Songs Lyrics and YT- Youtube Music Videos

Rush - Force Ten

Rush - Force Ten Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hold Your Fire
Released: 1987

Force Ten Lyrics

Tough times demand tough talk
Demand tough hearts demand tough songs
Demand

We can rise and fall like empires
Flow in and out like the tide
Be vain and smart, humble and dumb
We can hit and miss like pride

We can circle around like hurricanes
Dance and dream like lovers
Attack the day like birds of prey
Or scavengers under cover

Look in
To the eye of the storm
Look out
For the force without form
Look around
At the sight and the sound
Look in look out look around

We can move with savage grace
To the rhythms of the night
Cool and remote like dancing girls
In the heat of the beat and the lights

We can wear the rose of romance
An air of joie de vivre
Too-tender hearts upon our sleeves
Or skin as thick as thieves'

Rising falling at Force Ten
We twist the world and ride the wind

Look in
Look the storm in the eye
Look out
To the sea and the sky
Look around
At the sight and the sound
Look in look out look around

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

Force Ten

Geddy Lee (on Rockline, 10/5/87): "It was more or less an afterthought in the writing stage. We took two months to do all of our writing and preproduction, you know, preparation for the making of the record, and we had nine songs, and we had about a day and a half left of time booked before we were supposed to leave and get ready to make the record. And our producer and all of us were pushing for ten tracks on the album, and some lyrics had been submitted to us by a friend of ours, Pye Dubois, who co-wrote 'Tom Sawyer' with us in years gone by. And Neil was able to put some of his own thoughts to one of the songs that he had and present it to us in the morning of the last day that we were there, and we loved the results, so we got together and brainstormed for about 2 or 3 hours, and we had Force Ten."

When asked what the title meant, Neil Peart said: "The Beaufort scale - look it up!"

Peart: "The song expresses ways to face barriers and urges people not to be afraid of failure - one of our basic temperamental traits."

Geddy Lee (Bass Player, 1987): "Before I had a visit from Jeff Berlin, who's a friend, on the tour I had the opportunity to watch him goofing around backstage with a bass, and was just amazed at his knowledge of bass chords. That's something I had never really exploited in my playing, so he inspired me to play around more with it. He probably doesn't know it, and would be embarrassed to hear it. I ended up using bass chords on "Force Ten" and "Turn The Page." Not so much in the sense of strumming them as using my thumb more, almost like a fingerpicking style of playing, which is something that I'm still working on. Just plucking with my thumb and going back and forth between the thumb and the first two fingers and pulling. Almost like a snapping technique. It's opened up a bit more range for me. There's more melodic possibilities and rhythmic possibilities too, which is an important role for the bass player. If you can establish not only a melody but a rhythmic feel, that's an extra tool."

The song opens with the sound of a jackhammer. The session keyboard player Andy Richards had a sample of it that the band used. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

Rush - Vital Signs

Rush - Vital Signs Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Moving Pictures
Released: 1981

Vital Signs Lyrics

Unstable condition
A symptom of life
In mental
And environmental
Change

Atmospheric disturbance
The feverish flux
Of human interface
And interchange

The impulse is pure
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference

Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence

A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity

Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm

An ounce of perception
A pound of obscure
Process information
At half-speed

Pause
Rewind, replay
Warm memory chip
Random sample
Hold the one you need

Leave out the fiction
The fact is
This friction
Will only be worn by persistence

Leave out conditions
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence

A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a soft filter
Everybody need reverse polarity

Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm

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

Vital Signs

Neil Peart (Guitar for the Practicing Musician, 1986): "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." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

In the Moving Pictures tour book, Peart added: "'Vital Signs' was the ultimate result, eclectic in the extreme, it embraces a wide variety of stylistic influences, ranging from the sixties to the present. Lyrically, it derives from my response to the terminology of 'Technospeak,' the language of electronics and computers, which often seems to parallel the human machine, in the functions and interrelationships they employ. It is interesting, if irrelevant, to speculate as to whether we impose our nature on the machines that we build, or whether they are merely governed by the inscrutable laws of Nature as we. (Perhaps Murphy's Laws?) Never mind!" (thanks, Nathan - Wichititty, KS)

Vocalist Geddy Lee recalled to The Plain Dealer newspaper in a 2011 interview: "That was a hoot to write. We wrote it in about 5 minutes in the studio. We just put it together quickly and had a lot of fun doing it. It's still fun to play. It's the quirkier side of Rush's sound, and I think there's always a need for that, to give your sound diversity."

