My top five lyrical Rush songs

So this is a list of my top 5 Rush songs that lyrically mean a lot to me.  Rush is not only a great instrumental band to listen to, but they are also a great philosophical band to listen to as well.  Probably the reason I love Rush so much is because we tend to be on the same intellectual wavelengths.  Here are a few songs that explain why.   

5.Faithless- Snakes & Arrows, 2007

Its so refreshing to hear a rock song thats so openly atheist yet so full of soul and hope.  Not that there anything wrong with the angry, anti-theistic music of heavy metal.  Songs such as “God hates us all” from Slayer definitely have their place.

I can tell Neil Peart has probably been reading some Daniel Dennett.  The line “I don’t believe in belief” is familiar to me because the idea of belief in belief was coined by Dennett in his book Breaking the Spell.  Its the widely held idea in our society that the very act of believing in something such as God, is inherently good no matter if it exists or not.  The positive effects of believing in something outweighs the negative of it not being true.  Dennett calls BS on this idea because he believes that there are real consequences to believing in things that aren’t true.  Peart obviously shares this sentiment.  Faithless is a great song if you tend to be someone without a “faith in faith” but also have a great love for humanity and hope for the future.   

I've got my own moral compass to steer by

A guiding star beats a spirit in the sky

And all the preaching voices -

Empty vessels ring so loud

As they move among the crowd

Fools and thieves are well disguised

In the temple and market place

Like a stone in the river

Against the floods of spring

I will quietly resist

Like the willows in the wind

Or the cliffs along the ocean

I will quietly resist

I don't have faith in faith

I don't believe in belief

You can call me faithless

I still cling to hope

And I believe in love

And that's faith enough for me

I've got my own spirit level for balance

To tell if my choice is leaning up or down

And all the shouting voices

Try to throw me off my course

Some by sermon, some by force

Fools and thieves are dangerous

In the temple and market place

Like a forest bows to winter

Beneath the deep white silence

I will quietly resist

Like a flower in the desert

That only blooms at night

I will quietly resist

4.Roll the Bones- Roll the Bones,1991

One of my favorites not only because of its upbeat and unique sound, but for its great message as well.  Roll the bones, meaning that most of life is just a series of chances and random events.  Why do bad things happen to good and innocent people?  Why am I so fortunate?  If all people are created equal, then why has the creator created me with such wealth and abundance and so many other people are destined to suffer a short and miserable life?

The great point of the song is to say that we are lucky, and we should take advantage of the awesome dice roll we were thrown.  Not to mention the one and only Rush venture into rap music  

Well, you can stake that claim

Good work is the key to good fortune

Winners take that praise

Losers seldom take that blame

If they don't take that game

And sometimes the winner takes nothing

We draw our own designs

But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances

Fate is just the weight of circumstances

That's the way that lady luck dances

Roll the bones

Why are we here?

Because we're here

Roll the bones

Why does it happen?

Because it happens

Roll the bones

Faith is cold as ice

Why are little ones born only to suffer

For the want of immunity

Or a bowl of rice?

Well, who would hold a price

On the heads of the innocent children

If there's some immortal power

To control the dice?

We come into the world and take our chances

Fate is just the weight of circumstances

That's the way that lady luck dances

Roll the bones

Jack...relax

Get busy with the facts

No zodiacs or almanacs

No maniacs in polyester slacks

Just the facts

Gonna kick some gluteus max

It's a parallax...you dig?

You move around

The small gets big

It's a rig

It's action...reaction

Random interaction

So who's afraid

Of a little abstraction?

Can't get no satisfaction

From the facts?

You better run, homeboy

A fact's a fact

From Nome to Rome, boy

What's the deal?

Spin the wheel

If the dice are hot...take a shot

Play your cards. Show us what you got

What you're holding

If the cards are cold

Don't go folding

Lady Luck is golden

She favors the bold

That's cold

Stop throwing stones

The night has a thousand saxophones

So get out there and rock

And roll the bones

Get busy!

3.The Garden-Clockwork Angels, 2012

The finale of their latest album Clockwork Angels, The Garden is one of Rush’s most emotional songs.  It is the words of some very wise people with a guide on how to live a life worth living.  I think the lyrics need no more explanation.

In this one of many possible worlds,

All for the best or some bizarre test?

