Cail's big honking Rush thread

Post by **Cail** » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:27 pm

True, but I think that there's a marked decline in the lyrical quality on HYF that's absent on PoW and Presto. Put simply, if Time Stand Still is the best song on HYF, I don't think it compares favorably to the best song on PoW (Middletown Dreams) or Presto (The Pass), never mind the best from P/G or Moving Pictures.

And you've pretty much got to go with Dog Years or Emotion Detector as being anywhere close to as bad as Tai Shan.

Like T4E, this is an album that overall just doesn't work for me.

Post by **Cail** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:06 pm

A few random thoughts while I'm gearing up for the Presto review....

I've been driving my wife's car this week and listening to her Rush playlist rather than mine. Her choice of songs is interesting, as she was at best a very casual "fan" of the band prior to meeting me. While her selections lean heavily on the '80s hits, she has a surprising amount of pre-PW material in there.

What surprises me about that is that I have exactly one "classic" song in mine (Xanadu), and I've been a fan for 30+ years.

I've sadly come to the conclusion that while I like a lot of the 1st record due to its Zeppelin-like sound, I can't abide most of the other stuff any more. Try as I might, I can't listen to The Trees all the way through. Lakeside Park is meh. Closer to the Heart seems borderline silly.

I don't know what to attribute this to. Did I grow out of it? Was it ever really good? Have I suddenly realized that this is the Prog stuff people keep talking about and I just reflexively dislike it? I dunno.

There are still some of the classic songs I can really enjoy, like Beneath, Between, and Behind, or In the End, or Passage to Bangkok, but those are more of the rockers, not the big, epic, cerebral songs.

The other thing I've noticed is just how freaking great Time Stand Still is. Geddy's vocal delivery is superb, and the lyrics just take my breath away. "Freeze this moment a little bit longer", is like a sucker punch. It also makes an interesting companion piece to The Garden from CA, though listening to them back-to-back makes it painfully clear how thin HYF was.

Post by **Zarathustra** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:13 pm

I've always thought the best lyrics in TSS were:

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older.

That's the one that always brings a tear to Ki's eye. Literally. She has trouble listening to that song. And those lyrics are timely, given today is the last day of summer. The window is open right now and a cool breeze feels like fall.

"Experience slips away ..." is pretty powerful. Also, "Learns to live as if each step was the end."

I've never liked Lakeside Park. I only like the live versions of Closer to the Heart, Xanadu, and Trees (which is awesome ... you're crazy.

) La Villa is a classic. Anthem rocks. I love Circumstances. I actually like Fountain of Lamneth, though it's not for everyone. By Tor is killer. Ditto 2112. Have I mentioned I love Side 1 of Hemi?

The old stuff suffers from Geddy-screech. I hate how he sang back then. It also has some thin production (CttH, Xanadu, etc.). But I definitely listen to new Rush a lot more.

Post by **Cail** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:24 am

Zarathustra wrote:The old stuff suffers from Geddy-screech. I hate how he sang back then. It also has some thin production (CttH, Xanadu, etc.). But I definitely listen to new Rush a lot more.

This is the exact conversation my wife and I had at dinner. Geddy was at the top of his range in those days, and the songs suffered. And truly, the comment you made somewhere earlier in this thread is true about that stuff, it was far better on E.....SL than it was in the studio.

I really feel like they found their voice on PW.

Funny thing too, we were listening to TSS on the way home, and I recalled the way I felt just before my wreck last November.....Completely and totally comfortable and happy with where I was. Had I died in that wreck, I would really have been cool with it. Not that I have a deathwish or anything, but I'd just talked to my wife 15 minutes beforehand, I was relaxed, happy, and doing something I love doing. If my faith is correct, I could have easily looked back from the other side with a smile, knowing I had a good run. Yeah, I would have liked to have frozen that moment a little bit longer, but I was really good with things.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I love this band so much. They make me think; turn introspective and really ponder what it is to be me, to be human, and to be alive.