Rush - Available Light

Rush - Available Light Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Presto
Released: 1989

Available Light Lyrics

The restless wind
Has seen all things
In every kind of light
Rising with the full Moon
To go howling through the night

The sleepless wind
Has heard all things
Between the sea and sky
In the canyons of the city
You can hear the buildings cry

Oh the wind can carry
All the voices of the sea
Oh the wind can carry
All the echoes home to me

Run with wind and weather
To the music of the sea
All four winds together
Can't bring the world to me
Chase the wind around the world
I want to look at life
In the Available Light

Play of light
A photograph
The way I used to be
Some half-forgotten stranger
Doesn't mean that much to me

Trick of light
Moving picture
Moments caught in flight
Make the shadows darker
Or the colors shine too bright

Oh the light can carry
All the visions of the sea
Oh the light can carry
All the images to me

Run to light from shadow
Sun gives me no rest
Promise offered in the east
Broken in the west
Chase the sun around the world
I want to look at life
In the available light

All four winds together
Can't bring the world to me
Shadows hide the play of light
So much I want to see
Chase the light around the world
I want to look at life
In the available light

I'll go with the wind
I'll stand in the light

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

Available Light

Geddy Lee (Guitar World, March 1990): "On a tune like 'Available Light,' where the bass just provides some simple, low-end support, I'd rather play the keyboards and sing. It's just a question of what instrument will be rewarding to play from a player's point of view. If the keyboard is simply playing a strict, four-chord repeating pattern, then I'd rather just program it into some MIDI pedal and have some fun playing bass." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Anagram

Rush - Anagram Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Presto
Released: 1989

Anagram Lyrics

There's a snake coming out of the darkness
Parade from paradise
End the need for Eden
Chase the dreams of merchandise

There is tic and toc in atomic
Leaders make a deal
The cosmic is largely comic
A con they couldn't conceal

There is no safe seat at the feast
Take your best stab at the beast
The night is turning thin
The saint is turning to sin

Raise the art to resistance
Danger dare to be grand
Pride reduced to humble pie
Diamonds down to sand

Take heart from earth and weather
The brightness of new birth
Take heart from the harvest
Shave the harvest from the earth

Reasoning is partly insane
Image just an eyeless game
The night is turning thin
The saint is turning to sin

Miracles will have their claimers
More will bow to Rome
He and she are in the house
But there's only me at home

Rose is a rose of splendor
Posed to respond in the end
Lonely things like nights
I find, end finer with a friend

I hear in the rate of her heart
A tear in the heat of the art

The night turns thin
The saint turns to sin

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

Anagram

Within each line of the song is a word that contains letters from another word. For example:
"There is no safe SEAT at the FEAST
Take your best STAB at the BEAST
The NIGHT is wearing THIN
The SAINT is turning to SIN"
(thanks, Matthew Daubert - Mequon, WI)

Geddy Lee (from "Rush Profiled!"): "It doesn't really say one thing; it says a bunch of little things, and I think that's OK as long as it sounds good. You know, as long as it rolls off the tongue kind of thing? So I think different songs are different exercises, to a degree, and I think that if they feel like exercises, then there's something wrong with the song. But if they can slip by in a kind of cohesive and fluid way, or if the effect is to be disjoint, and sometimes that's what you're after. Sometimes you want it to be jarring and disjointed and nonsensical. I think it depends on what you're trying to do, and whether you've achieved it in your mind, and whether it actually worked, and 'Anagram,' I think, did work, even though it's a game - the whole song is a game. The choruses are quite smooth and quite interesting, and they have a nice sound to them and they kind of mock the whole song itself, so I think it was effective there."

(for Mongo) Is added to the name of this song title on the album. It's a joke from the movie Blazing Saddles, referring to the "Candygram for Mongo" scene, according to Geddy on "Rockline" 12/4/89. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

Rush - The Camera Eye

Rush - The Camera Eye Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Moving Pictures
Released: 1981

The Camera Eye Lyrics

Grim-faced and forbidding
Their faces closed tight
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city

They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky

The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride

I feel the sense of possibilities
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city

Wide-angle watcher
On life's ancient tales
Steeped in the history of London
Green and Grey washes
In a wispy white veil
Mist in the streets of Westminster
Wistful and weathered
The pride still prevails
Alive in the streets of the city

Are they oblivious
To this quality?
A quality of light
Unique to every city's streets

Pavements may teem
With intense energy
But the city is calm
In this violent sea

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

The Camera Eye

This song highlights the cultural differences between the cities of New York and London.

At 10:56, this was the last song Rush recorded that was over 10 minutes long.

