Due to my commitment to the Tragically Hip, there was only one open slot for Rush, and I had a helluva time choosing which of their nineteen studio albums to review. I talked to Alicia about my conundrum, and she said, “Why don’t you look at it this way: if you knew the aliens were going to come and take us away a month from now, which album would you choose?”

It’s so nice to have a fellow sci-fi fan for a partner. The choice became a no-brainer: the album that led me to remove Rush from the no-fly list was Moving Pictures. I just loved the sound of that record. I had been worried about screwing up the narrative if I reviewed their eighth album, but I’d forgotten that Rush had already given me an out by releasing the three (later four) parts of their “Fear Series” in reverse order!

Once I started my research, I was delighted to find that Moving Pictures still moves people in our century. Sean Murphy of Pop Matters wrote in 2023, “Moving Pictures is, without any question, not only Rush’s masterpiece but one of those rare albums that epitomizes an era. It represents both a culmination and a progression: the peak of the band’s development as well as the blueprint for Rush’s subsequent work.” We’ll explore the myriad reasons the album is considered a masterpiece when we get to the songs, but the album might have never seen the light of day if Rush hadn’t gotten wise to the music industry’s ways. In the book Moving Pictures: How Rush Created Hard Rock’s Greatest Record, author Will Romano quotes Neil Peart’s advice to “up-and-coming rock musicians” that happens to sync with where Rush was at this point in their trajectory: “Don’t get into a situation you can’t control . . . All you have to do is be aware and use your head.” In the article, “Rush and the Story of Moving Pictures” on Louder, Phillip Wilding explained how Rush managed to take control of their trajectory by employing their recently obtained leverage to launch a revolt against the master plan:

There was no plan for an album called Moving Pictures and no new studio album in the pipeline after the surprise crossover success of Permanent Waves. The idea was another live album, another tour; maybe to think about the next studio record. But such was the band’s momentum that they canned the idea of releasing a live album off the back of what had become their most successful tour and headed back into the Canadian countryside and to Le Studio.

“We were scheduled to do this big live album after Permanent Waves,” says (Alex) Lifeson. “And at the last minute we said, ‘You know what? Fuck this, we’re not going to do a live album. We’re going to go back into the studio and do our next album.’ And that’s how Moving Pictures came to be. And it turned out to be the most important decision of our careers. Or the second most important decision, the first one being 2112, because without 2112, there would be no Rush.”

Geddy Lee added, “And it was exciting to suddenly change plans. ‘Okay, fuck it,’ you know? ‘We’re going back in the studio!’ And we were in a groove from Permanent Waves, we had kind of hit on a new style for ourselves; working in these shorter timeframes, but still building these complexities within those timeframes, and it was kind of an exciting period for us.”

Their decision is a lesson for us all: never, ever let anything interfere with the creative urge. Fuck the plan, fuck the chores, fuck the bills, and fuck expectations. Expressing what is in your heart and soul is more important than anything else in life, and realizing an artistic vision is one of the most rewarding experiences life has to offer, whether you’re talking about music, painting, writing, crafting, or building the perfect garden.

For those who are uncomfortable with the official f-word, I have good news for you. From the many comments Geddy, Alex, and Neil made in reference to the painstaking complexity involved in the creation of Moving Pictures, I noticed that the f-word they used most frequently was “fun.”

*****

All lyrics written by Neil Peart except “Tom Sawyer”, by Peart and Pye Dubois; all music is composed by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, except “YYZ“, by Lee and Peart. 

“Tom Sawyer”: Before we get into “Tom Sawyer,” described by American Songwriter as “a searing ode to individualism,” I’d like to dispense with the Neil Peart-Ayn Rand controversy that dogged Rush for years. Ayn Rand’s philosophical meanderings are like the Bible: anyone can find a quote that supports what they believe. Libertarians ignore the fact that Rand hated libertarianism; GOP elites ignore her solid support of abortion rights and rejection of religion while celebrating her embrace of laissez-faire economics and disdain for the Welfare State. What Neil Peart found attractive about Ayn Rand (in addition to her sci-fi writings) was her belief that the individual should have the right to think for themselves, not cave into conformist pressure, and develop their potential as they see fit. From a Rolling Stone interview:

For me, [Rand’s writing] was an affirmation that it’s alright to totally believe in something and live for it and not compromise. It was a simple as that. On that 2112 album, again I was in my early 20s. I was a kid. Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal – because I’m an idealist. Paul Theroux’s definition of a cynic is a disappointed idealist. So as you go through past your 20s, your idealism is going to be disappointed many many times. And so, I’ve brought my view and also – I’ve just realized this – Libertarianism as I understood it was very good and pure and we’re all going to be successful and generous to the less fortunate and it was, to me, not dark or cynical. But then I soon saw, of course, the way that it gets twisted by the flaws of humanity. And that’s when I evolve now into . . . a bleeding heart Libertarian. That’ll do.

Twain’s Tom Sawyer was a free-spirited rebel and something of a con artist who eventually developed a sense of right and wrong and a commitment to personal responsibility. The modern Tom Sawyer depicted here was based on a character in the song “Louis the Warrior” written by Max Webster band lyricist Pye Dubois. Pye thought it might be a better fit for Rush, and Neil turned the song into a reflection on his own coming-of-age experience in a world much more complex than the one inhabited by Tom and Huck. From Songfacts: “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.”

Neil Peart was not only an outstanding lyricist; he was an unusually self-aware human being.

It was up to Geddy Lee to interpret those lyrics in a way that captures the mood and meaning, and he doesn’t have long to wait. The introduction lasts only six seconds, but it immediately perks up your ears with the perfectly-timed single-chord blast of distortion from Alex, a restrained beat from Peart, and a downward figure played by Geddy on the Oberheim OBX synthesizer that makes me feel like I’m traveling through space-time to meet the protagonist. Singing over Neil’s subtle beat and echoes of the introductory fade, Geddy seems to be presenting the character as a tough guy, especially when he changes his tone to jive on the closing line. After a few listens, I learned to interpret “mean” as “determined and filled with intent.”

A modern-day warrior
Mean mean stride
Today’s Tom Sawyer
Mean mean pride

The verse is immediately followed by a powerful four-bar guitar pattern set to four strokes per bar. The first set is played entirely on the E major chord; the other three open with E major and end first with Dus2, then A7sus4, then closing on Cadd9. That combination tells us that Rush is in Mixilodian mode, if you’re interested in that kind of thing. The rising pattern is quite dramatic, with Alex crashing away, supported by Geddy on a Fender jazz bass (he usually used a Ric). Now, if that had been Keith Moon on the kit, he probably would have joined in the fun and beat the crap out of his toms and cymbals, but Neil holds back, maintaining the beat and letting the instrumentalists do their thing. The pattern continues through the verse, set to a more coherent melody, where Geddy trades jive for passion:

Though his mind is not for rent
Don’t put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day’s events –
The river

Neil Peart was definitely an introvert, and introverts have always had difficulty dealing with a world that cherishes extrovert values. Many people view introverts as standoffish or weird, as reflected in the synonyms for introvert I found in the Collins Dictionary: solitary, loner, hermit, recluse, lone wolf, withdrawn, reclusive, and uncommunicative. It’s hard for an introvert to “ride out the day’s events” because they’re often filled with the noise of extroverts who ignore their need for quiet time. Introverts are deep thinkers who need time for contemplation; hence the reference to Twain’s novels in the hanging line, “the river.” The river has always been a symbol of life’s journey, of change, and of the passage of time—and for an introvert, a quiet spot on a calm river is the perfect place for reflection on the meaning of life.

The music gets a bit more intense as we enter the first bridge, where the chord pattern changes to another rising pattern of E-F#-G-A-E-C-B-A. From a lyrical standpoint, the first bridge, the second bridge (also set to a different melody), and the verse that follows are intertwined in terms of theme. By making the introvert the hero of the story, Peart was challenging the status quo and sending a message: “The new Tom Sawyer may not live up to your expectations, but if you just shut up for a minute, you could learn a lot from his perspective.”