It is what it is and whatever,

Time is still the infinite jest

The arrow flies when you dream,

The hours tick away,

The cells tick away

The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes,

The hours tick away, they tick away

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect,

So hard to earn so easily burned

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect,

So hard to earn so easily burned

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

In the rise and the set of the sun,

'Til the stars go spinning,

Spinning 'round the night

Oh, it is what it is, and forever

Each moment a memory in flight

The arrow flies while you breathe,

The hours tick away,

The cells tick away,

The Watchmaker has time up his sleeve,

The hours tick away, they tick away

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect,

So hard to earn so easily burned

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

(It's a measure of a life)

The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect,

The way you live, the gifts that you give

In the fullness of time,

It's the only return that you expect

The future disappears into memory

With only a moment between.

Forever dwells in that moment,

Hope is what remains to be seen.

Forever dwells in that moment,

Hope is what remains to be seen.

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

(It's a measure of a life)

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

(It's a measure of a life)

In the fullness of time,

A garden to nurture and protect

2.Marathon- Power Windows, 1985

As a runner myself, a song can’t get much more relevant to my life than Marathon.  Its a song that compares living life to long distance running.  Its a song that means more and more to me as I pursue my running career.  An interesting thing I noticed the last time I competed in a half-marathon was my reaction to nearing the finish line.  I was actually a little disappointed as my race came to end. Not that I was disappointed in how I ran, but it was the realization that the fun part wasn’t the finish, but the whole race itself.  The fun part is purely living in the moment of keeping the pace and not thinking about time and distance passing.  Racing is much harder if you are constantly counting the miles to the finish line.  Likewise, life is more miserable if you are counting down the days and weeks of work or school, waiting for the next day off.    Life passes you by if you are not taking time to notice the present moment.  I think my favorite line of the song is: “You can do a lot in a lifetime if you don't burn out too fast.  You can make the most of the distance.  First you need endurance.  First you've got to last.”  Its a line that means more to me as I grow and constantly try to improve myself as a runner and as a human being.   

It's not how fast you can go

The force goes into the flow

If you pick up the beat

You can forget about the heat

More than just survival

More than just a flash

More than just a dotted line

More than just a dash

It's a test of ultimate will

The heartbreak climb uphill

Got to pick up the pace

If you want to stay in the race

More than blind ambition

More than simple greed

More than a finish line

Must feed this burning need

In the long run...

Chorus

From first to last

The peak is never passed

Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes

One moment's high, and glory rolls on by

Like a streak of lightning

That flashes and fades in the summer sky

Your meters may overload

You can rest at the side of the road

You can miss a stride

But nobody gets a free ride

More than high performance

More than just a spark

More than just the bottom line

Or a lucky shot in the dark

In the long run...

Chorus

You can do a lot in a lifetime

If you don't burn out too fast

You can make the most of the distance

First you need endurance

First you've got to last...

1.Tom Sawyer- Moving Pictures, 1981

Tom Sawyer has always been one of my favorite Rush songs.  Although when I first heard the song, the meaning of the song eluded me more or less.  It just sounded really cool.  But as I intellectually mature, this song has taken on so much more meaning for me.  This is what drummer and writer of the song, Neil Peart had to say about this song.

“Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be - namely me I guess.”  

I will break down some of the best lyrics in my own eyes.  

“What you say about his company

Is what you say about society

Catch the mist, catch the myth

Catch the mystery, catch the drift

The world is, the world is

Love and life are deep

Maybe as his skies are wide

Today's Tom Sawyer

He gets high on you

And the space he invades

He gets by on you “

“today’s Tom Sawyer” is someone who is an individualist.  Someone who is a bit of a contrarian.  A little alienated from society.  Whether or not you sympathize with this person’s ideals shows how sentimental you are with how society is structured.    

“His mind is not for rent to any god or government.”

You can’t really peg me any more accurately than that.  As a libertarian-leaning Athiest, I don’t want to rent my intellectual real estate out to any political party, government or religion.  I don’t really even like to label myself “libertarian” or “atheist” anymore because those words usually imply some sort of ideological baggage that I may not necessarily agree with.

“Always hopeful yet discontent”

Yep.  How could I be as passionate about learning and teaching as I am, if I weren't so hopeful for the future and yet unsatisfied with the way things are?

“He knows that changes aren't permanent. But change is.”

The way technology is progressing and how weird the world is getting, I think its clear everything about our lives is going to change.  I don’t think it’s useful to get too used to things anymore.  The only thing that is going to be constant will be change and novelty.

“Though his mind is not for rent

Don't put him down as arrogant”

I probably come off as arrogant in an intellectual way.  If I do, I will try to improve that about myself.  its probably because I only try to express my opinions.  I believe this is the only way to be really intellectually honest.  Opinions are really the only things we have.  If you aren’t expressing your own personal opinion, you're just borrowing from other people.  Essentially you are renting space in your mind out to someone else.  In my opinion, a truly intellectually honest person will have personal opinions some things.  Anything they don’t have an opinion on, will have to admit to ignorance.