This is the #1 fan requested song for Rush to perform live. Rush has not performed it completely live since Tour of the Nadars in 1982. They performed it in an abbreviated version the following tour, and it was last played live May 1983. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

8:56 into the song, in the background you can hear what appears to be Geddy, burp and say "Oh gawd." Most Rush fans believe this is an "English greeting," something like, "Ello, Mornin' Gov'ner." Another possibility is that he's saying, "More Dub," requesting a monitor adjustment in his headphones. (thanks, Eddy - Ilion, NY)

Rush - Time Stand Still

Rush - Time Stand Still Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hold Your Fire
Released: 1987

Time Stand Still Lyrics

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath,
Before I start off again
Driven on,
Without a moment to spend
To pass an evening
With a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause,
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live
As if each step was the end

Time Stand Still
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now

Freeze this moment
A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Experience slips away

I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes,
Let my defenses down
All those wounds
That I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain,
Whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide
Comes around

Make each impression
A little bit stronger
Freeze this motion
A little bit longer
The innocence slips away

Summer's going fast
Nights growing colder
Children growing up
Old friends growing older
Experience slips away

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

Time Stand Still

Aimee Mann from the group 'Til Tuesday sang backing vocals and appeared in the music video.
Geddy Lee (1988): "We knew that the part she sings on was a feminine part. We didn't want to use a keyboard or have Alex or myself sing it, so we started looking for a female singer. It's a very attractive opportunity for us to work with a female singer. We just looked until we found a voice, that was suitable. In listening to Aimee's last record, we loved the way she sang, so we just asked her."

Neil Peart (1988): "My first idea was to write about time and the first song I wrote was 'Time Stand Still'. But the more I thought about it and played around with the ideas, the more expanded idea of temperamental barriers took shape. 'Time Stand Still' applies to that concept in that it deals with the attitude of enjoying life and not letting it whisk by without appreciating it." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

Rush - Everyday Glory

Rush - Everyday Glory Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Counterparts
Released: 1993

Everyday Glory Lyrics

In the house where nobody laughs
And nobody sleeps
In the house where love lies dying
And the shadows creep
A little girl hides, shaking,
With her hands on her ears
Pushing back the tears, 'til the pain disappears

Mama says some ugly words
Daddy pounds the wall
They can fight about their little girl later
Right now they don't care at all
No matter what they say...
No matter what they say...

Everyday people
Everyday shame
Everyday promise
Shot down in flames

Everyday sunrise
Another everyday story
Rise from the ashes
A blaze of Everyday Glory

In the city where nobody smiles
And nobody dreams
In the city where desperation
Drives the bored to extremes

Just one spark of decency
Against a starless night
One glow of hope and dignity
A child can follow the light
No matter what they say
No matter what they say...

If the future's looking dark
We're the ones who have to shine
If there's no one in control
We're the ones who draw the line
Though we live in trying times
We're the ones who have to try
Though we know that time has wings
We're the ones who have to fly

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

Everyday Glory

The lyrics, "Rise from the ashes and blaze" refer to the mythological death and rebirth of the Phoenix.

Geddy Lee (from the Bass Player Online archives): "This song ended up being an analog-tape mix. For the last few years I've mixed only to digital, because I figured it was just a better tape recorder. But certain songs have a heavier midrange content, and on playback the analog recorder softens the midrange a bit, giving it a more likeable sound. It's not as efficient-sounding in terms of the top and bottom end, but it's just nicer to listen to." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

Rush - Cold Fire

Rush - Cold Fire Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Counterparts
Released: 1993

Cold Fire Lyrics

It was long after midnight
When we got to unconditional love
She said sure, my heart is boundless
But don't push my limits too far

I said if love was so transcendent
I don't understand these boundaries
She said just don't disappoint me
You know how complex women are
I'll be around
If you don't let me down
Too far

It was just before sunrise
When we started on traditional roles
She said sure I'll be your partner
But don't make too many demands

I said if love has these conditions
I don't understand those songs you love
She said this is not a love song
This isn't fantasy-land
I'll be around
If you don't push me down
Too far

Don't go too far
The phosphorescent wave on a tropical sea
Is a Cold Fire
Don't cross the line
The pattern of moonlight on the bedroom floor
Is a cold fire
Don't let me down
The flame at the heart of a pawnbroker's diamond
Is a cold fire
Don't break the spell
The look in your eyes as you head for the door
Is a cold fire

Love is blind if you are gentle
Love can turn to a long, cold burn

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

Cold Fire

Geddy Lee (from the Counterparts World Radio Premiere): "We rewrote that song quite a bit. And thankfully, I think Peter Collins' presence really pulled that song together. He came in and he pointed out certain strengths in the previous versions of the songs that we had, and he really helped us reorganize that song. It wasn't until he got there, I think, that we finally locked in on a feel for those verses that enabled Alex to play those great kind of steel guitar lines -- steel guitar-like lines -- that he's playing, and enabled me to open up harmonically. I was having trouble with the verses, you know, it's a tough song, when you're dealing with this issue of male/female relationships, which is such a foreign subject for us to deal with, in a song. You want to make sure it doesn't sound trite or hackneyed or you're not just doing yet another -- who needs another song about relationships? It took us a while to get the right mood, and I was really happy with the mood we ended up with in the verses, and I think, oddly enough, as much as it was a nightmare, that song for me, when I hear the record now, I think the verses are one of the strongest parts of the album, in that song."