Post by **Mortice Root** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:15 am

I agree with much of what you guys have said. For me, TSS is just amazing and I agree with the lyrics that Z pointed as being fantastic. I'd add

"Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass the evening with a drink and a friend"

As exceptionally moving.

I still really enjoy lots of the older stuff, though I'd agree that (certainly, vocally) it's a bit of an acquired taste. But as a general rule, they get better with age.

If you guys really like the first album, you should check out ABC 1974, which, though a bootleg, is available off of amazon. It's a show in Cleveland a few weeks after Neil joined the band. So a lot of the stuff is first album stuff with Neil playing, as opposed to Rutsey. It's also got a couple of Fly By Night tunes on it, plus two I'd never heard before. The sound is really good - it was a radio broadcast - and the bass especially is totally kick-ass.

Cail wrote

And that, in a nutshell, is why I love this band so much. They make me think; turn introspective and really ponder what it is to be me, to be human, and to be alive.

Yes. And to this I would add that they make me want to be a better me, and a better human.

Post by **Cail** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 4:35 pm

Saw this during today's travels.

Post by **Mortice Root** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:42 pm

That's a cool pic, Cail.

Post by **Vraith** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:09 pm

hmmm...the vehicle doesn't LOOK like a red barchetta, but other than that....

Post by **Cail** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:13 pm

The bike that was totaled was red, so that was always nice.

It was a shame that the song wasn't playing when I came across the sign. I suppose that sort of synchronicity is too much to hope for.

Post by **Cail** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 11:43 pm

Presto:

Or as I like to call it, a very frustrating album.

1989...That was a very good year for me....I think. I can't tell y'all a lot about it, but from the pictures I have, it sure looks like I was having a great time. After HYF, I had little interest in Rush. Apparently neither did anyone else, as I had no idea they had an album out then.

The only song I heard from Presto was Show Don't Tell, and that was (I think) at some point in mid to late 1990. Otherwise, this album never appeared on my radar, and I don't recall every hearing anything from it on the radio (SDT I saw on MTV).

Show Don't Tell - What a great freaking riff. First time I heard it, that was what caught my ear. 22 years later it still sounds really fresh. The little synth bridge is superfluous, and of course I think the production is too thin, but this is a really solid song that absolutely fails to translate live. Shame too, but it is what it is.

Chain Lightning - Love the atonal guitar. Lyrics ain't bad....They're suitably "Rush-y". I keep waiting for it to just explode.....but it doesn't. A good song, but it really could've been great. Oddly, given the Police comparison I made with P/G, Alex's guitar solo sounds similar to Andy Summers' solo on Driven to Tears.

The Pass - Here we go. Best Rush song to date. Yup, I'm going there. This song is perfect. The production fits it. Geddy sings the shit out of it, and says so much with just a couple of bass notes. How in the world a 37 year old Neil Peart managed to capture teen angst so well is beyond me...He beat the Grunge scene by 2 years. This song is just amazing. In a way, I'm glad I didn't hear it then, 'cause it would have hit me totally differently. "Christ what have you done?" Indeed.

War Paint - WTF? How is it possible this can be the same band? This is awful...Simplistic lyrics and structure, and just doesn't do it. At all. One of their five worst.

Scars - I want to like this song a lot. Great bassline. It's just missing something. It's kind of a Prince-ish groove, that would (everybody say it together) benefit from thicker production.

Presto - Another fantastic song, and I'm so glad they did it on the TM tour. This is another song that needn't apologize for the production, as it works perfectly with the sparseness. This is a great use of pauses and silence in order to create a "big" song. Beautiful lyrics, and really playful guitar from Alex. This is as good as anything else they've done with very few exceptions.

Superconductor - Silly song, but it flows well. Not great, not by any stretch, but it's serviceable.

Anagram (for Mongo) - Bleh. Forgettable filler with a clever title.