“His reserve, a quiet defense

Riding out the day's events”

I’m kind of a reserved person in large social situations and in general.  I’m not one to be a social butterfly or want a lot of attention.  I like to take all of the days events in stride and I try not to let a bad day of work ruin the rest of the day.

“The river”

I think” the river” in this song refers to the stream of experienced consciousness.  If you take things as they come, there's a lot to be said about each and every present moment.  If you focus on living in the moment, there really is a river of conscious perception to be experienced.    

My top 10 Rush songs

Alright you Rush freaks, I am going to indulge in some cult music geekery and list my top 5 favorite Rush songs in 2 different categories.  Instrumental music and lyrical content. Picking only 5 for each category is a cardinal sin considering how many amazing songs they have.  but I will try my best to cover the few I've chosen. The first list is about my favorite rush songs in regards to the instrumental quality of music.

5. Seven cities of gold

This song is from their latest album release Clockwork Angels.  It amazes me that a band that was formed in 1968 can still be putting out such heavy hitting material in 2012.  I think my favorite instrument of any rock band is the bass guitar.  And theres really nothing more satisfying than hearing a true master of the bass create a great jam like Seven cities of gold.  That opening bass line to this song is so irresistible that you have to at least nod your head to it.  The way Alex Lifeson builds it up the opening to the main riff with his distortion compliments Geddy’s noodling.  It then kicks into the main riff of the song which is one of the most ass kicking and aggressive sounding things in Rush’s catalog.   I think this song could almost stand on its own as an instrumental piece.  Geddy Lee’s bass ingenuity seems to only improving with time.  The song Headlong Flight also from Clockwork Angels shows this fact.   

   

4. Xanadu

Psychedelic sounding lyrics aside, Xanadu is still a very weird song.  Coming from their prog rock sounding album A Farewell to Kings, Xanadu’s sounds seem to inspire images of the divine.  It begins with the sounds of birds chirping and a droning monotone synth sound in the background.  Ringing bells and distorted guitars are heard as It slowly builds up into the complicated sounding main riff of the song.  What I love about this song is just the feeling I get when I listen to it.  Its a feeling of unearthliness and a feeling of transcendence.  As if a great revelation of the meaning of life is about to occur.      

3. The Camera Eye

Its true I’m a sucker for the sounds of the 1980s synthesizer.  The Camera Eye is heavy with it.  It also contains one of my favorite Alex Lifeson guitar solos.  The song is from their seminal 1981 album Moving Pictures. This is perhaps their last prog rock sounding song they ever recorded.  The song is about the feelings you perceive in different cities such as New York and London.  What I love most about it is my own appropriate sentimentality of the song.  My first Rush concert I attended was in Vancouver.  As I toured around this city I had never been before, The Camera Eye was one of the songs I was listening to on my Ipod.  Now whenever I play that song, I experience some of the feelings of excitement of seeing Vancouver for the first time.

2. Leave that thing alone

This has always been one of my favorites.  For some reason for me this song just seems to me like sex in musical form.  The groovy bass line and drumming seems to inspire a kind of sensual dance.  Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo that builds into a screaming climax seals the deal as a sexual song.  The song is from their 1993 album Counterparts. The whole album is themed with songs about love, sex and relationships.  The name of the album and the album art is just pure innuendo.  The live version of the song is even better than the album version.  It includes an amazing bass solo at the end by Geddy Lee

1. La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence)

 According to wikipedia, this song was inspired by a dream that Alex Lifeson had.  From their 1978 album Hemispheres, it is the very first exclusively instrumental song.  I think this is the song defines Rush as a band that is concerned with pure music first and foremost.  Clocking in at 9:35, it feels like a peek inside the in the collective minds of true music geniousess.  Its an epic journey through uncompromised and immodest artistic indulgence.  My favorite part being the incredible Alex Lifeson guitar solo at 3:35.

The Magic of Language

You have the power of telepathy.  You right now are receiving my thoughts into your head.  Here I am sitting in front of my computer with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring playing in the background.  You know the song.  The song from from Disney’s Fantasia that accompanies the depiction of the formation of the earth, emergence of life and finally the rise and fall of the dinosaurs.  Did you just flashback to that scene? I just transmitted my thoughts into yours.  Through time and space, we momentarily shared the same idea.  Through the power of language, you unconsciously allowed me to enter your brain.  You can’t help but to continue to read on.  You can’t help but continue to receiving my messages and ideas.  

Remember this?

