RUSH:
A to Z and Beyond

First up at A is Afterimage, from the album Grace Under Pressure. It was inspired by the unexpected death of someone close to the band, but today the lyrics are more poignant to me following the death of drummer and lyricist Neil Peart:

"Suddenly-
You were gone
From all the lives
You left your mark upon"

Musically, this is from the 80s, when they had moved into a different sound, incorporating synthesizer and exploring different sounds. Also of note, this era marks the departure from longer songs, which also saw them getting more radio play.

The letter B brings us The Big Money, from the album Power Windows. This was another hit album for Rush as they continued to explore their 80s sound. The song features lots of cynicism toward those in power, with power and its many forms and consequences being the theme of the album.

Also of note in the video is the early computer animations. Crude by today's standards, but it was a showcase for the group of their embrace of technology. They were already using MacIntosh computers to program Geddy's synthesizers at this point, and would continue to use technology to keep their live sounds as close as possible to their albums.

The letter C is for Cygnus X-1 from the album A Farewell to Kings. Its full name is technically "Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage" but I prefer the more simple title.

The song is inspired by the x-ray source and believed black hole found in the constellation Cygnus. Another inspiration is from Don Quixote in the name of the narrator's ship, the Rocinante, which was his horse's name.

This song also contains one of my favorite Rush riffs, the rising ominous bass riff following the opening bell chime.

BONUS #1 is Carve Away the Stone from the Test for Echo album. This is the final song on the final studio album from the 90s for Rush.

This is one of my favorites, and I always go to it when I need encouragement. It also warns that by holding on to the "stones" in our life, we get in the way of others:

Roll away the stone
If you could just move yours
I could get working on my own

An inspiration for the song is the mythical Sisyphus. According to the tale, he angered Zeus and was eventually assigned in Hades to roll a giant stone up a hill forever, only to have it always roll back over him. The theme of rolling a stone is repeated in the song Far Cry from the Snakes & Arrows album.

The letter D is for Dreamline, from the album Roll the Bones, the first Rush album of the 90s. The album began a turn away from the synthesizer sound of the 80s, and saw the first returns to their harder early sound.

Dreamline always brings to mind for me the optimism of youth along the journey of life:

"When we are young
Wandering the face of the Earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that we're only immortal
For a limited time"

Also, this was around the time my love for Rush really kicked into high gear.

Letter E is Entre Nous from Permanent Waves.

The song has a softer sound than others to this point, and it deals with interpersonal connections and relationships. The phrase "entre nous" translates as "between us" or describing a conversation to be kept in confidence.

Neil Peart was inspired as a young man by the works of Ayn Rand, and the title of this song may be found within her novel The Fountainhead. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins has indicated that this song was one to which he felt strongly connected as a teen.

Letter F is Fly By Night, from the album of the same name. This is the band's second album, and its first with their new drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart.

The song is a great reflection of the band's status and where they're headed. The lyrics tell the story of changing and moving on:

Start a new chapter
I find what I'm after
Is changing every day
The change of a season
Is enough of a reason
To want to get away

It's a hopeful note on an album that already shows the band's path moving from Led Zeppelin sounds toward their own unique and interesting (and epic) spaces.

BONUS #2 is Far Cry from the Snakes & Arrows album. This is the lead single from their next-to-last album.

Snakes & Arrows as a whole was not one of my top favorites, but it did provide several I enjoyed. Released in 2007, this single expressed some pessimism about the world:

"One day I feel I'm on top of the world
And the next it's falling in on me
I can get back on
I can get back on

One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel
And the next it's rolling over me
I can get back on
I can get back on"

Side note: This was the only tour I saw where they opened in my neck of the woods in Atlanta, and their first of several amphitheater shows that were (in my opinion) better than the indoor shows I had seen to this point.

Letter G is haunted, with not one but two songs with "ghost" in the title. The first is Ghost of a Chance, from the Roll the Bones album.