Neil Peart (from Network Magazine, November 1993): "In 'Cold Fire' I have the woman speaking to the man and she's smarter than he is. It was a difficult technical challenge lyrically, but those are the kind of things that now, after all these years, you start to feel you have the craft to take on. I don't mind writing about love now, where I would have avoided that in the previous years just because of the inability to get beyond clichés." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

Rush - Speed Of Love

Rush - Speed Of Love Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Counterparts
Released: 1993

Speed Of Love Lyrics

Love is born with lightning bolts
Electro-magnetic force
Burning skin and fireworks
A storm on a raging course

Like a force of nature,
Love can fade with the stars at dawn
Sometimes it takes all your strength
Just to keep holding on
At the Speed Of Love
A radiance that travels
At the speed of love
My heart goes out to you

Love is born with solar flares
From two magnetic poles
It moves towards a higher plane
Where two halves make two wholes

Like a force of nature,
Love shines in many forms
One night we are bathed in light
One day carried away in the storms
At the speed of love
Nothing changes faster
Than the speed of love
My heart goes out to you

We don't have to talk
We don't even have to touch
I can feel your presence
In the silence that we share
Got to keep moving
At the speed of love
Nothing changes faster
Than the speed of love
Got to keep on shining
At the speed of love
Nothing changes faster
Than the speed of love
My heart goes out to you

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

Speed Of Love

Neil Peart (Modern Drummer magazine, February 1994): "'The Speed Of Love' is kind of mid-tempo, more sensitive rock song. That song probably took me the longest to find just the right elements I wanted to have in a drum part. What made it a challenge is that I wanted the feel and the transitions between sections to be just right. I played that song over and over, refining it until I was satisfied. I don't think a listener will hear all the work that went into that track. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Stick It Out

Rush - Stick It Out Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Counterparts
Released: 1993

Stick It Out Lyrics

Trust to your instincts
If it's safely restrained
Lightning reactions
Must be carefully trained

Heat of the moment
Curse of the young
Spit out your anger
Don't swallow your tongue

Stick It Out

Don't swallow the poison
Spit it out
Don't swallow your pride
Stick it out
Don't swallow your anger
Spit it out
Don't swallow the lies

Natural reflex
Pendulum swing
You might be too dizzy
To do the right thing

Trial under fire
Ultimate proof
Moment of crisis
Don't swallow the truth

Stick it out

Each time we bathe our reactions
In artificial light
Each time we alter the focus
To make the wrong moves seem right

You get so used to deception
You make yourself a nervous wreck
You get so used to surrender
Running back to cover your neck

Stick it out

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

Stick It Out

Neil Peart (from the Counterparts World Radio Premiere): "It's just a play on the words, really. 'Stick It Out' meaning both a kind of arrogant display, 'stick it out', but also the endurance thing; if you have a difficult thing to endure, stick it out and you get to the end. It was the pun on both of those, really, so again the duality in the song is a bit leaning both ways. The sense of forbearance, of holding back, and also the idea of fortitude: stick it out, you know, survive. But that was more of a piece of fun, that song I would say, both lyrically and musically it verges on parody, and that was one I think we just had fun with, and lyrically I certainly did, too. 'Stick it out' and 'spit it out' and all that was just a bit of word play."

Peart (from Modern Drummer magazine, February 1994): "How could I approach that song properly and yet give it a touch of elegance that I would want a riff-rock song to have? I don't want it to be the same type of thing you'd hear on rock radio. So I started bringing in Latin and fusion influences. There's a verse where I went for a Weather Report-type effect. I used some tricky turn-arounds in the ride cymbal pattern, where it goes from downbeat to upbeat accents--anything I could think of to make it my own. That song verges on parody for us, so we had to walk a careful line. We responded to the power of the riff, yet still found some ways to twist it to make it something more." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

This song holds the dubious distinction of being the only Rush music video lampooned on the popular mid-'90s cartoon Beavis And Butthead. (thanks, Matt - Pittsburgh, PA)

Rush - Color Of Right

Rush - Color Of Right Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Test For Echo
Released: 1997

Color Of Right Lyrics

I don't have an explanation
For another lonely night
I just feel this sense of mission
And the sense of what is right

Take it easy on my now
I'd be there if I could
I'm so full of what is right
I can't see what is good

It's a hopeless situation
Lie awake for half the night
You're not sure what's going on here
But you're sure it isn't right

Make it easy on yourself
There's nothing more you can do
You're so full of what is right
You can't see what is true

A quality of justice
A quantity of light
A particle of mercy
Makes the Color Of Right

Gravity and distance
Change the passage of light
Gravity and distance
Change the color of right