Red Tide - For the record, I hate "message" songs. It's like Neil though that Bono and Sting were making a killing singing about rain forests and whatnot, and he thought he'd jump on the bandwagon. Didn't work Neil.

Hand Over Fist - I'll give this one credit....It's an interesting idea. This, along with Scars, seems like Nile Rodgers had something to do with the writing or production. Again though, it's another song that just doesn't work. The lyrics just don't get it, and the music goes from interesting to....just plain.

Available Light - This is an utterly bizarre Rush song. It's completely out of place, sort of like Losing It on Signals. It's......Hell, I have trouble describing it, but it has consistently, in very small increments, grown on me. It's like a jazz piece, but it's not that exactly. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it is about this song that I like, but I can't. Thumbs up, though damn if I can explain exactly why.

Discovering Presto has been an interesting journey. And it's been frustrating. Because honestly, I think that there are four excellent songs on this record, two that are gawdawful, two that are decent, and three that are filler.

I will say that thanks to Show Don't Tell, Chronicles was the first Rush CD I bought, and the first of their records that I bought after Power Windows. Oddly, it didn't move me to rush (hehehe) out to get Presto, or any of their other albums on CD, nor did it rekindle my interest in the band. Chronicles rarely found its way into my CD player, and none of the songs landed on any of my early '90s mix tapes.

And that's a real shame, 'cause there's some great stuff here. A few years ago, I was given a massive hard drive full of music, and Presto was on there. I never listened to it until Sorus posted something in one of the other threads here about The Pass. I've struggled with this album for a few years, and it's slowly grown on me, but it's yet another frustrating album by a band that can do better.

Post by **Zarathustra** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:22 am

As I've said elsewhere, Presto was my first new Rush. In between HYF and this album, I had familiarized myself with their entire back catalog. I was blown away by a wealth of discovery, so much so that I switched my favorite group from Van Halen to Rush, overturning about 4 years of devotion in a single summer. I was 17, in a band (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), and we immediately added our favorite Rush songs to our setlist (The Trees, Xanadu, YYZ, Tom Sawyer ...).

This was also my first Rush show, and I was just floored. Never seen or heard anything like it. We got there early enough to hear the soundcheck from outside the coliseum, and dimly--with tons of echo and sense of space--I could hear The Pass. Hearing those bass chords through the concrete and glass was a moment of anticipation I'll never forget.

I love: SDT, CL, TP, and Presto. I think those are classic Rush songs. I also love HOF, but I wouldn't call it a classic. While the chorus is weak, there's just something about the part where Geddy sings:

How can we ever agree?
Like the rest of the world
We grow farther apart
I swear you don't listen to me
Holding my hand to my heart
Holding my fist to my racing heart.

There's not much else in their entire catalog that he sings with that much emotion (and most of that is in The Pass). The guitar squeal right before that just sets it off perfectly, like Alex feels Ged's pain and sympathizes.

In fact, there's something special about Ged's singing on this entire album. You've got The Pass, as Cail mentioned, which gives me chills. And then his very uncharacteristic singing in Available Light (which I think of as this album's The Garden). I think Presto fits in that category, too, very un-Ged-like, but in a happier, bouncier way. If you go back and listen to some of the bootleg concerts from this time period, I think it's probably his strongest singing live, too. Taking 10 years off from the screeching allowed him plenty of time to experiment within his new range, and I think he nailed it here.

Ride Tide and Superconductor are okay. I'll even listen to Scars every now and then.

A little bit of trivia: anyone else remember Yes's Big Generator that came out two years earlier? Show Don't Tell always reminded of a fast version of the song "Shoot High Aim Low" from that album. Similar "shimmery" guitar sound, similar drum sound, and something about the melody reminded me of SDT chorus.

Post by **Cail** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:55 am

Yeah, Geddy's singing on this record is just stellar. An argument could be made that it's his best use of his voice throughout his career.