The song talks about finding that one person through all the different choices we make and paths we take. While I don't agree with all of it, the main thought is still a nice one, and hopeful:

"I don't believe in destiny
Or the guiding hand of Fate
I don't believe in forever
Or love as a mystical state
I don't believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above
But I believe there's a ghost of a chance
We can find someone to love
And make it last"

This makes a poignant bookend to the next "ghost" song, coming next.

Letter G, part two: Ghost Rider, from the Vapor Trails album. As mentioned before, this album was their first back from a 5-year hiatus.

In 1997, Neil Peart's 19-year-old daughter died in a one-car accident. Less than a year later, his wife died from cancer. Neil, with understanding and support from his bandmates, was "done" with Rush. He spent the next year and then some riding his motorcycle across North, Central, and South America. At some point along the way, he made peace with the tragedies in his life and was ready to come back to not just Rush, but life and love. Ghost Rider is about a healing journey, putting the past behind you:

"Just an escape artist
Racing against the night
A wandering hermit
Racing toward the light"

Side note about the album: the band and quite a few fans were not pleased with the original mix of Vapor Trails. They commissioned a remixed version in 2013, which is clearer and (in my opinion) better. All tracks from Vapor Trails in this alphabet project are from the remix.

The letter is H and that is Headlong Flight, from the last Rush studio album, Clockwork Angels.

This album saw a return to a few of Rush's old conventions, most notably epic songs and an overarching concept that creates a story thread for the album. In addition to the concept for the album, Neil Peart collaborated with sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson to create a novel of the story. Clockwork Angels is set in a world of steampunk sensibilities, and tells the story of a young man's life as he leaves the safety of home for adventures.

Headlong Flight the song is the young man looking back over his life and the adventures he's lived since leaving the comforts of home. The refrain is a familiar one to those who've lived long enough to wonder where their youth went:

"I wish that I could live it all again"

If it's I, then it must be I Think I'm Going Bald, from the Caress of Steel album.

Even with one of their weirder titles this is still a pretty straightforward rocker. But don't be deceived; there are deeper and reflective themes hidden in the song. The themes are growing older and having your tastes change from the simple pleasures of youth. All this reflection triggered by looking in the mirror to see

"I've lost a few more hairs
I think I'm going bald"

This album was not well received, and it saw their record company applying pressure to drop the long epic songs, create more radio friendly fare, and deliver a hit record on their next attempt...or else. The group was at its lowest point during the tour supporting Caress of Steel; the band and crew all called it the "Down the Tubes" tour, because they were convinced their musical career was soon to end.

Luckily, that's not what happened next. More on that later...

This is letter J. It's Jacob's Ladder from the album Permanent Waves.

It gets its name from the Biblical story of Jacob's dream of angels going up and down a ladder between heaven and earth. The inspiration was from seeing the sun's rays breaking through a hole in the clouds.

The letter K is for Kid Gloves, from the Grace Under Pressure album. This is the only song in Rush’s catalog that begins with the letter K.

The main idea of the song is that it’s not easy to wear the roles we desire, especially when it comes to being seen as cool or tough. Those labels are of a precarious nature and require “handling with kid gloves,” in order to keep them from falling apart. What we come to find out in the end is that it’s tough to be cool:

Handle with kid gloves
Handle with kid gloves
Then you learn the weapons
And the ways of hard-knock school
Put on your kid gloves
Put on your kid gloves
Then you learn the lesson
That it's tough to be so cool

L is for Limelight, from the album Moving Pictures.

Limelight is one of my favorite Rush songs, from one of my favorite albums. The song deals with the difficulty of reconciling yourself to fame, specifically being the object of fans’ adoration. Neil is the lyricist and this is an expression of his own experiences with being uncomfortable as the subject of fascination. He said once in an interview that while he had his own idols, he would never have dreamed of hunting them down and telling them what he loved about them. He thought such actions were embarrassing for both the fan and the subject of their adoration. His dislike of the limelight would intensify as time went on, especially after the personal tragedies he endured and the time away from the band. By the end of Rush and his life, he was very intensely private and withdrawn from the public eye.

Some inspiration for the song comes from Shakespeare’s quote “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” from As You Like It:

All the world's indeed a stage,
And we are merely players,
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage

BONUS #3 is Leave That Thing Alone from the live Different Stages album.

