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Songs from Rush’s 1984 LP Grace Under Pressure tackle the Soviet threat, nuclear annihilation, and concentration camps while speaking to the present day.
Spring 1984
Ahh youth. In the spring of 1984, I was not quite 21. My high school sweet heart and I had been married for six months or so and had our own place in Reynoldsburg, OH, on the east side of Columbus.
In the final trimester of my undergraduate Electronics Engineering Technology matriculation at DeVry, Columbus, I had interviews with several electronics companies - a local division of Honeywell, a local robotics company, and underwater robotics company in West Palm Beach, or somewhere thereabouts, and Applied Materials, a semiconductor capital equipment manufacturer in Santa Clara, which is where I ultimately landed. Personally, life was looking pretty good.
Reagan was nearing the end of his first term. The space shuttle program had begun a few years before, and the Challenger was still flying. Technology promised a bright future with CDs, personal computers, and cell phones just coming on the market. MTV had started on cable in 1981 and, yes, I am old enough to remember when the original VJs, JJ Jackson, Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, and Mark Goodman, the last three now on Sirius/XM, were actually Video Jockeys and MTV only played music videos.
But the world around was far from at ease. AIDS made its way onto the world stage just a few years earlier. There were genuine environmental concerns. However, those annoying New World Order globalists over at the Club of Rome had started sounding the false overpopulation alarm ten years earlier with the publication of The Limits of Growth[1]. The Cold War was at its height, with both Reagan and Thatcher putting the squeeze on the Soviet Union. Reagan had begun the Strategic Defensive Initiative, “Star Wars,” a year prior.
In the waning months of 1983, a Soviet fighter had shot KLA flight 007, the Marine barracks in Beirut had been attacked, the U.S. invaded Grenada, the first cruise missiles were deployed, and a Navy A-6 was shot down over Lebanon killing the pilot while the BN (Bombardier-Navigator), LT Bobby Goodman, spent the better part of December as a hostage of the Syrians. But the heartstopper, in an eerie example of life seemingly imitating art, in shades of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, was a false alarm by the Soviet early warning system that the U.S. had launched a nuclear strike.
As one who appreciates the entire catalog of Rush’s work, I can still understand that Grace Under Pressure is an album some Rush fans might discount. Musically, it is far removed from the band’s roots, especially when compared to 2112 or Moving Pictures. The band had parted ways with its longtime producer, Terry Brown, and many fans felt his absence on Grace Under Pressure. Geddy had started using more synthesizers on the previous LP, Signals, and they take a significant amount of the soundscape on this album. Lyrically, Neil begins to tackle some very tough subjects. Both he and Alex show incredible growth in terms of the emotional content of the lyrics and music, particularly Alex’s solos. Alex has stated that, “It was very difficult to make that record.”[2] Nevertheless, the band persisted and struggled for five months over the winter to produce the record at Le Studio in Quebec, finally releasing it on April 12, 1984.
Neil was a voracious reader, and one would be surprised if he had not read both The Limits of Growth as well as Orwell’s 1984, the real year being just around the corner when the band hunkered down in the studio. He was more than adept at weaving literature, currents events, and personal experiences into his lyrics. Neil was also disciplined at writing and journaling while on tour. Although I’ve not been able to confirm, it is a fair bet that most of the lyrics, or at least the bones of the songs, were penned during the better part of the previous two years as the band was touring thru the end of May 1983 and then played Radio City Music Hall for a week in mid-September before heading to Le Studio.[3]
Three songs on the album have the word red either in the title or featured prominently in the lyrics. I call these the “Red Songs.”
red lenses
The first of the “Red Songs” to discuss, red lenses, is actually the next to the last song on the album. An exercise in alliteration, and perhaps Beat Poetry, it can be interpreted in a number of different ways. The most obvious is as reference to the Soviet threat, especially given the reference to the Soviets in the fourth stanza. Also, at the beginning of that stanza, is reference to Mars, which on first listen, one might think Neil was talking about space travel to our neighbor planet; however, given the times, was he perhaps making a veiled statement by using Mars as reference to the Roman god of war?
Peart commented on the creation of this song,
This was probably the hardest song I ever worked on, in spite of the pleasure it gave me. It went through so many rewrites and changed its title so many times. Each little image was juggled around and I just fought for the right words to put each little phrase 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 word game thing happening with it, and also there are little things going on that your mind sort of catches without identifying, like a lot of poetic devices. You take the 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".