Post by **Vraith** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:22 pm

Heh...slightly off topic, but "Fly By Night" is used in a new car commercial...a slightly amusing one. Don't think I've heard Rush in a commercial before.

More on topic, I'm liking Clockwork Angels more on every listen.

Z...that's interesting on Shoot High/Show. I went and listened and I hear what you're saying.

Post by **Zarathustra** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:55 pm

Tom Sawyer was used in a Ford truck commercial several years ago. Ever since then, they've stopped playing the part in Natural Science where Geddy sings:

"Art as expression,
Not as market campaigns
Will still capture our imaginations.
Given the same
State of integrity,
It will surely help us along. "

Sure, they've trimmed songs before for the live performance, but that was a pretty conspicuous cut after the first time they ever let their music be used in a market campaign. I don't think it's a coincidence.

Post by **Cail** » Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:25 am

Roll the Bones

Or as I like to call it, a glimmer of light.

1991. Grunge. I simply hated listening to the radio in those days. Between the 4th wave hair bands and the Seattle slackers, there just wasn't much there for me. I found myself retreating to classic rock stations, and a vast array of mix tapes.

On the ride home from work one evening, the DJ announced a new Rush song, so I decided against flipping channels. I was rewarded with Dreamline. Wow, now this was a good song, I thought. I had a regular card game with another Rush fan who bought the album the day it came out, and he positively gushed about it.

Over the course of the next few months, RtB was a regular listening staple at our games, and I was struck by how good it was, though I never actually bought the thing. "Return to form" might have been a bit of a stretch, but I thought it was better than anything I'd heard from the band since...well, since Moving Pictures.

It ain't 1991 any more....

Dreamline - This is a perfectly good song, I think I've just heard it too much. I still like it, and I think the lyrics are good, though they seem a bit sillier now that I'm 21 years older. This is definitely one of those, "it's not you, it's me" things. I'm glad to see they're still playing it live.

Bravado - Again, not a bad song, it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. Lyrically not bad, but the music fails it.

Roll the Bones - I love this song, and always have, even with the awful, dated "rap". Love the lyrics, simple as they are. As I've said elsewhere, this is a song that just works for me. Dunno why, but it connects on some level.

Face Up - Nice and punchy, for some reason sort or reminds me of Robert Plant's stuff from the same era. But like Bravado, it just fails to deliver, even with a nifty solo from Alex.

Where's My Thing? - From the band that brought us La Villa and YYZ, this is a cataclysmic disappointment.

The Big Wheel - Yet another one that just doesn't work, and this is a much bigger miss than Bravado. It sounds like it should be playing over the credits of an '80s movie in which a plucky bunch of teens manage to save the local pizza place from being bought out by an evil corporation.

Heresy - Best song on the record. An absolutely beautiful requiem for the Cold War. I love the sentiment that Neil adds to this.....It was a waste? A mistake? WTF? This song hits every note so perfectly that it'll bring on an allergy attack if it catches me in the right mood.

Ghost of a Chance - This could have been a silly little love-ish song, instead it's awesome. The counterpoint between the guitars in the main verse, and the dreamy "I don't believe..." sections is perfect. As a person of faith, I chuckle at myself sometimes how much I like Rush when they deconstruct my beliefs. It works particularly well in this song, and strikes a great chord.

Neurotica - Ooooooooh. Yeah, I don't like this one at all.

You Bet Your Life - A weak album ender. Again, I don't feel like it goes anywhere. "The odds get even".....Please.

I'm shocked at how much I dislike this album now. I've defended it for years based on my listening to it 21 years ago, but it hasn't aged all that well, and the songs really weren't that good then....It just wasn't grunge. Just as I was dead-wrong about P/G, I was wrong about this one too.

In my Big Rush Playlist, there are three songs from RtB, and I find myself bypassing them more than any other album's songs.

