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Meaning of "2112" Number


antiquark
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Has Rush ever explained where the 2112 number came from?

 

In my biblical readings, I noticed that there's a bible verse that seems relevant to both the number (21:12) and the fact that Rush is a band:

 

Job 21:12

12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;

they make merry to the sound of the pipe.

 

Also in 2112 Geddy sings "the meek shall inherit the earth" which is also from the bible.

 

That being said, I didn't think Neil was very religious...

Edited by antiquark
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Interesting. I would be curious where it came from but having said that I haven't lost any sleep over it either... :)
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If I remember correctly...Neil once said that he was a "Linear thinking Agnostic", which I always interpreted as he believed in the chronology and history of the bible, but didn't follow any formal religious beliefs.
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If I remember correctly...Neil once said that he was a "Linear thinking Agnostic", which I always interpreted as he believed in the chronology and history of the bible, but didn't follow any formal religious beliefs.

:goodone: Interesting post and had never looked at it that way. Thanks...
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It's a futuristic play on the 1812 Overture, i.e. the 2112 Overture. Alex even plays a snippet of it during the song, and they have cannons at the end, like the 1812 Overture.
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It's a futuristic play on the 1812 Overture, i.e. the 2112 Overture. Alex even plays a snippet of it during the song, and they have cannons at the end, like the 1812 Overture.

 

:goodone:

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Oddly, if you use the King James Version (which IIRC was the most common one back then), the verse describes the band pretty accurately:

 

"They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ."

 

So:

timbrel = percussion instrument

harp = stringed instrument(s)

rejoice = singing

organ = synthesizer

 

However I still have to listen to 1812 in its entirety to see what else Rush stole, other than the last two digits of the title, the cannon shots, and the "Overture" part of the title!

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It's a futuristic play on the 1812 Overture, i.e. the 2112 Overture. Alex even plays a snippet of it during the song, and they have cannons at the end, like the 1812 Overture.

 

So it begs the question, did the tile come along after Alex came up with the idea of using that bit in the song, or did the title come first, inspiring Alex to have some fun?

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Oddly, if you use the King James Version (which IIRC was the most common one back then), the verse describes the band pretty accurately:

 

"They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ."

 

So:

timbrel = percussion instrument

harp = stringed instrument(s)

rejoice = singing

organ = synthesizer

 

However I still have to listen to 1812 in its entirety to see what else Rush stole, other than the last two digits of the title, the cannon shots, and the "Overture" part of the title!

 

There's a pretty famous musical phrase in the 1812 Overture that Alex uses in the 2112 Overture.

 

(And those of us who are old enough to remember the arcade game Battlezone, will remember it from there, too).

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Has Rush ever explained where the 2112 number came from?

 

In my biblical readings, I noticed that there's a bible verse that seems relevant to both the number (21:12) and the fact that Rush is a band:

 

Job 21:12

12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;

they make merry to the sound of the pipe.

 

Also in 2112 Geddy sings "the meek shall inherit the earth" which is also from the bible.

 

That being said, I didn't think Neil was very religious...

 

Holy f**k. It's a play on 1812 Overture and a date in the future...

 

I thought Rush fans were supposed to be intelligent.

 

:facepalm:

 

 

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Has Rush ever explained where the 2112 number came from?

 

In my biblical readings, I noticed that there's a bible verse that seems relevant to both the number (21:12) and the fact that Rush is a band:

 

Job 21:12

12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;

they make merry to the sound of the pipe.

 

Also in 2112 Geddy sings "the meek shall inherit the earth" which is also from the bible.

 

That being said, I didn't think Neil was very religious...

 

Holy f**k. It's a play on 1812 Overture and a date in the future...

 

I thought Rush fans were supposed to be intelligent.

 

:facepalm:

You thought that?... ;)
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Neil doesn't mention the bible in this 1976 article...

 

http://www.2112.net/...760300creem.htm

 

Their latest project is an epic science fiction slab called 2112, which will take up an entire side of their next album, due this month. Set in the city of Megadon on another planet (Earth having been snuffed in 2062) in the cartoon light of the future, it concerns a society where everything is controlled by quasi-religious Priests who take all their orders from gigantic banks of computers called Temples. All individuality and creativity have been stamped out and everyone treadmills out their lives in a cathode palsy of day-to-day nullness.

 

~The Temples totally control everything-work, education. even entertainment," says Neil, who came up with the entire conceptual whoopee cushion and wrote all the Iyrics. "All their music has been taken to the final limits of the average. It's total commercialism that's put out strictly for people to like."

 

Luckily enough for the Megadunces, a curious young punk accidentally stumbles upon the ruins of a great university one day. He starts digging around in the rubble and comes across a room of perfectly preserved artifacts he's never seen before. Books, magazines, WIN buttons, hula hoops, records, the home version of Match Game '84-all kinds of things that don't exist in 2112. He keeps it a secret and goes back every night to sort through the cheese of the past.

 

Then one night he makes the fateful discovery-an electric guitar-and eventually sets out to change the world. What finally happens is a "double surprise ending" according to Neil, who declined to fill in the details but assured me it's "a real Hitchcock killer."

Edited by antiquark
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I figured that they saw my license plate and decided that would be a cool name for a song/album???
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I figured that they saw my license plate and decided that would be a cool name for a song/album???

 

Or they saw my password in TRF and thought the same!

Or my email password and a bunch of others... :)
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Has Rush ever explained where the 2112 number came from?

 

In my biblical readings, I noticed that there's a bible verse that seems relevant to both the number (21:12) and the fact that Rush is a band:

 

Job 21:12

12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;

they make merry to the sound of the pipe.

 

Also in 2112 Geddy sings "the meek shall inherit the earth" which is also from the bible.

 

That being said, I didn't think Neil was very religious...

 

Holy f**k. It's a play on 1812 Overture and a date in the future...

 

I thought Rush fans were supposed to be intelligent.

 

:facepalm:

 

I used to think that too, until I started reading some of their posts. :LOL:

 

(By the way, I am not slagging the OP, this is just a general observation).

Edited by Xanadu
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It's a date. The year 2112.

Like May 13th, 2112 for example.

 

That is what I always thought. Can someone convert that into Trek stardate?

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