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

A whirling synthesizer opens an extended instrumental passage that can only be described as breathtaking. The shift to 7/8 time is executed so well that you hardly notice, and the trio falls right into the beat like a duck takes to water. The interplay between Geddy’s bass and Lifeson’s guitar solo (the latter patched seamlessly together from different takes) is energetic and deeply satisfying, as is Neil’s more assertive drumming. I get the chills every time Neil launches that roll that moves from my right ear to my left, following it up with a magnificent attack on high toms, low toms, and snare. The band maintains the high-energy arrangement through what I believe is the most important verse in the song:

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren’t permanent –
But change is

On a personal level, that verse hit me like a ton of bricks. By accepting work at the EU, I voluntarily rented my mind to a government. While I have a sliver of hope left, my discontent rises every day as my work in human rights takes a back seat to defense and immigration issues. In this unstable world, we all have to accept that change itself is permanent and frequently unwelcome: you can lose your job when the CEO wants to cut costs to please the shareholders or if so-called technological progress renders your skills obsolete. Sometimes the river turns into rapids, requiring us to make quick adjustments to get through the rough patch and hope that the river calms down soon enough. Meanwhile, we still have to deal with “the friction of the day”:

Exit the warrior
Today’s Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day

The song ends with a fade that restates some of the main themes and textures, solidifying the composition. Though the finished product is magnificent, Geddy remembered that “We had more trouble with that song than almost any other song. I had real doubt about whether the song was working at all.” (Louder, ibid) Those difficulties involved sound problems galore and a finicky computer that they were pushing to the max. Neil recalled the challenges he faced as the drummer: ” I’m playing full strength for the whole track, and it took about a day and a half to record. I remember collapsing afterwards with raw, red, aching hands and feet. I had been playing the bass drum so hard that my toes were all mashed together and very sore. Physically, this was certainly the most difficult track, and even now it takes as much energy to play properly as my solo.” “Tom Sawyer” is a challenging piece on many levels, but we can be thankful that Rush called up every bit of perseverance they had to make it work.

“Red Barchetta”: This song is unique in music history—the only song inspired by a story that appeared in Road and Track magazine.

Richard S. Foster’s story is about a future when governments are more concerned with safety than pollution, so cars are more like tanks than automobiles, and small cars are banned. The car in Foster’s story is an MGB roadster owned by a guy named Buzz who likes to take his illegal car out for a “nice morning drive” through areas unlikely to be monitored by the police. Neil chose to replace the British model with the 1948 166MM Barchetta, designed by Ferrari as a dual street car and race car with a whole lot more oomph than an MG. The Wikipedia article on the song claims that the 166MM was Neil’s favorite car, but failed to name the source. Given the passion for the car he expressed in the lyrics, I’d say it was a safe bet.

I’m going to veer from my usual M.O. and tell you why I think “Red Barchetta” is one of the coolest songs ever!

The Family Connection: The guy who owns the illegal automobile is a “white-haired uncle” who believes in the practice of passing down family traditions to the younger generation, and his nephew is delighted to have the chance to experience the good old days.

My uncle has a country place, that no-one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the ‘Eyes’, and hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine –
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

The Unveiling: Neil treated the unveiling as a sacred moment close to (or better than) any religious rite you care to name.

I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time
Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime . . .

Geddy’s bass runs: My favorite bassists are those who can blend rhythmic support and memorable counterpoints in their performances, but Geddy adds a new dimension with runs that qualify as lead guitar solos. The Fender Jazz Bass was effective on “Tom Sawyer,” but this is a more melodic number, and every guitar Rickenbacker makes has a melodic touch.

Alex’s Guitars: Alex slips in a few jangly riffs with a British invasion feel to capture the joyful aspect of the crime, shifts to overdrive to capture the roar of a Ferrari in the verses and open spaces, and comes up with an otherworldly tone for his guitar solo to remind us we’re in the future.

Rhythmic-Lyric Integration: The rhythms follow the storyline and the cues from the drummer—stuttering with excitement in anticipation of the driving experience, increasing the power as the magic moment nears, and letting it all hang out when rubber hits the road. I don’t know if I’ve ever used these words to describe a drummer’s performance, but I would describe Neil’s contribution on this song as passionate and meaningful.

The Grand Finale with a Sweet Ending: I usually despise movies that end with a car chase, so I was surprised when I found myself passionately rooting for the nephew to make that bridge and beat the bad guys in their “air cars”:

Suddenly ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires, to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase

Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I’ve got a desperate plan
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside . . . 

