Music Video Of the Week - July 3, 2025

"Anthem" by Rush  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - February 7, 2024

"Fly By Night" by Rush  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Rush - Permanent Waves (1980)

I can't describe the concept of Rush's Permanent Waves album with one word, like I could with Moving Pictures (motion).  I couldn't even describe the concept of Permanent Waves in a paragraph, as I'm not even sure of what the overall arching theme is.  But who cares?  Permanent Waves is an astonishing album, brimming with challenging, dynamic music and some of Neil Peart's most insightful lyrics and expanding Rush's boundaries as a progressive power trio.  Alex Lifeson's memorable guitar solos and Peart's hyperkinetic drumming blend seamlessly with Geddy Lee's inventive bass lines and keyboard riffs and - always the icing on the cake - his free-spirited, wailing vocals.  Rush in 1980 were still suffering slings and arrows from professional (as in paid, not expert) rock critics, with their fellow Canadian Alan Niester dismissing Lee's voice as a cross between Robert Plant and Donald Duck.  But it's Lee's enunciation and his ability to give Peart's intellectual lyrics a sense of fiery urgency and indignance that makes him not a great singer but a great rock and roll singer.

If there is a common theme between the six tracks on Permanent Waves, it's the collision of irresistible forces not with static objects but with each other.  The album storms out of the gate with "The Spirit of Radio," a full-throated rocker carried by a celestial synthesizer line and a Lifeson guitar solo that spells Lee's vocal for piercing effect.  The song is both an appreciation of radio and a lament for what corporate interests had begun to turn it into.  "Freewill" reinforces Peart's obsession with self-determination, the urgent lyrics endorsing a clear path to a better future while offering both a balm and a challenge to those resigned to fate. The crunchy guitar riffs of "Freewill" offer a sense of menace, while Lee proves once again that  he's the most thoughtful synthesizer programmer in North America northeast of Stevie Wonder.

Rush produced very few love songs, and Permanent Waves has both of them.   "Entre Nous" is a sharp power ballad that explores the differences and the emotional void between two lovers, while "Different Strings" is a quiet, more subtle work of romantic introspection underlined by Lifeson''s gentle guitar growl in the fadeout.  But the two epic tracks that close each side both make the case for Rush as master composers who avoid the tedium normally associated with long, extended prog compositions.  "Jacob's Ladder" is an ominous depiction of a passing storm with as much tension as one might feel with the coming of severe weather, the crescendo at the end providing an ecstatic dissipation.  "Natural Science," the closing cut, is a three-part dissertation of cause and effect, drawing parallels of the intimacy of microorganisms in tide pools o the expansion of the universe and man's role in it, coming full circle at the end with the sound of cashing waves.  Such a composition from other prog bands played on the radio would be a signal for a bathroom break; you don't get that vibe from "Natural Science" because you're too busy tapping your feet to the music and immersing yourself in the literary words on the lyric sheet. 

Released at the beginning of 1980, Permanent Waves was Rush's opening salvo in their quest to become one of the most relevant rock bands of the new decade, an aspiration they achieved the following year with Moving Pictures - in spades.  But they could never hope to be the coolest rock band of the eighties, a decade dominated by hair bands, and certainly not the coolest musical act of a decade in which the ground moved under rock's feet and transferred coolness and hipness to MTV pop divas and pretty-boy New Romantic British groups.  As the decade wore on, Rush would try to contemporize their sound, but their commitment to the substance that underpinned their music remained, and they weren't about to cater to the "in" crowd, much to the relief of their outcast fans.  It was really just a question of honesty.

Yeah, honesty.   

Music Video Of the Week - September 23, 2022

"Subdivisions" by Rush  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - February 19, 2021

"Limelight" by Rush (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week- January 17, 2020

"The Spirit of Radio" by Rush  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

God With Drumsticks

Soon after the Canadian power trio Rush released their self-titled debut album in 1974, their drummer, John Rutsey, was forced to leave due to health complications brought about by diabetes.  Guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist-keyboardist-vocalist Geddy Lee then turned to another drummer, Neil Peart, as Rutsey's replacement.  This would prove to be a pivotal decision, just as the Beatles' decision to replace Pete Best with Ringo Starr or Family's decision to replace Harry Ovenall (their original drummer) with Rob Townsend would be.

Neil Peart, who died of brain cancer last week at age 67, would transform Rush as much as Ringo Starr or Rob Townsend transformed their respective bands . . . and then some.  His magnificent drumming was a cornerstone of Rush's aggressive, complex sound, with heavy beats that kept his bandmates Lee and Lifeson on course and with major assaults that would prove as menacing as Lifeson's guitar solos or Lee's banshee wailing.  But it was also his lyricism that would set Rush apart from the many metal acts and power trios that aspired to follow the path blazed by Cream and by Led Zeppelin.  Peart was a libertarian who distrusted large organizations, which fueled a common theme of Rush's music - songs about the individual against the system.  The independence Peart sought as a musician was reflected in his lyrics to "Fly By Night," about preparing to leave and chart one's own course.  Themes of non-conformity and keeping one's integrity prevailed in the philosophical lyrics about art and commerce in "The Spirit of Radio," the adventure of "Tom Sawyer," and the negative utopia of "Red Barchetta."  Peart also managed to somehow offer a critical treatise on suburbia that one might encounter in a Lewis Mumford book in a single song with "Subdivisions."  Peart's ruminations on conformity and individuality provided more food for thought than most heavy-rock songs usually do.