I’m a huge fan of all Rush’s experiments with instrumentals, and this song is my favorite of them all. I think one of the saddest things to me about Rush being over is that there will never be the opportunity for an instrumental album, something I always hoped they would do. We’ll see two more instrumentals in this project.

What I love about this live performance is that it shows how much work the band put into ensuring that they were able to perform their songs in as close a way as possible during live shows. Using technology, each member is responsible for triggering elements that were created in the studio but are beyond their ability as a trio to play with their instruments. Foot pedals are set for each of the members to use to add in effects or pre-recorded sounds, so that the band is still performing. As mentioned before, Rush embraced technology early and it served them well on the road.

The performance in the video linked here was recorded live in Atlanta on October 13, 2002 on the Vapor Trails tour. It’s special to me in another way, in that I was there in the audience, accompanied by my wife (her only Rush concert), and our friend Tony. The venue was not the best acoustical experience, but the energy was still great. The recording on the live album was recorded June 23, 1997 in Mansfield, Massachusetts at the Great Woods Center.

Letter M is for Mystic Rhythms, from Power Windows.

This is another favorite of mine. It reflects thoughts that possibly come to mind gazing at the stars or other natural phenomena. It’s a new way of asking the questions every person asks at some point: Is there something more? What are the powers that turn our world and move and create the world around us?

"We sometimes catch a window
A glimpse of what's beyond
Was it just imagination
Stringing us along?

More things than are dreamed about
Unseen and unexplained
We suspend our disbelief
And we are entertained"

The album’s themes of “powers” and “windows” are on display on this one. Here, the “powers” are those we can’t see, while the “windows” are possible glimpses into what’s beyond the here and now. The sounds in this one have always been striking to me, giving it a mystical, otherworldly feel.

BONUS #4 is Malignant Narcissism from Snakes & Arrows, our second instrumental.

Malignant Narcissism gets its title from a line of dialogue from the movie Team America: World Police (the line is included in the song). It’s significant in that the guys in Rush are friends with Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, and the folks behind the Team America movie.

More significant to me is how the song came to be. The album was complete and all the band’s gear had been packed up and was on its way to be shipped back from the studio, while Alex Lifeson had gone to record an interview.

Geddy Lee had been sent a fretless bass to try out and was goofing around with it when he came up with an interesting riff. Neil Peart liked it, and had an idea. He asked someone to have a basic drum kit sent over from a local music store. His thinking was that since Geddy was using borrowed equipment, he would do the same to add drums. By the time Alex returned from his interview, Geddy and Neil had already put down the bass and drum parts for the song and told Alex it was his turn.

It’s a short song, but for me it shows the band’s creativity and ability to work together on the spur of the moment.

The letter N is for New World Man from the Signals album.

The upbeat sound of this song belies some of the thoughts it expresses. The lyrics talk about how the new world man has quite a few problems to overcome...and most are of his own making:

“He's old enough to know what's right
But young enough not to choose it
He's noble enough to win the world
But weak enough to lose it”

And:

“He's got a problem with his power
With weapons on patrol
He's got to walk a fine line
And keep his self-control”

I read it as more pessimistic now than I did in the past. It’s likely because I’m older and see more of these failings in the real world. Or maybe I’m turning into a grumpy old man...

O is for One Little Victory, from Vapor Trails.

This was the first single released for the album, so it was the first song fans had heard from the band in 5 years. The title seemed like an announcement that they had overcome the time away. The opening drum salvo was, to my ears, an announcement from Neil that he was back firmly behind the drum kit and ready to pick back up where things had left off. The majority of the songs were enjoyable to me, and the lyrics left no doubt that Neil was also on top of his writing game.

The album was louder than any that came before it, but we later discovered that the mix was the reason for that. I never noticed the other complaint about the mix, its “muddy” sound, until I heard the remixed version that was released in 2013. The complaints were not only from the fans, but also the band itself, who seem to be much happier with the new mix. As am I.

This entry is brought to you by the letter P, for The Pass, off of album Presto.