There seems to be no quality live recording of the song, so here is simply the original cut, music only, of this upbeat, yet foreboding song. Enjoy.
Distant Early Warning
The opening track of the LP has parallel themes in the lyrics. The protagonist is obviously concerned about what is going on it in the world, but is also struggling with how to balance a relationship. The closing lines, “Absalom, Absalom” refer both to the biblical figure in 2 Samuel as well as Faulkner’s work of the same title.[4]
Again, we have comment directly from our prehensile lyricist,
After reading the novel, I was curious... and looked up the name in the encyclopedia. Then, while writing that song, I had 'obsolete, absolute' in there, and I thought how similar the word-shape was to 'Absalom.' Since one of the main themes of the song was compassion, it occurred to me that the Biblical story was applicable-David's lament for his son: 'Would God I had died for thee,' seemed to be the ultimate expression of compassion. And that's how it happened.
While Neil’s lyrics have more than encouraged me to expand both my literary acumen and reading list, I must admit that Absalom, Absalom! is one I have yet to read. I do however have a beautiful Easton Press copy, which I fittingly purchased from Faulkner House Books in New Orleans, waiting in the queue.
Director David Mallet plays obvious homage to Dr. Strangelove in the video. Not only does the stage reflect the war room in Kubrick’s classic, but the boy riding the missile could have been a young Slim Pickens had the video not been made 20 years later than the movie. While watching, keep in mind that this was made in 1984, when MTV was only three years old!
Red Sector A
Arguably one of the most powerful Rush songs ever, especially when seen live, which I have twice, Red Sector A pulls no punches in telling from first person the account of liberation from a concentration camp. There is no disputing that Geddy’s mother survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, with his father surviving Auschwitz and Dachau.[5] However, both Geddy’s recounting of his mother’s experience to Neil and Neil’s reading of first person accounts appear to be the inspiration for his moving lyrics.
This performance is from November 28, 2012 in Dallas, TX on the first leg of the Clockwork Angels Tour. During that tour, the band brought a string ensemble with them, principally because Clockwork Angels, the band’s last LP, was mixed in the studio with string accompaniment. However, after playing nearly that entire album, the guest musicians stayed on stage for a few more songs, this being one. Their presence adds a depth and richness to the performance not found on the original recording.
2020 and Today
One hallmark of great literature, music, architecture, painting, design, is that it stands the test of time. Despite the band’s use of synthesizers easily placing the LP musically from the early 1980’s, the lyrics and music live up to that test. I encourage the reader to listen to each song again while reading the lyrics, which are available on the band’s website.
While listening to red lenses, consider these questions: What is red today? What truth is being left unsaid? Is Mars closer to the horizon? Are the Soviets hiding under our beds, or perhaps in plain sight?
From Distant Early Warning, perhaps consider: What ill wind has arisen? What weighs on our shoulders? Who can face the knowledge that the truth is not the truth? Can you?
Finally, while listening to Red Sector A one might simply ponder what has transpired over the last year. With Canada essentially establishing COVID concentration camps, one cannot help but wonder what Geddy’s mother must be thinking and feeling….
While Neil pens as a commentator and observer, intentionally or not, he also provides us warning for what may come if we continue to allow sickness to progress to insanity.
Thanks for reading folks!
Namaste,
Mark
April 16, 2021
Fair winds and following seas Professor. 😌🙏
References (not hyperlinked within):
[1] Delingpole, James (2011). Watermelons, Biteback Publishing, Kindle Edition.
[2] Humphries, Steven (2015). Art of Rush, Hugh Syme, Serving a Life Sentence, The Anthem Entertainment Group.
[3] Daly, Skip and Hansen, Eric (2019). Rush, Wandering the Face of the Earth, The Official Touring History, 1968-2015, Insight Editions.
[4] Bowman, Durrell (2015). Experiencing Rush, A Listener’s Companion, Rowman & Littlefield.
[5] Grohl, Virginia Hanlon (2017). From Cradle to Stage, Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars, SEAL PRESS.
Bibliography
Popoff, Martin (2017). Rush, Album by Album, Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Body, Alex E. (2019). Rush, Song by Song, Fonthill Media Limited.
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