Peart and his band were not without their critics, many of them dismissing Peart's drumming as just a lot of noise and his lyrics as too much in the style of Ayn Rand to fit into the rock ethos of collective action and interdependent brotherhood.  As a Canadian, though, Peart was able to sound libertarian without sounding churlish (an American rocker might not have been able to pull that off), and his playing was far more developed and precise than that of most heavy-rock drummers.  He, like Lee and Lifeson (who wrote Rush's music), was determined to improve and perfect his chops with each album as well as explore new ideas and expand their music to include elements of folk, reggae, blues, and progressive styles.  That persistence to not just be the best power trio in rock but also the most literary and intellectual power trio in rock made Rush a mainstay in the rock scene and made Peart - often thought of as God in the same way Eric Clapton had been thought of when he was with John Mayall - a legend.

Rush toured for the last time in 2015, with Peart retiring thereafter due to tendinitis; his brain cancer was detected in 2017 and was kept secret until his death.  He leaves behind a wealth of classic performances and lyrics that few if any rockers could ever hope to match.  RIP. :-(

Music Video Of the Week - April 26, 2018

"Red Barchetta" by Rush  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Music Video Of the Week - July 14, 2017

"Bastille Day" by Rush (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Rush's eighth studio album, Moving Pictures, so I'm writing an appraisal of it and including relevant videos as well.

Motion: It permeates and pulses through Rush's 1981 album Moving Pictures without a break. Motion - constant, nonstop motion through life by all possible means - is the theme of this record, delivering driving, explosive music in the finest realization of the Canadian power trio's continuing obsession with the individual against the system. Released at a time of economic upheaval and political change in the industrialized world, Moving Pictures creates a world where nothing is static and where everyone has to adapt to new realities.

Rush were a different band in 1981 than they had been when their debut album was released seven years earlier. For one thing, they replaced original drummer John Rutsey with Neil Peart after only a year as recording artists. It proved to be a pivotal decision. For while Peart is an excellent drummer, he also turned out to be an astonishing lyricist inspired by the individualist theories of conservative philosopher Ayn Rand. As implausible as it may seem for a rock and roll band to endorse the kind of sociopolitical ideas rock critics imagine the music going against (and this clearly explains why Rush rarely gets critical acclaim), Peart's own interpretation of Rand's works are more libertarian than plutocratic, endorsing a freedom of spirit and conscience more than the accumulation of material wealth. The musings in Rush's songs have more social than political significance, explaining one's place in society and how one relates to others.

Guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Geddy Lee bring their crisp, inventive musicianship to Peart's lyrics through the music itself (which they wrote) and their heavy playing. Fierce guitar solos meld with the echoing waves of Lee's synthesizers and the steady pacing of his bass - topped off by Lee's own high-pitched, wailing vocals bringing life and a sense of weary, seasoned cynicism to Peart's lyrics. Having moved beyond the basic bar band riffs of their early recordings, Rush, with producer Terry Brown, achieve a more accessible sound that is no less powerful than the searing, slashing music of Fly By Night.

It's in this milieu that the direction of Moving Pictures takes one swerving turn after another. "Tom Sawyer," the opening cut, tells the tale of a modern rebel driven by a deep and wide sense of purpose, refusing to bend to any deity or dictator. Knowing that "changes aren't permanent / But change is," Tom rides Peart's slashing cymbals and Lifeson's angry guitar notes on a flowing river of synthesized waves. "Red Barchetta" imagines a futuristic society in which mobility is strictly controlled and automobiles have been overregulated. The protagonist defies the law by racing across the countryside in an Italian sports car now deemed unfit for motoring by the authorities; the forward propelling of Lifeson's guitar and the charged urgency of Lee's vocals puts the listener squarely in the driver's seat.

Opportunity and danger confront each other in the two-part song suite "Fear;" "The Camera Eye" follows the comings and goings of pedestrians in New York and London with an appreciation of "the sense of possibilities" in these bustling metropolises, while the plodding "Witch Hunt" foretells the arrogant tyranny of racist mobs against immigrant populations: "Quick to judge / Quick to anger / Slow to understand / Ignorance and prejudice / And fear / Walk hand in hand."

The fluid, pulsing synthesizers of "Vital Signs," with its images of people driven to distraction by technology, and the kinetic chaos of the Lee-Peart instrumental "YYZ" (the code letters for Toronto's Pearson International Airport), with shattering percussion and rapid guitar lines, demonstrates sophistication and innovation lacking in earlier Rush records. But the crowning achievement of Moving Pictures is "Limelight," a song ostensibly about fame but more about interactions with others on the stage of life. Its brooding guitar passages and its plodding mid-tempo beat make for pure, old-fashioned heavy metal, contrasted by Lee's restrained delivery of Peart's philosophical musings on emotional honesty and his paraphrasing of Shakespeare. All the world's indeed a stage, with everyone in constant motion performing and being performed for, "each another's audience" where "one must put up barriers to keep oneself intact." The gender-neutral third person betrays both a universal truth and fear of loss of identity. In exploring situations where people are always trying to stay on the move and resist collective tyranny - the Ayn Rand influence again - Rush made music that was as exciting to move through as it was daunting.

Below are video clips of two songs from Moving Pictures. The fist is a live performance of "Tom Sawyer" from Rush's legendary March 1981 concert at the Montreal Forum. The second is a promotional video for "Limelight."