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Hearing songs differently now


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"Some are born to move the world. To live their fantasies."

 

~NEP 1982

 

So as this sad news settles in about Neil's passing, I still can't believe he's gone. As scores of people are digging through their old collections to play their dust covered cassettes and albums of Rush songs, or calling to Siri or Alexa to play Rush (which I think is great), for me it's just another day of listening to the band I've listened to practically every day for the past 30 years. But now I'm listening to certain songs with a different sense of meaning or significance, and I can't help but find tragic irony to this song, Losing It. I was talking about this with 1-0-0-1-0-0-1. He found the connection to the first verse, the dancer, to Neil's chronic tendonitis. It became too painful for Neil to continue playing at the level he would demand of himself, and it forced him into retirement. For me, I found the connection to the second verse, the writer. For a man who could have (should have) had the time to write more, Neil was stricken with a disease that left him unable to. Tragic irony. Eerie foresight. Call it what you will. All I can say is that I'll always attach Neil to this song every time I listen to it from now on. Something I never could have imagined.

 

To Neil... "For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee."

 

https://youtu.be/jEagi9co0Ko

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There are definitely lyrics that take on a whole new meaning now. Marathon and Time Stand Still come to mind immediately. When a musician dies we do hear things differently than before. There's a finality to what we are hearing now. This is what the person left for the world and there will sadly be nothing more from them. We hear it as the final product of the artists life's work which brings a new perspective to the music.

 

I've found myself paying closer attention to his drumming when listening to Rush over the last few days. Not that I didn't pay close attention to it before but it just stands out to me even more now. I swear that I have even heard an extra couple of thumps and dings in Neil's playing that I hadn't noticed before.

Edited by J2112YYZ
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"Some are born to move the world. To live their fantasies."

 

~NEP 1982

 

So as this sad news settles in about Neil's passing, I still can't believe he's gone. As scores of people are digging through their old collections to play their dust covered cassettes and albums of Rush songs, or calling to Siri or Alexa to play Rush (which I think is great), for me it's just another day of listening to the band I've listened to practically every day for the past 30 years. But now I'm listening to certain songs with a different sense of meaning or significance, and I can't help but find tragic irony to this song, Losing It. I was talking about this with 1-0-0-1-0-0-1. He found the connection to the first verse, the dancer, to Neil's chronic tendonitis. It became too painful for Neil to continue playing at the level he would demand of himself, and it forced him into retirement. For me, I found the connection to the second verse, the writer. For a man who could have (should have) had the time to write more, Neil was stricken with a disease that left him unable to. Tragic irony. Eerie foresight. Call it what you will. All I can say is that I'll always attach Neil to this song every time I listen to it from now on. Something I never could have imagined.

 

To Neil... "For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee."

 

https://youtu.be/jEagi9co0Ko

 

It's amazing how many of his lyrics were written as observations of people or life in general, but when you apply them to him now that he's gone...damn.

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A couple of songs hit me that way the last couple days. How It Is and Scars.

 

"Here's a little trap

That sometimes catches everyone

When today's as far as we can see

Faith in bright tomorrows

Giving way to resignation

That's how it is, how it's going to be"

 

"All my nerves are naked wires

Tender to the touch

Sometimes super-sensitive

But who can care too much?

I get this feeling"

 

I've always liked these songs, and Neil's passing certainly isn't the only grim event of the last decade... but I guess hearing them now knowing that he wrote them. That makes a big difference.

 

And from Scars,

 

"Pleasure leaves a fingerprint

As surely as mortal pain

In memories they resonate

And echo back again"

 

So many fingerprints. So many memories.

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For me, the lyrics don't need to evoke thoughts of passing or change. Today, his lyrics seem more ... crisp?. Just Rush lyrics before - now their observations from Neil.

 

The one lyric sticking with me, and I have no idea why because I can't see how it relates to his passing:

 

"Green and grey washes in the wispy white veil" - I don't know why The Camera Eye is really connecting with me over the past few days. I think it is his drumming (some of my favorite)

 

And for some reason, Signals has never sounded so good. :huh:

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A couple of songs hit me that way the last couple days. How It Is and Scars.

 

"Here's a little trap

That sometimes catches everyone

When today's as far as we can see

Faith in bright tomorrows

Giving way to resignation

That's how it is, how it's going to be"

 

"All my nerves are naked wires

Tender to the touch

Sometimes super-sensitive

But who can care too much?

I get this feeling"

 

I've always liked these songs, and Neil's passing certainly isn't the only grim event of the last decade... but I guess hearing them now knowing that he wrote them. That makes a big difference.

 

And from Scars,

 

"Pleasure leaves a fingerprint

As surely as mortal pain

In memories they resonate

And echo back again"

 

So many fingerprints. So many memories.

Two of my favorite songs. When How It Is was played in Seattle, tears flowed. My reaction really took me by surprise.
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I love all the lyrics more than ever. They also take on new meaning. I used to put Rush in the top five greatest bands ever. Now I think they are number one more than Beatles more than The Who more than Led Zeppelin Edited by Red3angel
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I love all the lyrics more than ever. They also take on new meaning. I used to put Rush in the top five greatest bands ever. Now I think they are number one more than Beatles more than The Who more than Led Zeppelin

 

Well the thing is (at least for me) that once I gave the album a few spins, I've always listened to the lyrics with a deep sense of scrutiny, and have always loved the fact that his lyrics were on the level of a book author, rather than a rock lyricist. Some of that stuff is DEEEEP! I had an old friend that was a high school English teacher, and she used to use his lyrics in her poetry classes (and she really wasn't much of a Rush fan, but she LOVED the lyrics!) All good stuff!

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For me, the lyrics don't need to evoke thoughts of passing or change. Today, his lyrics seem more ... crisp?. Just Rush lyrics before - now their observations from Neil.

 

The one lyric sticking with me, and I have no idea why because I can't see how it relates to his passing:

 

"Green and grey washes in the wispy white veil" - I don't know why The Camera Eye is really connecting with me over the past few days. I think it is his drumming (some of my favorite)

 

And for some reason, Signals has never sounded so good. :huh:

I think crispness is a great description. I found myself singing various lines and phrases I've always liked as I do random tasks. And some of my favorites lines feel more vivid when I play the songs

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I'm definitely hearing the music differently now. I'm listening a lot more intently, and in the process I'm rediscovering Rush. The music sounds better to me now, but it also evokes many jabs of sadness. I'm starting to think that it may be better to think of Neil as a professional percussion composer and percussionist, rather than a 'rock drummer' in any conventional sense of that term.
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i have posted here previously nd Lin claimed that Rush I’ll stand the test of time because their lyrics are

metaphors (stories we tell ourselves) about the way we view the world and change with our experience, knowledge and perspective. Comic Steve Martin claimed certain classic Russian poetry did the same for him and it reminded me of Rush.

 

And this event will add new perspective, like Neil said about his admiration of postmodernism, “the po before the mo”, the after changes the previous perspective.

 

 

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All of the ones I have been brave enough to listen to seem to have a different incantation to them...

Rush songs have always had (for me anyway) hidden "easter eggs" for lack of a better term by their wizardly use of mixing time signatures and nuances out the yingyang! But now it's kinda like listening to them like their remixed or something. I guess I am not the only one experiencing this phenomenon...

Long Live :rush:

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