I must remind my readers that I confessed to having an orgasm while riding on the back of a Norton P53 Commander, so my experience with fast cars and motorcycles may have tilted my views. Not only do I have no regrets regarding that bias, but I’m ready to go even further. If I were Queen of the World, I would exempt muscle cars and racing cars from all safety and environmental regulations and make them the only vehicles allowed to use gasoline. Fuck, people, you have to have fun sometimes!

“YYZ”: I’ve flown into YYZ and YUL quite a few times and never bothered to learn “why the Y.” Ergo, for the first and likely the only time in my life, I visited the Airport Industry News website to end the mystery. “The enigmatic ‘Y’ in Canadian airport codes is a legacy of the country’s radio navigation system. When the Canadian government established airports, it maintained the system used for railway codes. If the airport had a weather station, authorities added a ‘Y’ to the front of the code, indicating ‘Yes’ for a weather station.” I don’t know why anyone would want to fly into an airport that didn’t have a weather station, but there you have it.

This instrumental was made possible because Alex Lifeson chose to become a licensed air pilot. When flying the band into YYZ one day, Neil heard the Morse code identifier for the airport, and as a guy wired to pick up all sorts of rhythms, this one planted a seed in his brain:

“The rhythm stuck in my head and I said, ‘Guys!’ So then, thematically we said, ‘We’ll let’s use that airport — so much a part of our lives in those days and after — let’s use that as a metaphor in a sense. Again, in a playful way. There was no sense of ‘Okay, this part is this part’ and all that. But there is a sense of bustling and coming and going and the grand emotion of that middle section of what airports can be. In our lives, airports were rich with symbolism. Departures and comings and goings; departures and arrivals. Separations and meetings. That was kind of woven into the song. The exotic nature of travel, too, and Alex’s guitar solo for sure too. He wove in that kind of eastern mode.”

You can hear the Morse code duplicated in the opening passage set to a time signature of 10/8, first by Neil on crotales, then by the full band. After a few sharp cuts, the band settles into 4/4 time. The most noticeable bit of innovation can be found in the guitar solo, where Neil inserts crashing noises in the empty spaces by using wind chimes tied to a 2×4 plywood sheet slapped against a wooden table. The hectic nature of an airport is successfully conveyed through the heart-pounding rhythms that dominate the song; a slower passage toward the end indicates that we’re comfortably strapped into our seats and ready for takeoff.

Moving Pictures was recorded in 1981, long before those assholes who destroyed the World Trade Center made flying a drag. I do remember what it was like before 9/11 because I accompanied my parents on many trips to Europe, the U.S., Canada, and South America, and experienced the “grand emotion” Neil refers to. The music captures those days of yesteryear while serving as undeniable evidence of the trio’s exceptional musicianship.

“Limelight”: As my readers well know, I’m terrified by the thought of ever becoming famous, but I do love being in the limelight in private settings . . . especially in the bedroom.

Songfacts provides two different motivations behind the song’s origins, one from the lyricist and one from the singer:

Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart: “Success puts a strain on the friendship and it puts the strains on your day-to-day relationship, and it’s something that we did go through, you know, we’re not immune to it. But we were able to overcome it just through our closeness and we were able to help each other with difficulties like that and then we could deal with the pressures and things and that.”

Lead singer and bass player Geddy Lee: “‘Limelight’ was probably more of Neil’s song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time . . . he was having a very difficult time dealing with. I mean we all were, but I think he was having the most difficulty of the three of us adjusting; in the sense that I think he’s more sensitive to more things than Alex and I are, it’s harder for him to deal with those interruptions on his personal space and his desire to be alone. Being very much a person who needs that solitude, to have someone coming up to you constantly and asking for your autograph is a major interruption in your own little world. I guess in the one sense that we’re a little bit like misfits in the fact that we’ve chosen this profession that has all this extreme hype and this sort of self-hyping world that we’ve chosen to live in, and we don’t feel comfortable really in that kind of role.”

