The400Boys

Nothing new for Rush fans, except some appreciation for NEP.

 

https://diymusician....rom-neil-peart/

He was a phenomenal drummer, but no one is obliged to like the person.

 

Sting is very talented, but he's an asshole.

 

Roger Daltry has a great voice, but he's a jerk.

 

Neil Schon is a good guitarist, but he's another jerk.

 

Glenn Frey was a talented person, but he was obnoxious.

 

So is his bandmate Don Henley

 

I don't recall ever hearing Daltrey was a jerk, or at least he's seemed very nice nowadays to me.

In his younger days, Roger had a bad temper. He would "resolve" differences with band mates through punches. The other Who members were ready to give him the old heave ho. He calmed down, fearing that if he did not, he would likely spent the rest of his life as a sheet metal worker.

That's one of the songs that I just can't make up my mind on. Lyrically - its horrible (not the worst though).

Just wondering what you don't like about the lyrics. I found them quite clever, actually.

Hold Your Fire (juggler with balls of fire)

Rush had to progress and experiment with their sound to allow their career to flourish.

Their main product was their touring. For the number of shows they did and the years they toured they needed to keep challenging themselves or make it interesting.

Available Light :)

 

and Chain Lightning / recall that it is tells about that night he share with the daughter watching the night sky

I will add one more idea regarding the song: There's the analogy about how the farmer's oxen have to have equal strength so that the plow moves straight. While I like it, this was not the best pairing between music and lyrics. (And that is why some people above find the line about the turtle from the Galapagos partially redeeming -- there's less music so it's less of a mismatch)

 

Had the words been in a different format -- printed in a poetry book; spoken by a beatnik with bongo drums (like that episode of the Flintstones) -- it might have come off better.

it's meaningless.

Here are one person's thoughts:

http://serene-musing...s-analysis.html

One seen today on ebay.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rush-Clockwork-Angels-Geddy-Lee-With-An-Afro-TOSS-TO-CROWD-Shirt-RARE-Sz-L/402284235707?hash=item5daa024bbb:g:8eUAAOSwCjFdQmNr

R40 (Birds) t-shirt (under a Time Machine hoodie).

 

When it's colder I'll wear a Snakes & Arrows thermal shirt under as another layer. Like a matryoshka.

You know, the "Rush-ian" nesting doll. (Sorry. I couldn't resist)

 

https://en.wikipedia...Matryoshka_doll

I chose "Chain Lightning" because it has been my favorite Presto song since the album came out and (IMO) musically is better..

I'm sure many of us have been thinking of both of these heroes.

 

There are a lot of connections between the Rush and Van Halen camps. They shared the same manager at one point. Alex used EVH's 5150 amps.

 

But I'm thinking a lot about EVH and NP's distinct personalities - their similiarities, and the almost strange polar differences.

 

I don't really want to blow the wad and list so many, but I'm wondering what the Forum thinks.

 

 

 

Both were considered the greatest in their field. And we probably responsible for 80% of their bands record and ticket sales.

 

 

Both revolutionized their instrument, and kickstarted a generational obssession with guitars and drums.

 

 

But there are specific personality traits that jumped at me. Where they came from - where they were born. Their relationships. Their kids...

 

 

Any thoughts?

One thought is they both were bullied. Music then might have been an escape from reality. (Those in the know please feel to correct me.)

 

1 NP

Neil said he had weak ankles as a kid and couldn't play hockey. This automatically made him uncool. Unless it's just a song "Kid Gloves" is more than a subtle suggestion that he beaten often.

 

2 EVH

I read an article about how he treated horribly growing up. Some of you know that Eddie's mother was of Indonesian & European descent and his father was Dutch. Growing up the VH brothers were called things like "half-breed" and subject to physical and verbal abuse. This is why the Van Halen family left Europe (like the Pilgrims, to escape persecution). The children found their new home less than hospitable. Eddie and Alex did not speak English at first and were the targets of abuse from some other kids.