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

Color Of Right

Regarding the last two lines:
Gravity and distance change the passage of light
Gravity and distance change the color of right
Neil Peart: "The lyrics that surround it are rather unremarkable, and the context of the song seems to cast these lines in the sense of "don't be self-righteous" - something rather uninteresting. But I have used the above metaphor, changed it around, suited it to my needs. I am interested in the double sense of gravity and distance. Physical vs. metaphysical. I take the second meaning of the quotation as another way of saying there is a great difference between theory and practice. When things are serious, when we see them up close, they look different." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Peaceable Kingdom

Rush - Peaceable Kingdom Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Vapor Trails
Released: 2002

Peaceable Kingdom Lyrics

A wave toward the clearing the sky

All this time we're talking and sharing our Rational View
A billion other voices are spreading other news
All this time we're living and trying to understand
Why a billion other choices are making their demands

Talk of a Peaceable Kingdom
Talk of a time without fear
The ones we wish would listen
Are never going to hear

Justice against The Hanged Man
Knight of Wands against the hour
Swords against the kingdom
Time against The Tower

All this time we're shuffling and laying out all our cards
While a billion other dealers are slipping past our guards
All this time we're hoping and praying we all might learn
While a billion other teachers are teaching them how to burn

Dream of a Peaceable Kingdom
Dream of a time without war
The ones we wish would hear us
Have heard it all before

A wave toward the clearing sky
A wave toward the clearing sky

The Hermit against The Lovers
Or the Devil against the Fool
Swords against the kingdom
The Wheel against the rules

All this time we're burning like bonfires in the dark
A billion other blazes are shooting off their sparks
Every spark a drifting ember of desire
To fall upon the earth and spark another fire

A homeward angel on the fly
A wave toward the clearing sky

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

Peaceable Kingdom

This is about terrorism and the forces of destructive people against those that long for a a time of peace. Specifically, it's a response to the attacks by terrorist on September 11, 2001 against the United States. It also refers to the response of hate against hate and the hope that those who desire peace can have a positive effect on others. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Originally meant as an instrumental, the lyrics were later added after the events of 9/11. (thanks, Matthew Daubert - Mequon, WI)

The title of this song comes from the book The Peaceable Kingdom , written by Stanley Hauerwas. (thanks, George - Manassas, VA)

Rush - In The Mood

Rush - In The Mood Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Rush
Released: 1974

In The Mood Lyrics

Aw, hey now, baby,
Well, I like your smile
Won't you come and talk to me
For a little while

Well, you're making me crazy
The way you roll them eyes
Won't you come and sit with me
I'll tell you all my lies

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight
I feel I'm In The Mood
Hey baby, the hour is late
I feel I've got to move

Well, hey now, baby
Don't you talk so fast
I'm just trying to make these good times,
I'm trying to make it last

Every thing's getting hazy
Now honey, where'd you go?
I just want to find out, baby
Where'd you learn what you know?

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight
I feel I'm in the mood
Hey baby, the hour is late
I feel I've got to move

Well, hey now, baby
Said, I like your style
You really got me, baby
Way down deep inside

Oh, you drive me crazy
Baby, you're the one
I just want to rock-and-roll you woman
Until the night is gone

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight
I feel I'm in the mood
Hey baby, the hour is late
I feel I've got to move

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

In The Mood

This is one of the few Rush songs to use the term "Rock 'n' Roll" in the lyrics. In this song, the band used the term as it was originally intended, as a synonym for sexual intercourse. (thanks, Jeff - Haltom City, TX)

This is one of very few Rush songs that even vaguely resembles a love song. Most Rush songs are much more cerebral. (thanks, Kent - Pittsfield, IL)

Bassist/singer Geddy Lee told Billboard magazine in April 2013 that this was the first song he wrote with guitarist Alex Lifeson, that they "kind of liked."

This was the first Rush song Geddy Lee heard being played on the radio. He recalled to Billboard hearing it on CHUM FM in Toronto. "I was at home. The album came out and we got all our friends and family to keep calling radio stations requesting our songs and we waited to see if someone would play it, and finally they did. I was really excited. Kind of an unreal experience."

Rush - The Big Wheel

Rush - The Big Wheel Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Roll The Bones
Released: 1991

The Big Wheel Lyrics

Well, I was only a kid, didn't know enough to be afraid
Playing the game, but not the way the big boys played
Nothing to lose, maybe I had something to trade
The way The Big Wheel spins

Well, I was only a kid, on a holy crusade
I placed no trust in a faith that was ready-made
Take no chances on paradise delayed
So I do a slow fade

Playing for time
Don't want to wait for heaven
Looking for love
For an angel to forgive my sins
Playing with fire
Chasing something new to believe in
Looking for love
The way the big wheel spins

Well, I was only a kid, cruising around in a trance
Prisoner of fate, victim of circumstance
I was lined up for glory, but the tickets sold out in advance
The way the big wheel spins

Well, I was only a kid, gone without a backward glance
Going for broke, going for another chance
Hoping for heaven, hoping for a fine romance
If I do the right dance

