Rush has song after song to pick from, but this track from their eighth album is arguably one of the Top Ten Rock Tracks Of All Time from anyone. Enjoy the flashback video of them doing this one in 1981, when the Professor still had hair and only had a 40-something-piece drum kit (rather than his latter 100+-piece set-ups). With only three guys, all virtuosos, there was never any room for anyone to coast, or suck, and they never did. Album rock stations played the daylights out of this one, and still do, since its release, when it peaked at #8 on the Rock charts, #44 on Billboard Hot 100, even being one of the group's own selections to play for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2013.
9 comments:
Meh. Everyone likes what they like. This is the only Rush tune I even vaguely remember. Gordon Lightfoot has at least half a dozen that are better IMHO.
-Canadian Railroad Trilogy
-Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
-Song For A Winter's Night
-Early Morning Rain
-If You Could Read My Mind
-Rainy Day People
-I'm Not Saying
-Ribbon of Darkness
-Carefree Highway
(not Sundown. Can't stand that one)
But hey, it's your blog. Usually like what you post for Sunday Music.
One of my least favorite Rush songs, primarily because, as you stated, it was played to death on the local college AOR station (as well as the local Frat Party station), so it was inescapable in the dorms or downtown bars and I just got tired of it.
Not saying that it's a bad song, only that I just about hit my lifetime allocation for listening to it by 1982. I won't change the station if it comes on, but I don't go looking for it either.
Excellent, excellent music. And the band had a sense of humor, too.
They sounded better in concert than n the studio. R.I.P. Neil
Played bass on this one time at an outdoor gig. Hardest bass part to stay in sync. Great fun!
This came out when the big backwards masking thing was going on. So I recorded to my reel-to-reel, and played it backwards, Geddy clearly sings "he is yours in the time we know thee, in the margin of time his own..." still no idea what that is supposed to mean though. If you try, listen at the point where forwards he is talking about catching the spit...
Never cared much for Rush. Bought a CD called "Test For Echo". It was so bad that I gave it away.
It's a free country. That's why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors.
But Test For Echo, their 16th studio album, was so bad, it charted gold, as had 23 other albums, not to mention their 14 platinum albums, and their 3 multi-platinum albums. The title track hit #1 on the rock chart, and it contributed to their lifetime worldwide album sales of 40M units. Well, now only 39,999,999 with your revelation.
It's a wonder they ever got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
@Wayne:
I've already put up three of Gordon's works on your list as Sunday music, and there's a fourth one warming up in the bullpen.
But all he has in common with Rush is being Canadian. (NTTAWWT.)
Musically, they're as alike as Simon & Garfunkel, and Led Zeppelin.
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