to lunar gravitation
Everything turns in synchronous relation

Laughter is infectious
Excitement goes to my head
Winds are stirred by planets in rotation
Sparks ignite and spread new information

Respond, vibrate, feed back, resonate

Sun dogs fire on the horizon
Meteor rain stars across the night
This moment may be brief
But it can be so bright

Hope is epidemic
Optimism spreads
Bitterness breeds irritation
Ignorance breeds imitation

Sun dogs fire on the horizon
Meteor rain stars across the night
This moment may be brief
But it can be so bright

Reflected in another source of light
When the moment dies
The spark still flies
Reflected in another pair of eyes

Dreams are sometimes catching
Desire goes to my head
Love responds to your invitation
Love responds to imagination

Respond, vibrate, feed back, resonate

Writer/s: NEIL PEART, GEDDY LEE WEINRIB, ALEX LIFESON
Publisher: OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Chain Lightning

Neil Peart (from the Rush Profiled! CD): "I'm a weather fanatic - I really love weather, and I watch the weather and look for a good weatherman. And, one night I was watching it, and there are two incidents in that song that are Synchronicity to one weather report, where the weatherman showed a picture of sun dogs, and described them, and they are just two little points of light that appear at sunset, often in the winter when the sky is clear and crystalline, and they are like little prisms, and they sit about ten degrees north and south of the setting sun, and they are just beautiful little diamonds of light, and often times there's a circle of light - one line, that connects them. So they are a really beautiful natural phenomenon, and I love the name too. 'Sun dogs' just has a great sound to it. And in that same weather forecast, the weatherman announced a meteor shower that night, and so my daughter and I went out on the lake in the middle of the night and watched this meteor shower. So the whole idea of the song was response and how people respond to things, and it's a thing I've found a lot in traveling around the world, too. It's not enough just to travel and see things. You have to respond to them - you have to feel them, and a lot of the thrust of that song is how things are transferred, like chain lightning or enthusiasm or energy or love are things that are contagious, and if someone feels them, they are easily transferable to another person, or in the case of watching a meteor shower, it's made more special if there is someone else there. 'Reflected in another pair of eyes' is the idea that it's a wonderful thing already, just you and the meteor shower, but if there's someone else there with you to share it, then it multiplies, you know, it becomes exponentially a bigger experience, so response is a theme that recurs in several of the songs and was one of my probably dominant sub-themes in the writing." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)