Wheel goes round, landing on a twist of faith
Taking your chances you'll have the right answers
When the final judgment begins

Wheel goes round, landing on a leap of fate
Life redirected in ways unexpected
Sometimes the odd number wins
The way the big wheel spins

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

The Big Wheel

Neil Peart ("Roll The Bones Radio Special"): "The Big Wheel is a good example on this album; where it seems to be autobiographical, but it's really not. It's where I've looked for a universal of that tradeoff between innocence and experience, and that song certainly addresses that. Not in the circumstances of my own life so much, or if it is, it's not important that it be autobiographical, that's just by the by really. Very much I want to find universal things that others can relate to, and that's a thing that's part of everyone's life, so I think that's probably one reason why I'm drawn to it. And then so much of it is drawn from observing people around me too, so that becomes a factor in it too; how they responded to life, and how they take to it. How they adapt to that innocence and experience thing." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - The Enemy Within

Rush - The Enemy Within Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Grace Under Pressure
Released: 1984

The Enemy Within Lyrics

Things crawl in the darkness
That imagination spins
Needles at your nerve ends
Crawl like spiders on your skin
Pounding in your temples
And a surge of adrenaline
Every muscle tense to fence The Enemy Within

I'm not giving in to security under pressure
I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure
I'm not giving up on implausible dreams
Experience to extremes
Experience to extremes

Suspicious-looking stranger
Flashes you a dangerous grin
Shadows across your window
Was it only trees in the wind?
Every breath a static charge
A tongue that tastes like tin
Steely-eyed outside to hide the enemy within
To you, is it movement or is it action?
Is it contact or just reaction?
And you, revolution or just resistance?
Is it living, or just existence?
Yeah, you, it takes a little more persistence
To get up and go the distance

I'm not giving in to security under pressure
I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure
I'm not giving up on implausible dreams
Experience to extremes
Experience to extremes

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

The Enemy Within

Neil Peart (Jim Ladd "Innerview", 1984): "It's part one of a trilogy but it's the last one to appear. The last three albums have each contained a part of that trilogy, and I started thinking about them all at the same time, but they appear in the order in which they were easiest to grasp. In other words, "Witch Hunt" was the first one, dealt with that mentality of mob rule, and what happens to a bunch of people when they come together and they're afraid, and they go out and do something really stupid and really horrible. That was easy to grasp, and you see plenty of examples of that in real life as well as in fiction and in films of course, too. So that was easy to deal with. The second one was "The Weapon," and it was dealing with how people use your fears against you, as a weapon, and that took a little longer to come to grips with, but eventually I got my thinking straightened out and the images that I wanted to use, and collected them all up, and it came out. And then finally, "The Enemy Within" was more difficult, because I wanted to look at how it affects me, but it was more than about me. I don't like to be introspective as a rule. I think I'm gonna set that down as my first rule, as "never be introspective!" But, uh, I wanted to, at the same time I wanted to write about myself in a universal kind of way, I want to find things in myself that I think apply." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)

Rush - Red Sector A

Rush - Red Sector A Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Grace Under Pressure
Released: 1984

Red Sector A Lyrics

All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive...

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shouting guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed
A wound that will not heal -- a heart that cannot feel --
Hoping that the horror will recede
Hoping that tomorrow, we'll all be freed

Sickness to insanity
Prayer to profanity
Days and weeks and months go by
Don't feel the hunger -- too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate
Are the liberators here -- do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother, it's too late
But I must help my mother stand up straight...

Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings to survive?...

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

Red Sector A

The title is the name for the area where the band witnessed the inaugural Space Shuttle flight April 12th, 1981. The band wanted to capture the excitement of the launch with this song. Also see Songfacts for "Countdown."

Neil Peart (Jim Ladd "Innerview", 1984): "I read a first person account of someone who had survived the whole system of trains and work camps and Dachau and all of that, and this person, she was a young girl, like thirteen years old when she was sent into it, and lived in it for a few years, and then, uh, through first person accounts from other people who came out at the end of it, always glad to be alive, which again was the essence of grace, grace under pressure is that though all of it, these people never gave up the strong will to survive, through the utmost horror, and total physical privations of all kinds, they just never, ever wanted to be the ones who were shot, you know, they were always the unlucky ones, which was an important thing that I wanted to bring out. And also, what I learned from the first person nonfiction accounts that I read was that these people would keep their little rituals of their religion, and whatever, and if it was supposed to be a fasting day, even if they were starving to death, they would turn down their little bit of bread and their little bit of gruel, because this was a fasting day, and they had to hold on to something, some essence of normality, you know, that was important. And that moved me, you know. That's, that's intense. I wanted to give it more of a timeless atmosphere too, because it's happened, of course, in more than one time and by more than one race of people. It happened in this very country in which we sit, it happened, you know, the British did it, no one can set themselves above that, slavery rather involved how many countless countries in terms of the commerce of it all, and people shipping them around like animals and all of that. And no one can set themselves above that in a racial or nationalistic way. So I wanted to take a little bit out of being specific and, and just describe the circumstances and try to look at the way people responded to it, and another really important and to me really moving image that I got from a lot of these accounts was that at the end of it, these people of course had been totally isolated from the rest of the world, from their families, from any news at all, and they, in cases that I read, believed that they were the last people surviving. You know, the people liberating them and themselves were the only surviving people in the world, and it sounds a bit melodramatic put into a song I realize, but the point is that it's true, so, you know, I didn't feel like I needed to avoid it as being over-dramatic, because, you know, I heard of it and read of it in more than one account."