We are so ingrained into the system of language that we don’t even see squiggles of ink.  We see the title of a book or a Mcdonald's logo.  Only when we look at the writing of another language do we objectively see the complex symbolism of language.  We can demonstrate what Chinese sounds like, (politically incorrect mind you) in gibberish but we can’t even begin to say what english sounds like.  Chinese sounds to english speakers exactly how it sounds.  But when english speakers hear English, we don’t hear objective squawking of apes, we hear how our roommate’s day was.  To realize the real nature of language is to understand how magical it really is.  When people put more “magical” meaning into language is to demean its tangible and utterly fantastic value.

Swear words for example.  People who get offended by swear words are under the control of the operating system of culture and language.  To them words are no longer symbolic transfers of ideas and information, they contain some sort of intrinsic power within them.  They are so contained within the constructed system of cultural reality, that words are agents within the system.  Symbols have become entities with agency.  The orally produced sound wave that sounds like “Fuck” has a negative energy that should not be uttered.  As children, in school we are taught that particular sounds made with our mouths are inherently bad no matter the context.  We are taught to buy into culture as a part of our identity, and with that purchase comes it’s language.

The paradox of being taught to take language so seriously is that it handicaps the ability to holistically understand the wonderful tool that it is.  If we learn that language is just the ability to exchange symbolic noises, we can learn to take control of it and get rid of the power it has over us.  If we can understand the underlying code of how language functions, we can hack it to use it to its full potential.  I don’t understand any language other than english, but I could theorize that learning to look objectively at your own language would be a key at understanding another.

But we can also use people’s submission to the program of language to our advantage.  I love swear words, but only because their reactionary qualities on people.  Since swear words have so much of an emotional effect on people, they can be used to catch people’s attention.  Fuck is possibly the most versatile word in the english language. It is a verbal swiss army knife.  Stand up comedians are examples of people who have perfected the art of swearing.  Many methodically insert a “Fuck” here or there, only to keep the attention of the audience.  Because people don’t usually use those kind of words in a public speech, it keeps shocking the audience into listening.  But overused, the jig is up and people realize that you’re only using it for shock value.

Its almost as if people are harmed emotionally by a verbal symbol just like a vampire is physically harmed by the symbol of a crucifix.  When someone puts a magical power on the word “fuck” in itself, it automatically devalues the meaning of other words such as “cat”.  When we should realize that “Fuck” and “Cat” are on a level playing field of value.

Cat

I just telepathically transferred an imagine of a small furry creature into your mind.  That fact in itself should inspire awe

I believe the feeling of being offended by language is the feeling of being in existential crisis.  We all live inside the ideas of humanity. And so, It is a very bad idea to build an identity on the ideas of other people.  An Identity composed of your gender, race, nationality, religion, wealth, tribe ect, is a house of cards.  Because people get offended by language when a person’s identity is based on cultural ideas.  And so, some people are willing to kill for these ideas when they get offended.  Why is this?  Why is it that people act physically hurt when they are offended by language?  

I speculate the willingness to end the physical life of other people for the sake of ideas is because contradicting ideas literally threaten their existence. Let me demonstrate this by using an example objective to us “westerners”.  A Tutsi is willing to kill a Hutu because a Tutsi has been raised in a tribal environment.  From birth, the Tutsi has built a great deal of his identity on the idea that he is a Tutsi.  It has been communicated to him by other people that he is to identify himself with the cultural label “Tutsi”.  If I were to ask a Tutsi in 1994 to write a paragraph of who he is, I would guess that he would write the word “Tutsi” somewhere in the first two sentences.  The problem is that there is a neighboring group of people who similarly identify as “Hutu”.  When a Tutsi looks at a Hutu, he sees an entity that existentially threatens everything that makes him feel alive.  Because a Hutu is a being that claims to be in existence, alive and conscious.  Well then, what the hell does it mean to exist?  This other being must be a liar and an imposter.  He is a thing that isn’t like you at all.  It makes him much easier to destroy in an act of genocide doesn't it?

I am obviously ignoring the history of drawn out conflict in Rwanda but the point is that the tribal identity is extremely fragile.  The reason is because the identity is based on essentially a name alone.  A group name identity is defined by an arbitrary string of letters or mouth noises.  The only thing needed to contradict that group’s existence is the the appearance of another group of beings who are defined by another arbitrary word or mouth noise.  Tribal identities are built on simple ideas, and so when you cause a contradiction to an idea, you are deleting a part of their perceived sense of self.