Interesting that the topic was started ten years ago and has come back. Here are my comments:

1 Reading all the posts has been like watching the WWE. While the educational value is questionable, the entertainment value is not.

 

 

2

QUOTE (Duck @ Dec 26 2010, 01:11 PM)

- Eddie wrote a song called the "Pleasure Dome." Listen to it. It is a homage to Rush's Xanadu and there is a riff taken almost directly from the Rush material -- not to mention the subject matter.

 

 

Uh........no.

You do realize that both songs are rip-offs of the poem "Kubla Khan," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, right?

 

 

I have not heard the EVH piece but the Coleridge poem is pretty famous. I would suggest calling them "retellings" and not "rip-offs" any more than if you tell one of Grimm's Fairy Tales. "Rip-off" suggests passing off someone else's work as your own.

 

3 Rush vs Van Halen

 

Anyone who enjoys listening to DLR with "Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad/I'm hot for teacher" is probably less interested in sublime emotions or philosophy in lyrics penned by Peart

Vapor Trails

I don't understand the lyrics.

1 Background

A poet and lyricist, Dubois worked with the band Max Webster, who were based in Sarnia, Ontario, in the same province as Rush’s hometown of Toronto. The two bands were close, recording a song together, Battle Scar, that featured on Max Webster’s 1980 album Universal Juveniles. “Those guys were big friends of ours,” Lifeson recalls. “But Pye was a little mysterious – kind of a strange fellow! He was very quirky, a bit of a nut, but he did write great lyrics. And around 1980 he sent a poem to Neil with an idea to collaborate on a song. The original draft was called Louie The Warrior.”

 

The poem was based on Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, which all three members of Rush had studied in school. Peart in particular identified with the book’s central themes of rebellion and independence. From 2112 through to Freewill on Permanent Waves, individuality was a recurring subject in Peart’s lyrics. What Dubois created in Louie The Warrior was, in Peart’s words, “a portrait of a modern-day rebel”. Says Lifeson: “Neil took that idea and massaged it, took out some of Pye’s lines and added his thing to it.” Peart chose the simpler title of Tom Sawyer and completed the lyrics with an element of autobiography. As he put it, “Reconciling the boy and man in myself.”

 

(Taken from https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-tom-sawyer-by-rush)

 

2 Themes of Tom Sawyer

a Moral and Social Maturation

When the novel opens, Tom is engaged in and often the organizer of childhood pranks and make-believe games. ...As Tom begins to take initiative to help others instead of himself, he shows his increasing maturity, competence, and moral integrity.

 

b Society’s Hypocrisy

Twain complicates Tom’s position on the border between childhood and adulthood by ridiculing and criticizing the values and practices of the adult world toward which Tom is heading. Twain’s harshest satire exposes the hypocrisy—and often the essential childishness—of social institutions such as school, church, and the law, as well as public opinion.

The games the children play often seem like attempts to subvert authority and escape from conventional society.

 

c Freedom through Social Exclusion

 

(Taken from https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tomsawyer/themes/)

Money isn't everything.

Poverty stinks too.

"Love don't pay the rent" vs. "Money only pays the rents."

Permanent Waves

Free Will

In the album age closely examining the cover and inner sleeve while listening used to be a big part of the experience, too.

This reminds me of poring over the inner sleeve of HYF and trying to find all the references.

"Vapor Trails (Remixed)" released in 2013 has been an improvement, and better, than what was released in 2002.

I got too used to the original. The Remixed album sounded too "clean" to enjoy.

"Chemistry" means a couple of things -- the science subject dealing with the interaction of chemical compounds (the bonds between elements) ; emotional interaction between people (the bonds between people).

Lines 1-11: What is transmitted from one person to someone else (" Eye to I")? We are fundamentally collections of elements, physical entities and yet we are able to transfer signals of emotion, non-physical entities. How is this possible?

Lines 21-30: This is about musical chemistry such as in a music group such as Rush ("One two three"). Here and this is what is understood. The combined output is greater than the sum of the parts. This time there is a mental creation of music the signals transmitted are the physical sounds but the intention is to transmit emotion ( "Music in the abstract").