Geddy Lee (Bass Player magazine, 1987): "When we play a song like 'Red Sector A' live, MIDI enables me to use the bass arpeggiator part, and send it to more than one instrument. Then I can get a really nice bass sound triggered by the arpeggiator that keeps the bottom end rolling and feeling good. That song sounds better live than it ever did on record, just because the technology has allowed me to get better sounds. That's another reason for doing this up-and-coming live album. I think some of the versions that we'll be putting on this live album are better than the original versions."

Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, July 1985): "It is one of the 'grace under pressure' themes which captured my imagination on the last album, and is not meant to portray a specific human atrocity, although many of the historical accounts which inspired it were of course set in World War II. There have been many periods of slavery and mass imprisonment in the world and also many fictional accounts of the future. I was thinking of all these things, and wanted to try to express something timeless enough to encompass them all." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

Geddy Lee's parents were Polish Jews who survived a number of concentration camps and were finally liberated from Auschwitz at the end of WWII. They lived in the camp afterward for four years before emigrating to Canada. For a while, the people left in the camp believed that the rest of the world had been destroyed and that they might be the only survivors. The song was not written specifically about their experience, but certainly includes it. In an interview, bassist Geddy Lee said, "My parents were in Poland at the outset of the war, and the Germans came in, and every man they thought could be a threat to them they took out and shot. As the war moved on they were taken to a concentration camp. As the war got a little heavier, they were all moved to different concentration camps. My parents were sent to Auschwitz where they survived, which they thought was a miracle. When they got liberated -- when the war was over -- they didn't know what to do. They still lived in the concentration camp, as most people did, trying to collect themselves. When they liberated them, they thought they were the only people left in the world Can you imagine that? They thought they were the few survivors. They were slowly informed that the world was still going on. Then they couldn't understand why they were saved. How could it happen? How could God let it happen? They gathered up what they could and came to Canada. They were going to go to New York, but someone said it was nice in Canada" - source: Circus Magazine, October 27 1977. (thanks, Patti - South Vienna, OH)

Rush - New World Man

Rush - New World Man Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Signals
Released: 1982

New World Man Lyrics

He's a rebel and a runner
He's a signal turning green
He's a restless young romantic
Wants to run the big machine

He's got a problem with his poisons
But you know he'll find a cure
He's cleaning up the systems
To keep his nature pure

Learning to match the beat of the old-world man
Learning to catch the heat of the third-world man

He's got to make his own mistakes
And learn to mend the mess he makes
He's old enough to know what's right
And young enough not to choose it
He's noble enough to win the world
But weak enough to lose it

He's a new-world man

He's a radio receiver
Tuned to factories and farms
He's a writer and ranger and a young boy bearing arms
He's got a problem with his powers
His weapons on patrol
He's got to walk a fine line
And keep his self-control

Trying to save the day for the old-world man
Trying to pave the way for the third-world man

He's not concerned with yesterday
He knows constant change is here today
He's noble enough to know what's right
But weak enough not to choose it
He's wise enough to win the world
But fool enough to lose it

He's a new-world man

Learning to match the beat of the old-world man
He's learning to catch the heat of the third-world man

He's a New World Man
He's a new world man

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

New World Man

Geddy Lee (from Success Under Pressure): "It wouldn't have been on the record if we didn't have four minutes space available. We tend to have pretty strict ideas on how long an album should be and basically it's just a matter of value. Our shortest albums are about 18 minutes a side and that's a pretty good value. I couldn't see us going below that; it doesn't make sense to me. But, at the same time, we're now recording digitally and so we do have certain considerations as to how the whole thing's going to sound when you cut it. There, you're dealing with quality, which is again down to value for money. I think what it really boiled down to was that we'd worked so hard getting all these slick sounds that we were all in the mood to put something down that was real spontaneous. In the end, the whole song took one day to write and record. It's good to put something together like that."

Neil Peart (from Stories From Signals, Signals Tourbook): "Writing it in one day and recording it the next! We wanted to capture a spontaneous, relaxed feel for this one, not even spending much time getting the sounds together. Thus, it could stand in contrast to the rest of the album, being much more raw and "live" in its affect. Two days is very close to a record for us to write and record a song." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for all above)

This is Rush's highest-charting single, and their only song to chart in the US Top 40. (thanks, Matthew Daubert - Mequon, WI).