The song itself is a solid rocker tinged with a bit of sadness expressed through the minor chord in the verse pattern of B-G#m-F#-E-F#-B-G#m-F#. The verses are unusual in that they consist of five lines instead of the usual even-numbered approach, ensuring that everything that needs to be said is said:

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role,
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

My favorite verse is a bluntly honest expression of the discomfort that comes with fame:

Living in a fisheye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend

I have a very hard time with fame-seekers who are willing to sacrifice privacy to get a spot on the red carpet, and Neil offers those so oriented a bit of friendly advice:

Living in the Limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem

Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Fame is unreal and ephemeral, and you’re an idiot if you take it seriously. “Limelight” is a great song that many wannabes should take seriously and was fully worthy of its induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

“The Camera Eye”: I was a bit surprised that this song was “the #1 fan-requested song for Rush to perform live.” (Songfacts) Of course, Rush stopped playing it live two years later and wouldn’t bring it back until 2010. Neil explained the dilemma in response to a question from a fan in a Q&A in the Backstage Club Newsletter: “Sometimes we grow tired of playing older songs, and can no longer give them the commitment necessary to perform them excitingly and honestly, to give our audience (and ourselves) new songs to enjoy, and naturally we think that our newer songs are better, otherwise we’d stop working at all.” I’ve read various explanations as to why Rush dropped the song from the playlist: Geddy thought the song didn’t age well; the song was too long for a concert setting; the band felt that they couldn’t successfully reproduce it on stage. The song never made it on any of the “best of” compilations, but most compilations are lacking in one way or another. Adding to the mystery is a comment attributed to Alex that once they started playing it again in 2010, it became one of the band’s favorites.

Here’s my theory: human beings are given to mood changes, and music communicates mood. With the Doomsday Clock getting closer to zero every day, I’ve avoided playing many of my favorite albums that fall on the dark side. As of late, I’ve been listening to happier music from British Invasion and Britpop bands just to retain my sanity. I know that Animals is my favorite Pink Floyd album, but if Alicia decided to slip it on the turntable, I would scream, “Take that shit off and put on Herman’s Hermits!”

Neil was right. If the band had lost interest in a song, it’s best not to play it just to make the fans happy, because their hearts aren’t in it. The rebirth of “The Camera Eye” tells us that the song has legs, and that’s the best measure of a song’s quality.

I have one more nit to pick. “The Camera Eye” is frequently described as a song in two parts, with the first part covering life in New York City and the second crossing the pond to London. Wrong! There’s an overture, dammit! It’s a three-part song, and that’s how I’m going to review it!

Overture: The piece begins with a mix of New York horn-honking and Londoner chatter, followed by twisty sounds from the synth. Neil enters with a military-style riff behind the modest 4-note motif, switching to a more contemporary style that foreshadows a shift to power rock where Alex takes over to deliver a combination of chord crashes and arpeggios. The carefully measured change in sound sets the heart a-pumping and a hunger for more of the hard stuff. After one of those fabulous stereo drum rolls from Neil, the overture ends with a recapitulation of the synth pattern. The mood expressed in the overture is Shakespearean, as in “something wicked this way comes,” preparing us for the experience of city life.

New York: A quick repetition of synth notes raises the blood pressure, which spikes on the delicious power chord that follows. The main motif of this section is repeated again and again at breakneck speed, with Neil going batshit crazy on the drums. Welcome to New York City, a paradoxical mix of breakneck speed and art-infused beauty. The chords used in the city sections combine half-step moves with several examples of sustained chords that communicate tension and a cornucopic environment that can easily lead to sensory overload. Fortunately, Geddy plays the role of objective observer, fascinated by the scene but still remembering he has a job to do: capture the New York scene in words people will understand:

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

After the band delivers a deeply satisfying display of hard rock power and chunky rhythms, the mood shifts to a reflective but still assertive mood with Alex playing a series of sweet arpeggios:

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

It’s almost impossible to avoid speeding up your walking speed in New York because you get the sense that if you don’t get those legs moving,  you will be crushed by the masses. The band then shifts to a more driving beat for a few seconds, then Geddy sums up the experience, emphasizing every syllable of the closing line for effect:

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

Indeed it is—and you need to stay sharp to survive. I happen to love New York but I can’t imagine living there (and I certainly can’t fucking afford it).

London: The soundtrack to our next stop on the journey follows the same pattern as New York, so it’s up to the lyrics to express the difference between the two cities, with the main difference involving centuries of history.

