The way Neil's Lyrics inspired you

[BigBob]

I was impressed by Neil's drumming (he was the best drummer ever), but it was his lyrics was I related to the most. I thought that was his true genius.

Lyrics such as:

You can choose from phantom fears

And kindness that can kill

I will choose a path that's clear

I will choose free will

 

Really kicked my ass into full gear and set me on the path to the man I am today!

 

What are some ways Neil's/Rush's lyrics inspired you?

[Entre_Perpetuo]

Finding Rush was finding someone who finally put to words a lot of my outlook on life. Being myself, chasing my dreams, working my butt off to get better, not letting anyone else dictate my life to me. It was empowering to find that encouragement in his lyrics. Things I'd always believed but felt a bit alone in believing.

[HemiBeers]

I think Something for Nothing is overlooked because it describes their career to a T. It's something powerful that I've always tried to live by.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

I think Something for Nothing is overlooked because it describes their career to a T. It's something powerful that I've always tried to live by.

 

That's an absolute favorite. The true mission statement.

[singh99]

So many moments of inspiration.

 

The thing that Rush music and lyrics always gave me?

 

Hope.

Edited January 11, 2020 by singh99

[GeddyRulz]

I’m more affected by Neil’s passing than I would’ve thought. At about 4:35-4:40 this afternoon, as I was driving home and stopping to get gas, my sister texted me the news while simultaneously my wife CALLED to tell me. I got back on the road... and cried a bit, unexpectedly. There have been a few more moments of crying about it since.

 

A bass player who was inspired to play bass because of Geddy and who always said Geddy was his favorite member of the band, I actually think Neil’s death has hit me harder than Geddy’s will, when that time comes. Neil was, in a way, the silent leader and catalyst of the band - it was his virtuosic drumming which inspired the others to become better on THEIR instruments , and his lyrics which gave the band its identity as the “thinking man’s” rock band. Those lyrics were not only intelligent, but positive and (ultimately) hopeful, even when first describing something negative.

 

The intelligent lyrics helped educate me and many others. While some rock stars may steer teenagers towards drugs, Neil Peart steered us towards the library, inspiring us to track down the literary references and cerebral ideas Neil put into his lyrics. He (and his bandmates) was a great role model for young adults, not only writing in several of his songs about the importance of maintaining personal and artistic integrity, but always living his LIFE that way and setting an example we could emulate. I can say without hyperbole that Neil (and Rush) have helped make me who I am today, and I know I’m not alone.

 

As Sebastian Bach said of his teenaged self and Rush, “Damn it, this band has got me all fired-up about LITERATURE!” Or as the young Brazilian woman on the “Rush in Rio” DVD tearfully said, “It’s not just music. They TEACH us!” And lastly, as Carol Selby Price wrote, “the only danger I was in when as a teenager I hunkered down to read and reread Rush’s lyrics was the ‘danger’ of catching the group’s infectious optimism. I took it seriously when they sang about clues to some real motivation, dragging your dream into existence. Listening, I became convinced that there was a future out there for me. That’s where I live now.”

 

And that’s really just their LYRICS, just Neil Peart’s doing. I owe him tremendous gratitude for helping to shape my character and personality, for stressing (and showing by example) the importance of having integrity, and for awakening and amplifying my (then-) latent love for learning.

 

So... I had lots of tears for Neil today, and I’m not convinced there’ll be as many for the death of my “favorite” Rush member, Geddy Lee. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Neil! You’ve educated and inspired us, as a great “Professor” should. O captain, my captain...!

 

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by GeddyRulz

[spaceaudity11]

Faithless did sooooo much for me. While it may be controversial/offensive for some, and I understand that, it really gave me a representation of my view of faith and introduced me to secular humanism. Thank you so much Neil.

[ST3V]

I cant tell you 1 rush song where I'd think "the songwriting isn't too good here" or "coulda done better".

Even the songs Geddy writes are pretty well done. They have definitely inspired me in songs/notes I write.

[Principled Man]

The lyrics to 2112 were everything to me. I grew up in a repressed, authoritarian family and community, in which independent thought and actions were punished. We were expected to conform and think, speak and act as we were told.

 

2112 changed all that. As a teenager, I was slowly breaking away from my repressive world, but 2112 opened my doors wide open. I cared much more about being myself than being what others wanted me to be.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Principled Man

[Rush Didact]

I would not be where I am today without Neil's words, both in the literal sense of my geographic location, or in the metaphorical one. Plainly put, Neil took me to the North Pole, as much as if he'd held my hand and led me there. I'm sitting in the northernmost cluster of permanently-heated buildings on Earth right now, at the peak of the personal mountain that was laid out for me to climb at age 13:

 

 

All four winds together

Can't bring the world to me

Shadows hide the play of light

So much I want to see

 

Chase the light around the world

I want to look at life

In the available light

 

I'll go with the wind

I'll stand in the light

 

I set out then, following a trail of breadcrumbs without knowing it. From that point forward, my decisions when faced with life-altering choices always tended towards the most adventurous. At 17, I applied for a student exchange and went to Denmark for a year. When I left, I had a CD case with, I believe, 32 slots; 17 of them were Rush.