Rush - Chemistry

Rush - Chemistry Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Signals
Released: 1982

Chemistry Lyrics

Signals transmitted
Message received
Reaction making impact
Invisibly

Elemental telepathy
Exchange of energy
Reaction making contact
Mysteriously

Eye-to-I
Reaction burning hotter
Two-to-one
Reflection on the water
H-to-O
No flow without the other
Oh, but how
Do they make contact
With one another?

Electricity, biology?
Seems to me it's Chemistry

Emotion transmitted
Emotion received
Music in the abstract
Positively

Elemental empathy
A change of synergy
Music making contact
Naturally

One, two, three
Add without subtraction
Sound on sound
Multiplied reaction
H-to-O
No flow without the other
Oh, but how
Do we make contact
With one another?

Electricity, biology?
Seems to me it's chemistry

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

Chemistry

This is basically about how chemistry is defined, precise in it's own nature. When you add one thing to another it's ALWAYS the same. In contrast, when human individuals connect it's always a different outcome.

In a 1986 issue of Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Alex Lifeson said: "Very often the guys will have worked out something musically and made a tape of it for which they have nothing particular in mind. 'Grand Designs,' on the last album, was done that way. They had the musical ideas laid out and just made a little tape for me with guitar, keyboards and drum machine, and I had that. So, again, if I'm stumped on something that I've been working on, I pull out that tape and try to close my mind off for a minute and listen to the tape. 'Chemistry' was a true collaboration between the three of us. The other guys had a couple of key phrases they wanted to express, so they gave me the music. That was easy because all the groundwork was done. Playing with words comes so much easier than having to dream up the whole thing." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

While most Rush songs are written solely by drummer Neil Peart, the lyrics and music on this song are credited to Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. This is the last song that either Geddy Lee or Alex Lifeson are given credit for lyrics. (thanks, Matthew Daubert - Mequon, WI)

Rush - Subdivisions

Rush - Subdivisions Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Signals
Released: 1982

Subdivisions Lyrics

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In-between the bright lights
And the far, unlit unknown

Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass-production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths, we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights

Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

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

Subdivisions

This song is about how narrow-minded and judgmental people can get when they are confined to certain groups - a common occurrence in the suburbs. This is spelled out in the chorus:

Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out

It tells of how when you don't meet a certain standard you are basically shunned. (thanks, Chris - Bradenton, FL)

Rush's drummer/lyricist Neil Peart said this song is "an exploration of the background from which all of us (and probably most of our audience) have sprung.'"

Peart grew up reading adventure stories and science fiction, which for him were an escape from the confines of suburbia. As he got older, he took full advantage of his freedom, embracing travel and exploring other cultures.

Mark Dailey, evening newscaster and "The Voice" of Toronto television station City-TV and also MuchMusic, is the voice that repeats the chorus line "Subdivisions."

This song marked a turning point for Neil Peart, whose early Rush lyrics were based in fantasy. "I didn't believe yet that I could put something real into a song," he told Rolling Stone. "'Subdivisions' happened to be an anthem for a lot of people who grew up under those circumstances, and from then on, I realized what I most wanted to put in a song was human experience."

Rush - The Body Electric

Rush - The Body Electric Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Grace Under Pressure
Released: 1984

The Body Electric Lyrics

One humanoid escapee
One android on the run
Seeking freedom beneath the lonely desert sun

Trying to change its program
Trying to change the mode, crack the code
Images conflicting into data overload

One zero zero one zero zero one
SOS
One zero zero one zero zero one
In distress
One zero zero one zero zero

Memory banks unloading
Bytes break into bits
Unit One's in trouble and it's scared out of its wits

Guidance systems break down
A struggle to exist
To resist
A pulse of dying power in a clenching plastic fist

One zero zero one zero zero one
SOS
One zero zero one zero zero one
In distress
One zero zero one zero zero

It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines
Bows its head and prays
To the mother of all machines

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

The Body Electric

This is based on Twilight Zone episode #100 - "I Sing the Body Electric." The episode originally aired in 1962. It's about a family who orders a robot "Grandmother" after the death of their young mother. Written by Ray Bradbury, the name came from a Walt Whitman poem. The story was later included in a short stories collection with the same title in 1969.

Some believe the song was inspired by the movie THX 1138, one of the first films made by Star Wars creator George Lucas. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington, for above 2)

The song describes a robot who struggles to break free of the hegemony of the robots' social structure. The chorus repeats several times:
one-zero-zero-one-zero-zero-one SOS
one-zero-zero-one-zero-zero-one In Distress
1001001 is ASCII code for the letter 'I.' This could indicate the robot's motivation for escape - it's attainment of self-awareness. (thanks, Michael - Torrance, CA)