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

True story: I have visited London several times and never experienced a drop of precipitation. But I did experience the pride the British feel regarding their history (and their lingering resentment that the empire ain’t what it used to be). Neil nailed one aspect of London that separates it from its American competitor:

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

Londoners are more chill than New Yorkers, perhaps due to classic British reserve. The segment ends with the repetition of the same verse that closed New York. “I feel the sense of possibilities/I feel the wrench of hard realities/The focus is sharp in the city.” It may be masked by civility, but the Brits were capitalists long before the Yanks and have much stronger traditions.

I can see how “The Camera Eye” wowed Rush fans because of its drama, power, and top-notch performances, but I wish they had come up with different music for the London passage to strengthen the differences between the two cities . . . something with a British touch.

“Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear): From Songfacts: “Vocalist Geddy Lee told The Plain Dealer newspaper in a 2011 interview that the song’s message is even more relevant today than when it was first recorded: ‘It’s one of those songs that means as much today, if not more, considering what’s gone on in the world with racial profiling and all these different issues. The sentiment of that song is as appropriate as ever.’”

2011 was heaven compared to where we are now, thanks entirely to the stupidity of the American electorate. The United States is now a rogue nation preaching hatred and prejudice while spreading fear to every corner of the globe, and the opposition has done nothing to stop it.

Neil was concerned with the rise of fundamentalist religion in the States at the start of the Reagan era, and his perception of what that development could lead to was amazingly prescient. He wrote these words thirty-six years before the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville:

The night is black
Without a moon
The air is thick and still

The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill

Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right
Confident their ways are best

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will

Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat, and burn, and kill

They say there are strangers, who threaten us
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness, too dangerous
In our theatres and bookstore shelves
That those who know what’s best for us –
Must rise and save us from ourselves

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger
Slow to understand

Ignorance and prejudice
And fear
Walk hand in hand

The music is dark, funereal, and downright scary. Geddy’s vocal is one of his strongest and most disciplined performances. His emotional restraint is remarkable—he’s not preaching, he’s just telling it like it is, like a journalist of yesteryear.

Side note: I have received a few comments from readers who believe that my American boycott fails to account for the millions of Americans who oppose the current regime and are doing the best they can in a difficult situation. All I can say is this: try harder. Until I see evidence of effective opposition that produces results, the boycott will remain in place. Protests, digs at Trump on late-night TV and award shows, Bruce Springsteen songs, and lawsuits that are frequently dismissed by the Trump-friendly court system aren’t going to cut it. The Democrats are leaderless and divided, have no coherent strategy, and their fundraising efforts still emphasize how awful Trump is instead of presenting voters with a clear vision of a future that people can embrace (my Dad is bombarded with those pleas every day).  The 1-day national strike is a move in the right direction, but a one-day event is unlikely to move the needle, and scheduling it on May 1 will allow right-wing media to claim that the strike is Communist-inspired.

“Vital Signs”: The album closes with a bit of fun and playful innovation. From Songfacts: “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.” In the same article, Neil noted that “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 all 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 taken under our umbrella and made happen.”

The audience also might have been confused by Neil’s lyrics. “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 are. (Perhaps Murphy’s Laws?) Never mind!” The PC wouldn’t catch on until the mid-90s, so only a very few early techies would have understood what Neil was going on about. 

After the darkness of “Witch Hunt,” we could use a little fun, and I find the changes in style and presentation positively delightful. It’s also nice that the album closes with something uplifting as opposed to doom and gloom. Better still, Neil provides us with a pathway toward a more positive future in the closing verses:

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 . . .

I would really appreciate it if some of you could copy those lines and send them to the tired minds of the Democratic National Committee, a moribund organization that desperately needs to elevate itself from the norm.

*****

I think Geddy underrated the relevance of Moving Pictures in today’s world by limiting his comment to a single song. The entire album is replete with relevance to our current situation, and Neil provided many valuable insights into the human condition. The musicianship is exceptional, the arrangements are consistently engaging, and the shifting moods cover a wide spectrum of human emotions.

Fortunately, due to my exercise routine of martial arts exercises, I am flexible enough to kick myself in the ass for ever placing Rush on my no-fly list. I apologize for my dumb blonde response to a few of their songs and fervently wish I could turn back the clock to correct that grievous error in judgment.

You can expect more Rush reviews in the future . . .  assuming we have one.