Time/Songs:
(4:59) Distant Early Warning
(5:04) Afterimage
(5:10) Red Sector A
(4:34) The Enemy Within (Part I of Fear)
(5:00) The Body Electric
(4:18) Kid Gloves
(4:42) red lenses
(5:44) Between the Wheels
Geddy Lee (Bass Player magazine, 1993): "Yes -- I wasn't happy with 'Grace Under Pressure'. But it was a no-win situation in that case because that album was extremely difficult to make. We went through tremendous turmoil and pressure making it, and I don't think I could have liked it given the circumstances. As soon as the record was done, I wanted to get away from it -- and I've rarely listened to it since, because it's attached to too many difficult memories."
This song was also released as a single.
Neil Peart: "Before I ever knew who or what Absalom was, I always loved the sound of it. I had thought perhaps it was an ancient prayer or something. There is a book by William Faulkner called Absalom, Absalom, which, again, I loved the sound of. I wanted to put it in the song, as a play on words with 'absolute' and 'obsolete,' but I thought I'd better find out for sure what it meant. So I called my wife and asked her to look it up in the encyclopedia. When I learned the real story, and its Biblical roots, I decided that it was still appropriate, as it was the ultimate expression of compassion, which is what the song was really about. 'Absalom, Absalom. My son, my son. Would God I had died for thee.' (Now don't anyone go reading any religion into that!)"
Distant Early Warning ------- ----- ------- An ill wind comes arising Across the cities of the plain There's no swimming in the heavy water -- No singing in the acid rain Red alert Red alert It's so hard to stay together Passing through revolving doors We need someone to talk to And someone to sweep the floors -- Incomplete Incomplete The world weighs on my shoulders But what am I to do? You sometimes drive me crazy -- But I worry about you I know it makes on difference To what you're going through But I see the tip of the iceberg -- And I worry about you... Cruising under your radar Watching from satellites Take a page from the red book -- Keep them in your sights Red alert Red alert Left and rights of passage Black and whites of youth Who can face the knowledge That the truth is not the truth? Obsolete Absolute Absalom, Absalom, Absalom
Afterimage ---------- Suddenly -- You were gone From all the lives You left your mark upon I remember -- How we talked and drank Into the misty dawn -- I hear the voices We ran by the water On the wet summer lawn -- I see the foot prints I remember -- -- I feel the way you would -- I feel the way you would Tried to believe But you know it's no good This is something That just can't be understood I remember -- The shouts of joy Skiing fast through the woods -- I hear the echoes I learned your love for life I feel the way that you would -- I feel your presence I remember -- I feel the way you would This just can't be understood...
I wanted to give it more of a timeless atmosphere too, because it's happened, of course, in more than one time and by more than one race of people. It happened in this very country in which we sit, it happened, you know, the British did it, no one can set themselves above that, slavery rather involved how many countless countries in terms of the commerce of it all, and people shipping them around like animals and all of that. And no one can set themselves above that in a racial or nationalistic way. So I wanted to take a little bit out of being specific and, and just describe the circumstances and try to look at the way people responded to it, and another really important and to me really moving image that I got from a lot of these accounts was that at the end of it, these people of course had been totally isolated from the rest of the world, from their families, from any news at all, and they, in cases that I read, believed that they were the last people surviving. You know, the people liberating them and themselves were the only surviving people in the world, and it sounds a bit melodramatic put into a song I realize, but the point is that it's true, so, you know, I didn't feel like I needed to avoid it as being over-dramatic, because, you know, I heard of it and read of it in more than one account.
On the other hand ...
Neil Peart (Rush Backstage Club newsletter, July 1985): "It is one of the 'grace under pressure' themes which captured my imagination on the last album, and is not meant to portray a specific human atrocity, although many of the historical accounts which inspired it were of course set in World War II. There have been many periods of slavery and mass imprisonment in the world and also many fictional accounts of the future. I was thinking of all these things, and wanted to try to express something timeless enough to encompass them all."
Red Sector A --- ------ - All that we can do is just survive All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive... Ragged lines of ragged grey Skeletons, they shuffle away Shouting guards and smoking guns Will cut down the unlucky ones I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed A wound that will not heal -- a heart that cannot feel -- Hoping that the horror will recede Hoping that tomorrow, we'll all be freed Sickness to insanity Prayer to profanity Days and weeks and months go by Don't feel the hunger -- too weak to cry I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate Are the liberators here -- do I hope or do I fear? For my father and my brother, it's too late But I must help my mother stand up straight... Are we the last ones left alive? Are we the only human beings to survive?...
The Enemy Within (Part one of Fear) --- ----- ------ ---------------- Things crawl in the darkness That imagination spins Needles at your nerve ends Crawl like spiders on your skin Pounding in your temples And a surge of adrenaline Every muscle tense -- to fence the enemy within I'm not giving in to security under pressure I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure I'm not giving up on implausible dreams Experience to extremes -- Experience to extremes Suspicious-looking stranger Flashes you a dangerous grin Shadows across your window -- Was it only trees in the wind? Every breath a static charge -- A tongue that tastes like tin Steely-eyed outside to hide the enemy within... To you -- is it movement or is it action? It is contact or just reaction? And you -- revolution or just resistance? Is it living, or just existence? eah, you -- it takes a little more persistence To get up and go the distance...