Presto is an interesting album. There are some interesting songs and interesting sounds, yet some feel it’s not one of their better efforts. For me, it was the album that kept my interest in the band up and reacquainted me with their music after a lag between the end of high school and the start of college.

The Pass is one of my favorites from the album because it includes a lyrical image (inspired by a quote from Oscar Wilde) that is, to me, encouraging:

“All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars”

The overall song message seems to be a bit less hopeful in the end. It seems to point to someone who gave up and lost an internal battle. Even so, I love to focus on the lyrics above; they seem to point to the possibilities that open up when you take the setbacks given by life and learn to navigate new terrain. I hope you choose to see that as well, and that you take hope from those words.

Being there is no Rush song that begins with Q, we’ll jump right into R with Red Barchetta, from Moving Pictures.

This is the song that was in my mind when I picked up the Moving Pictures album my senior year of high school. I remembered a friend who had moved on to another school raving about how good the song was, and decided that I would get the album. I wasn’t disappointed with either the song or the album.

Red Barchetta tells the story of a young man going to visit his uncle on his farm, far in the country, and the criminal ride in a car that follows. The story is set in a future with strict regulations on vehicles, as mentioned in the following lyrics:

“My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law”

What follows is a great story of our young narrator going for a nice Sunday drive and leading a Dukes of Hazzard-style chase through the countryside as he’s confronted by two “gleaming alloy air-cars two lanes wide” in confrontation for his crime. Does our hero have the luck of the Duke boys? You’ll have to listen to find out.

The song was inspired by the short science fiction story “A Nice Morning Drive” by Richard S. Foster. Originally published in the November 1973 issue of Road & Track magazine, it’s available for your reading pleasure online here.

Also of note, this is one of four Rush songs with “red” in the title. We’re due to see another soon.

Our second R is Red Sector A from Grace Under Pressure.

The song is about the experience of being a prisoner in a concentration camp. It was inspired by Geddy Lee’s mother’s account of her liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945 by British soldiers. According to Lee, his mother didn’t believe at the time that liberation was possible because she didn’t believe there was a human society outside the camp that could allow the camps to exist. Neil Peart was inspired by the story to write the lyrics:

“Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings
To survive?”

More of Geddy Lee’s family connection to the Holocaust: his parents met in a Polish labor camp in 1941 and were later shipped to separate camps, before being reunited after the war. They married and immigrated to Canada to start a new life. Their story, in Lee’s words:

“When the Nazis came into the Polish town where my mother lived, they kept the Jews in a ghetto and then marched them to a labor camp. My father was from a different village, but was at the same work camp. They were 12 or 13, and then they were both sent to Auschwitz. My father would bribe the guards to give her shoes or food, little signs of affection. They fell in love in that horrible environment. Then she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, and after the war she assumed he hadn't survived. My dad made a point of finding her.”

Letter S is for Subdivisions, from Signals.

This is one of those songs that just reached out and grabbed me, way before I was a true Rush fan. I recall very well seeing the video back in the day on MTV and enjoying it. It still resonates with me, mainly because I can still remember being subdivided into predefined social categories as a teen. I doubt many survivors of high school wouldn’t relate to this sentiment:

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

Subdivisions -
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out”

Add in that the video follows an unpopular teen as he navigates these waters and in the process takes us into an arcade, and you have an unforgettable 80s nostalgia experience. One of my all time favorite Rush songs.

BONUS #5 is Summertime Blues from the Feedback album.

Feedback was an Extended Play recording that Rush did before setting out on their 30th anniversary tour in 2004. The concept was recording cover versions of songs that had influenced and inspired them when they were first learning to play their instruments. Artists covered included The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, and the Blue Cheer version of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues.

Who are Blue Cheer, you ask? They were first active in the late 1960s, and they were early influences for several genres of rock, including heavy metal, punk rock, stoner rock, experimental rock, and even grunge. They were named for a particular type of LSD that was associated with the Grateful Dead, and the LSD was itself named for a type of laundry detergent available at the time. Being teens at the end of the 60s and being into counter-cultural music and (shall we say) “recreational activities,” the members of Rush were into the sounds of Blue Cheer.