 

Note these cerebral lyrics were penned by all three members when they were in their late 20's. (In my late twenties I thought a lot about food.)

Yeah those lyrics are wicked sharp. So are the lyrics of Anagram, and Dreamline, and The Weapon, and The Camera Eye, and SOOOO many others.

Peart was a real poet, equal to Dylan.

That's going a little far. I don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows...Peart had his moments, but he wasn't Dylan's level.

Peart liked wordplay more than Dylan.

Dylan liked topicality and abstruseness more than Peart.

It matches their personalities.

Don Henley and Bono are both very, very good too.

 

1 Thank you to Weatherman for the conciliatory reply. The point was not to start a debate, including who is the better poet/lyricist. I know very little of Dylan's output and I will let others decide for themselves..

 

2 I think many (including Neil himself) thought Peart was first a drummer and second a lyricist; had he wanted, he could have tossed away the drumsticks, immersed himself that much more into sources of inspiration, and become a non-musical contributor like Pye Dubois or full-time poet. However, his lyrics were good enough that (after I showed some lyrics to a high school English teacher) we dedicated an entire class to studying some songs (Tom Sawyer, Analog Kid, Red Barchetta and I think Losing It). I give him high marks for being a musician who could write awesome (often poetic) lyrics. Judging from the Nobel Prize, Bob Dylan might be thought of first as a poet and second as a musician.

Ain't The Enemy Within a weird song?

It's a danceable song musically, but when you look at the lyrics...

"Needles at your nerve ends/ Crawl like spiders on your skin" might be a good point in the song to stop dancing.

Part of what makes Permanent Waves so great is the fantastic cover and the colour scheme used throughout - black and white shot with streaks of red and yellow....

On the other hand, I think the lackluster cover used for Clockwork Angels may be part of the reason I never paid much attention to that album.

 

You will recall that Peart ambitiously meant CA to be the culmination of his artistry in terms of drumming & lyrics and integrated this with the songs and a sci-fi book. The artwork itself was tied into the songs and the tour itself (e.g. the runes & the songs https://rushvault.com/2012/05/03/meaning-of-rushs-clockwork-angels-runes/). I call that a pretty tall order and while I think, say PW, is more stunning visually, the end product is quite impressive.

Thank you for sharing this with everyone.

Chemistry, on the other, just does nothing for me. It seems to lack focus musically and lyrically and leaves me cold.

 

I feel the need to comment on this. I think the lyrics are pretty amazing. Here they are with my interpretation:

 

 

Signals transmitted (1)

Message received

Reaction making impact —

Invisibly

Elemental telepathy

Exchange of energy (6)

Reaction making contact —

Mysteriously

Eye to I

Reaction burning hotter

Two to one (11)

Reflection on the water

H to O

No flow without the other

Oh but how

Do they make contact (16)

With one another?

Electricity? Biology?

Seems to me it’s Chemistry

 

Emotion transmitted

Emotion received (21)

Music in the abstract —

Positively

Elemental empathy

A change of synergy

Music making contact — (26)

Naturally

One, two, three —

Add without subtraction

Sound on sound (30)

Multiplied reaction

H to O

No flow without the other

Oh but how

Do we make contact (35)

With one another?

 

"Chemistry" means a couple of things -- the science subject dealing with the interaction of chemical compounds (the bonds between elements) ; emotional interaction between people (the bonds between people).

Lines 1-11: What is transmitted from one person to someone else (" Eye to I")? We are fundamentally collections of elements, physical entities and yet we are able to transfer signals of emotion, non-physical entities. How is this possible?

Lines 21-30: This is about musical chemistry such as in a music group such as Rush ("One two three"). Here and this is what is understood. The combined output is greater than the sum of the parts. This time there is a mental creation of music the signals transmitted are the physical sounds but the intention is to transmit emotion ( "Music in the abstract").

 

Note these cerebral lyrics were penned by all three members when they were in their late 20's. (In my late twenties I thought a lot about food.)