That surprises me, given how much I like the albums on either side of it (whoops, spoiler alert). With the exceptions of RtB and Heresy, the writing doesn't hold a candle to Presto, and Geddy's singing (which was fantastic on Presto) is just sort of there as a placeholder here.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:04 am

Time Stand Still is an amazing song. have they before or since had a guest vocalist on a song?

Julie read a quote that said only prisoners and Canadians like Rush...

Post by **Zarathustra** » Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:22 pm

Nice to hear you've seen the light on RtB.

I'm absolutely sick of hearing the songs from this album live. I have no idea why they played them on so many tours. Apparently this album was a pretty big commercial success for the band, so that might explain it.

I do like Ghost of a Chance, and I was glad they added that to 2007-8 tour. I don't believe they'd ever played it before then.

While I'm sick to death of RtB live, I do actually like the song, even the goofy "rap." The lyrics are incredible, even in the rap section.

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?

This is probably only moving to an atheist. With that said, I find it heartbreaking and poignant. It's an amazing indictment of belief in God. The "problem of evil." If there is an omnipotent being who "controls the dice," why do so many innocents needlessly suffer? This is one of the main reasons why I'm an atheist.

The rap section is quite clever, and definitely kicks some gluteus max:

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 paralax, you dig?
You move around
The small gets big. It's a rig
It's action -- reaction
Random interaction.
So who's afraid
Of little abstraction
Can't get no satisfaction
From the facts?
You'd better run, homeboy
A fact's a fact
From Nome to Rome, boy.

Parallax. Not a word you'll hear [fill-in-the-blank typical rapper] say, but a fucking great word. The change in perspective as your entire world swings around a star, showing the "fixed" heavens to be anything but fixed. An indictment of Absolute Truth and mystical, timeless perfection in the Heavens.

The night has a thousand saxaphones.
So get out there and rock,
And roll the bones.

I just love the saxaphones line. And nice play on "rock and roll" at the end, split between lines to double the meaning.

Dreamline is a cool song. My son loves it. Very upbeat and positive. The rest of the CD I could do without. But Cail's comments make me want to listen to Heresy again. Honestly, I don't even remember how it goes.

Post by **Cail** » Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:43 pm

Well damn Zar, I'd never considered RtB's lyrics that way. I's just written them off as "Freewill Lite". That interpretation certainly makes for a more interesting song.

Post by **Zarathustra** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:34 pm

Thanks, Cail. Yeah, whether or not you're a believer in a higher power, I think we can all be moved by the fact that there is so much suffering in the world. There are certainly Christian answers to the problem of evil ... like the necessity of allowing evil in order to have freewill.

And that brings us to "freewill lite." I don't think you're wrong. The songs are connected, just as Faithless is connected to this theme, too. I've always viewed RtB as an anti-determinism song. "Random interaction," as the rapping skeleton says. No fate or destiny. And that's because God doesn't control the dice (even if there is one), but lets things play out. And in a universe like this, freewill is the only force besides luck that has an effect on outcomes. So even though we take our chances, we still have an effect that generates meaning out of chaos (if we choose that path). I wish the song had stressed that angle.

Rush fans have wanted Rush to do more concept albums ever since Hemispheres, and they think they've only just now got one with Clockwork Angels. But I think RtB could be loosely described as a concept album. Look at all the songs dealing with luck, chance, odds, etc. "The odds get even," [You Bet Your Life]. "I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate ... but I believe there's a ghost of a chance ..." [GoaC.] Obviously, RtB. But there are elements of this theme running through the others, too, especially Dreamline.

Post by **Cail** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:45 pm

Yeah, I think that most of their albums have, if not an over-arching concept, a unifying theme. Certainly Signals, P/G, Power Windows, Presto, and RtB do.

And RtB's theme is relatively obvious, and most of the songs are infused with it. Which is yet another reason why I'm puzzled by my dissatisfaction with it. I think it comes back to the writing quality, which just doesn't measure up.

Kevin's Watch

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Cail's big honking Rush thread