They have said that the version on Feedback is a mix of Blue Cheer’s version with some influences of The Who thrown in. It’s a great tribute to their youth and the more obscure Blue Cheer.

Side note: the 30th Anniversary tour is the one Rush concert tour I missed between 1994 and 2015. They ended up scheduling the Atlanta show only a week after our daughter was born, and I wisely chose to stay home.

T is for Time Stand Still, from the Hold Your Fire album.

This is a song about acknowledging the passage of time. The main thought is that though we all at some point want time to stand still, we know it won’t. It’s also a call to be more present in the here and now:

“Time stand still-
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now”

This song has long resonated with me, and it continues to do so as I feel more of the passage of time every day.

Of note: the song has a guest voice singing the “Time Stand Still” refrain in the chorus. Geddy Lee said he really thought that a female voice would enhance the texture of the song there, and the others agreed. They initially discussed Cyndi Lauper and Chrissie Hynde (of the Pretenders), but settled on Aimee Mann (at that time fronting ‘Til Tuesday). She also makes an appearance in the linked video, which is also notable for its... interesting effects. I’m sure they were advanced at the time, but by today’s standards, they’re pretty cheesy.

BONUS #6 is Tom Sawyer from Moving Pictures.

What list of Rush songs could be complete without Tom Sawyer? It’s the one Rush song most people know, even if they don’t know it’s by Rush. Not a lot more to say about it, other than it’s an iconic song.

One of my first memories of this song is hearing my middle school friend Corey Stoker singing it in class. He knew what was up all the way back then, and had some really cool air drum skills to go along with it.

Of note: Neil Peart said of the song that he knew he was on point for a performance when he was able to play it right. What?!? How do you create music that you have trouble playing over and over? His talent was simply amazing.

Having no U songs, we move to the letter V with Vital Signs from Moving Pictures.

It’s a quirky song, with some interesting imagery:

“Unstable condition,
A symptom of life,
In mental and environmental change

Atmospheric disturbance,
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange

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

Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence”

It talks about the parallels between human and machine, with the root thoughts being how we somehow manage to program not just the best of ourselves into machines, but also our flaws. High-level stuff, but interesting to hear, and one of my favorites.

W stands for Working Man, from the debut album Rush.

This is the song that broke Rush in the United States. A DJ in Cleveland played the song and response from listeners was immediate and positive, enough to interest Mercury Records in talking to the band about signing with them.

The song takes a look at the life of a working man:

“I get up at seven, yeah
and I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
a lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man”

With the lyrics set to hard driving music, it caused some listeners in Cleveland to wonder if there was a new Led Zeppelin song out (according to Donna Halper, the DJ who gave them their first air play).

Of note: this is from the band’s debut album, and all songs were recorded by original drummer John Rutsey. He left the band just as they were taking off, mainly due to health restrictions created by his Type-1 Diabetes. Rutsey died in 2008 at age 55 from conditions related to his lifelong struggle with the disease.

X marks the spot for Xanadu, from A Farewell to Kings.

The epic song takes its inspiration from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan (read it online here). The poem was inspired by Marco Polo’s account of the city of Shangdu, which Kublai Khan made his summer capital city of China during his rule of the Yuan Dynasty.

The song has incredible riffs and movements, and is really a masterpiece of musicianship. Not everyone immediately recognized the song’s greatness, though. Geddy Lee tells of a tour around this time when they were with the band UFO and the members of that band made merciless fun of them for its lyrics that talk of dining on honeydew and drinking the milk of Paradise.

I saw Rush perform this on their final tour, and it was just as wonderful live in 2015 as it is on the recording from the mid-1970s. This is an all-time classic song from Rush.

Y is for YYZ from Moving Pictures.

This is another instrumental. The name of the song is the identity code used by the Toronto International Airport, and the main riff is taken from the Morse Code notifier signal emitted by the control tower for pilots on approach, represented as -.--/-.--/--.. or as Neil Peart said: “dah dit dah dah dah dit dah dah/dah dah dit dit, = Y-Y-Z.” Alex and Geddy were in a friend’s plane on approach to the airport when they heard the Morse Code signal and they both talked about the interesting rhythm the code provided. The rest is history.