Neil Peart ("Off The Record", 1984): "The Body Electric on this album is a little piece of, sort of science fiction frippery..."
The Body Electric --- ---- -------- One humanoid escapee One android on the run Seeking freedom beneath a lonely desert sun Trying to change its program Trying to change the mode -- crack the code Images conflicting into data overload 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 S.O.S 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 In distress 1-0-0-1-0-0 Memory banks unloading Bytes break into bits Unit One's in trouble and it's scared out of its wits Guidance systems break down A struggle to exist -- to resist A pulse of dying power in a clenching plastic fist... It replays each of the days A hundred years of routines Bows its head and prays To the mother of all machines...
Kid Gloves --- ------ A world of difference A world so out of touch Overwhelmed by everything But wanting more so much -- Call it blind frustration Call it blind man's bluff Call each other names -- Your voices rude -- your voices rough Then you learn the lesson That it's cool to be so tough Handle with kid gloves Handle with kid gloves Then you learn the lessons Taught in school won't be enough Put on your kid gloves Put on your kid gloves Then you learn the lesson That it's cool to be so tough A world of indifference Heads and hearts too full Careless of the consequence Of constant push and pull Anger got bare knuckles Anger play the fool Anger wear a crown of thorns Reverse the golden rule Then you learn the lesson That it's tough to be so cool Handle with kid gloves Handle with kid gloves Then you learn the weapons And the ways of hard-knock school Put on your kid gloves Put on your kid gloves Then you learn the lesson That it's tough to be so cool
This was probably the hardest song I have ever worked on, it just, in spite of the pleasure it gave me and how much I enjoyed doing it, it went through so many rewrites and changed its title so many times, everything about it just went through constant refinement, each little image was juggled around and I just fought for the right words to put each little phrase together and to make it sound exactly right to me, so that it sounded a little bit nonsensical. I wanted to get that kind of Jabberwocky, uh, word games thing happening with it and also there's little things going on that your mind sort of catches without identifying, like a lot of poetic devices. You take the, uh, number of words that sound the same or start with the same letter or whatever, you just certainly don't start in the middle of it and go, "oh, that's alliteration!" But those words fall upon your ear in a melodious way, or if you're reading them they, they run through your mind in a rhythmic and attractive way.
Geddy Lee (Guitar Player, April 1986): It's a different kind of song. It was the last thing we wrote for Grace Under Pressure. Usually the last track we write on each record is different from everything else. It's probably a reaction against working so hard, and all of a sudden you want to do something different to round-out the record, give it some more variety. I like it a lot because it is different, but it's very indulgent. I'm always surprised when people like those tracks. You can understand if a musician gets into it, but you don't think the general public will.
red lenses --- ------ i see red it hurts my head guess it must be something that i read it's the colour of your heartbeat a rising summer sun the battle lost -- or won the flash to fashion and the pulse to passion -- feels red inside my head and truth is often bitter -- left unsaid said red red thinking about the overhead -- the underfed -- couldn't we talk about something else instead? we've got mars on the horizon says the national midnight star (it's true) what you believe is what you are a pair of dancing shoes -- the soviets are the blues -- the reds under your bed lying -- in the darkness dead ahead and the mercury is rising barometer starts to fall you know it gets to us all the pain that is learning and the rain that is burning -- feel red still -- go ahead you see black and white -- and i see red (not blue)
The idea of "Between The Wheels," it was really kind of the opposite of "The Digital Man," in a way. In the case where, the Digital Man, the character is running faster than life, you know, in the fast lane and all of that, just moving faster than, than real time. And then there's the other side of it, where a person is in harmony with time and their life moves along, well, that's very rare. The opposite of that is the people for whole life goes faster than they do, you know. That idea of being in the back water, or watching the action go by, or whatever, to where, the wheels of time, for instance that analogy, some people it picks them up and carries them forward, you know, and it seems to work for them as being mobile wheels. And other people in a real sense without being too melodramatic, are crushed by those wheels. You know, the wheels of change or time or circumstances or history or whatever just roll right over them, you know, obliterate them. [unintelligible comment from JL] Yeah, so there's those two extremes of it, but in the middle, there are the people who are untouched by it, and the wheels of time just roll right past them, and that's what I was getting at with "Between The Wheels" was the fact that these people were neither hurt nor helped by it, but it just rolled, they were observers, sort of, it just rolled right by them and they were in a very sedentary position.
Between the Wheels ------- --- ------ To live between a rock and a hard place In between time -- Cruising in prime time -- soaking up the cathode rays To live between the wars in our time -- Living in real time -- Holding the good time -- Holding on to yesterdays... You know how that rabbit feels Going under your speeding wheels Bright images flashing by Like windshields towards a fly Frozen in the fatal climb -- but the wheels of time -- Just pass you by... Wheels can take you around Wheels can cut you down We can go from boom to bust From dreams to a bowl of dust We can fall from rockets' red glare Down to "Brother can you spare --" Another war -- another waste land -- And another lost generation... It slips between your hands like water This living in real time A dizzying lifetime Reeling by on celluloid Struck between the eyes By the big-time world Walking uneasy streets -- Hiding beneath the sheets -- Got to try and fill the void...