Religion will exist as long as people are terrified of their own consciousness.  Organized religion provides an easy solution to that existential crisis that all humans must experience.  In religion the reasons for your existence are provided as well as a great sense of belonging   When a religion based on ideas regarding the universe meets another, a huge existential contradiction appears.  The religions are based on dogmas and scriptures and so the only way to solve the crisis of existence is to wipe out the idea that nullifies the idea that defines the religion.  Sometimes the only way to do this is to kill the person that defines himself by the contradicting idea.     

The thing that makes scriptural religion so incredibly confounding to me is the incredible misunderstanding of what the purpose of language actually is.  The religious may not understand what a fragile dance language and communication is.  The Christian religion uses texts that have been written by an unknown amount of people, translated from a number of different languages from linguistic eras long past.  When people have trouble even truly understanding each other in face to face conversation, how can we even begin to pretend to understand what scripture is attempting to convey?  Can anyone from the 21st century pick up a raw copy of Hamlet and truly understand what Shakespeare was trying to say?  Shakespeare wrote in ENGLISH not Hebrew.  Shakespeare has not been translated into other languages and still the text is barely understandable to me.  Christianity teaches that The Bible is all that is needed for understanding the total truth of the universe.  The only thing modern Christians can do is interpret the scripture which has been interpreted by other people which has been interpreted by other people, hence the wide variety of interpretations.  Modern Christianity is nothing but the result of a centuries long game of telephone.              

   

Perhaps the reason many intellectuals are considered typically shy and stumble over their words, is because they better understand the real value of language.  To the intellectual, Saying something unintended is a cardinal sin.  To have someone else interpret exactly as intended is something that is of great importance.  Personally I detest forms of interpersonal communication that is text only.  So much of our meaning, context and emotion is locked inside the codes of conscious and unconscious visual body language.  Looking introspectively, probably the things that have ever caused me the most stressful anxiety is the feeling of not being able to express myself properly.  Times when I have felt the most heartbroken or guilty are times when people have failed to expect or express the correct response to very powerful emotions.  When people have opened their hearts to me, I have miscommunicated by not giving clear indications of not being romantically interested.  I consider “leading someone on” possibly one of the worst things someone can do in a relationship.  The reason simply being that it causes a kind of existential crisis.  If I ask someone out and I get rejected, it makes me feel alone in a sea of emotions.  The only reason I thought to ask them out was because I thought the feelings were mutual.  Its not the rejection that hurts.  What hurts is the fact that emotions have been miscommunicated.  Deliberate miscommunication is obviously more egregious than unconsciously doing so.  But even when accidental, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fragility and importance of honest communication.   

If I am to follow the life philosophy of the “Coded Universe” or “life as a video game”, language is a system to be hacked.  I am going to make it one of my immediate life objectives to master of the code of language.  Perhaps those with the phenomena of charisma are people who have been naturally gifted with the communication hacker ability.  But certainly unless you have an intellectual disability, it can be mastered to a certain extent.  If I am to believe that we are approaching a future that is made of human language and imagination, I must master this ability.  If we are going to live inside each other’s imaginations, I must get used to having my mind wide open.  I have to let go of whatever my ego is attempting to protect.  How can I progress into the future without giving up what will be inevitably public information?  Keeping secrets is useless if everyone is being honest and has good intentions.

“To belong” means the feeling of shared experience between a group of people.  To belong to a group is to be linked by strings of easily flowing and open language.  The more emotional the communication, the deeper the connection.  Emotion being possibly the most important part of the human experience.  The reason you feel like you’re the most yourself when you’re with your best friends, lover, or family is because there are no barriers in the flow of information.  You are able to easily express the deepest feelings of being alive in very specific language.  We are able to express the experience of life with each other.  If we don’t belong, we live on an island of existence.  This is what I consider to be what we call love.  The existence of an unfettered torrent of communication flowing between conscious beings.

The beautiful thing about being alive is that nothing other than death can contradict the existence of your experience.  Nothing can cause you an existential crisis if you chose to live moment to moment.  Soak in the present moment, because it is really the only thing that you can prove 100% to exist.  Cultural existences are based only on ideas and words.  Ideas and words can, by definition be contradicted.  Every fact that science can prove can be conceivably contradicted.  The essence of science is the principle that ideas that build a blueprint of the universe are contradicted and rewritten   Things such as the theory of evolution can be conceivably contradicted and disproven.  By the definition of science the theory of evolution can never be 100% proven.  So even if you base your existence on science, you are only basing it on an incomplete sketch of reality.  If you don’t include the mindfulness of experience, there remains a possibility for a crisis of existence.  Try not to base your identity on the truth of what you experience.  Instead base your sense of existence and identity on the fact that you experience something at all.