Of note: YYZ was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Grammy in 1982, which was the band’s first Grammy nomination. The winner that year in the category was The Police for Behind My Camel from the Zenyatta Mondatta album.

BONUS #7 is 2112 from the album of the same name.

When the Caress of Steel album did not sell well, their record company told them that if they didn’t produce a hit album, they would be dropped. The consensus from the executives was that the group was making songs that were not accessible and too long. They were encouraged to create content that was “radio-friendly” and much shorter than the two 12-minute “The Necromancer” and 19-minute “The Fountain of Lamneth” songs on Caress of Steel. While their agent agreed to whatever would get money flowing for the next album, the guys in the band were of another opinion.

They felt that they should be true to themselves, no matter what. They were not interested in making music that record company executives wanted, but what they wanted. Figuring they only had a short time left in the music industry, they called the Caress of Steel tour the “Down the Tubes” tour and prepared for what might be their last shot.

What they created was a sci-fi epic long-form song. Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, the opener of 2112 told a story in seven parts of a dystopian society ruled by the tyrannical Priests of the Temples of Syrinx. In the days of vinyl record albums, the first song took up the entire first side.

It was a bold move, but it paid off. Fans were hooked and sales went through the roof, cementing Rush as a keeper for their record company. As Neil said later, they never told them what to do again. They had earned their creative control.

The seven parts of 2112 are listed as follows. It’s worth listening to the whole song to get the full effect.

 I.  Overture (4:32)
II.  Temples of Syrinx (2:13)
III.  Discovery (3:29)
IV.  Presentation (3:42)
V.  Oracle: The Dream (2:00)
VI. Soliloquy (2:21)
VII. The Grand Finale (2:14)

BONUS #8 is Promise from the Victor album.

Victor is an Alex Lifeson solo project that came out after the Test for Echo tour, just before the 5-year Rush hiatus. It’s an interesting album on several levels, not the least of which being that it’s not explicitly stated on the cover that this is an Alex Lifeson project.

The album has some dark themes, including mental health problems, murder, and suicide. The title of the album comes from a poem of the same name by W. H. Auden, available online here. It’s a dark poem, about a man whose struggles with jealousy and mental health problems eventually lead him to kill his wife. Fair warning: it’s quite disturbing, as is the song Lifeson created from it.

The song presented here, Promise, is the one I chose mainly because it has the best quality of all the others available online. It’s also one of the most accessible songs from the album.

Note: this song is not included on the Spotify playlist, as it has not been made available to Spotify.

BONUS #9 is Grace to Grace from My Favorite Headache.

This is from Geddy Lee’s solo album released during the 5-year hiatus. It’s an interesting album, with some familiar sounds musically. Overall, it was nice to tide Rush fans over while things were on hold.

The song Grace to Grace is my favorite on the album. It alternates between hopeful and sad when I listen to it, mainly due to the circumstances in my life when the album was in rotation for me.

In April of 2001, we lost a baby just as we were telling everyone the good news that we were expecting. While the loss came early on, it was still devastating to us. I was traveling to nearby Macon a couple times a week for grad school classes, and this album was the soundtrack to those drives. This song in particular would express for me the feelings about the loss of a child and the potential of unlived life:

“Grace To Grace
Immaculate Vision
Of What Should Have Been

Face To Face
Elegant Story
Of What Could Have Been”

BONUS #10 is The Garden from Clockwork Angels.

Here we are, the final entry. Appropriately enough, it’s the final song from the final studio album by Rush. The Garden is, to me, an unintentional but appropriate farewell to not only Rush but Neil Peart.

The song likens a life to a garden, yielding based on the nurture and cultivation it receives. It can either be beautiful or filled with weeds and thorns. It’s about the legacy we leave after our time is done here.

Rush and Neil Peart have left a legacy that is a garden to be enjoyed and revisited often and it is, to me, beautiful.

Neil’s words:

“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...

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”

Thanks for coming along. I hope you have a better idea of why I love Rush and their music.