 

For university, I chose Ottawa because it was the capital, and it was the furthest from home. I printed out the lyrics and hung them on my wall. Right by the door, where I'd see them as I went in and out. And shortly after graduation, I went to Korea to teach English.

 

I listened to this song as I sat in my room and looked at the mountains. I sat on them, sometimes, and listened there. Up at the peak, looking down at the sharp boundary between raging city and patchwork farmland carved by the Nakdonggang, Neil spoke to me. And I would smile, and a thrilling feeling would rise in my chest.

 

When I went back to school at 27, I serendipitously attended an early morning class that would change my life. It was there that I heard of the name of the next place that those words would take me: Alert, at the northern tip of Nunavut. For two years I fought to get sent there, and as I finally stood on my own two feet under the midnight sun, my heart raced and Neil's words echoed in my head again. I threw back my head and let loose a full-throated yell and laughed as if I had conquered the world. In that moment, I knew I was doing the most excellent thing I could do with my life. Alert became my home for the next 6 years.

 

This song has been the guiding voice and the teleological centre of my life since I first encountered it while laying on the couch in the dim light of my grandparents' living room, reading through the liner notes as it played. A $9.99 disc from the Future Shop that proved to be worth far more than the price of admission, as with so many others that summer: Permanent Waves. Power Windows. Monuments of Rush's quintessential brand of rock that would each define my life in subtle ways.

 

His lyrics were motivation to live, each song an anthem to live by. His words became aphorisms to be quoted as much in moments of courage and jubilation as in heartbreak or existential distress. Marathon as I took up running and biking; Time Stand Still when I reflected on the spectre of looming middle age or struggled to process the deaths of friends; Ghost of a Chance and Bravado to inspire faith in the heart, Secret Touch and How It Is to give purpose to a broken one. Neil aimed for the most difficult themes and answered the deepest questions, and the miracle is that his reach so rarely exceeded his grasp.

 

In the whole history of moral codes, one could do far worse than cite chapter and verse from the Rush canon.

[YYZ Working Man]

I have memory and awareness

But I have no shape or form

As a disembodied spirit

I am dead and yet unborn

I have passed into Olympus

As was told in tales of old

To the City of Immortals

Marble white and purest gold

[GeddyRulz]

His lyrics were motivation to live, each song an anthem to live by. His words became aphorisms to be quoted as much in moments of courage and jubilation as in heartbreak or existential distress. Marathon as I took up running and biking; Time Stand Still when I reflected on the spectre of looming middle age or struggled to process the deaths of friends; Ghost of a Chance and Bravado to inspire faith in the heart, Secret Touch and How It Is to give purpose to a broken one. Neil aimed for the most difficult themes and answered the deepest questions, and the miracle is that his reach so rarely exceeded his grasp.

 

In the whole history of moral codes, one could do far worse than cite chapter and verse from the Rush canon.

 

Well said! I concur!

 

(And I’m a huge fan of “Available Light,” too. Best song on Presto!)

[Crimsonmistymemory]

Oh only little things like,

Leave out the fiction,

The fact is, this friction

Will only be worn by persistence.

 

Leave out conditions,

Courageous convictions

Will drag the dream into existence.

 

Or;

We can circle around like hurricanes,

Dance and dream like lovers,

Attack the day like birds of prey or scavengers under cover...

 

 

 

 

Just little insignificant self explanatory things :D

Thank you Niel for getting me through some tough times. I wish I could've done the same for you!

Edited January 13, 2020 by Crimsonmistymemory

[Flavia2112]

It's a fine line between love and illusion

 

At the point of surrender to the burden of proof

 

For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee

[78jazz]

Sometimes our big splashes are just ripples in the pool...

[BigMontanaSKY]

Sometimes our big splashes are just ripples in the pool...

 

I was going to post this, you beat me to it.

[78jazz]

Oh. Er, sorry.

 

I am sorry if this nosy; do you happen to live in Montana?

 

My wife has family there and I have been twice. It would be nice to live in Western Montana one day. IMNSHO it is the most beautiful place in the United States.

[BigMontanaSKY]

Oh. Er, sorry.

 

I am sorry if this nosy; do you happen to live in Montana?

 

My wife has family there and I have been twice. It would be nice to live in Western Montana one day. IMNSHO it is the most beautiful place in the United States.

 

No problem. That quote sprung to mind when I had to think about the question for this thread. There are so many great songs.

 

That line sums up a life lesson most of get as we age, we both learn our experiences are often universal, and that events that rock us in youth are not as "big" later on in life.