Maddenation

Forever Loving Rush

For some reason I always bring up Rush during class. You know how it is, things come up - and my mind flashes to some Rush lyrics or song/album title. I then feel obliged to share it with the students. That being said, they all know that Rush is my favorite band. And so it is that a student I had last year gave me a newspaper copy of this article. (I saw him the first day of school and he rushed over to me and handed me the article, he was very happy about it, indeed). Turns out, it was coupled with another pretty good article that isn’t so noteworthy. You will all be mad too when you read the article I linked to. Man, what a bum the author is. His claim is that Rush “plays music for the sake of showing off its wizardry, not because it has a message that it needs to share with the world, or a burning passion to express its deepest hopes and fears through song.” He then compares the lyrics to JLo. I guess he can have his own opinion, but certainly that hasn’t been my Rush experience (by the way, thanks Pat). As for me, I’ll be forever loving Rush (as I am now playing ‘Subdivisions’ in my head).

David • Stuffs • 08/26/04 • 3 comments

Comments

Patrick • 08/26/04 • 3:52 PM:

I also reference Rush all the time in my teaching (just ask my students), sometimes playing songs for them to illustrate principles of literature. I can believe in a person who just doesn’t like Rush’s music (though I can’t be friends with that person), but for this guy to claim that Rush’s lyrics aren’t meaningful means that he either hasn’t listened to or read their lyrics, or he hasn’t read anything ever in his entire life and wouldn’t know meaning if it smacked him in the face (which it should). I have zero respect for this writer. I suspect, though, that he was trying to hit Rush fans where it counts by making ridiculous claims. I’m surprised he didn’t claim that their musicianship was amateurish.

David • 06/25/06 • 12:01 AM:

I was just reading the most recent National Geographic. And on one page was an article about Peter Benchley and it made reference to a Peaceable Kingdom. I then flipped the page and read about a panda named Tai Shan - which means “peaceful mountain”. That’s what I’m talking about.

Patrick • 07/03/06 • 3:21 AM:

If you want some actually entertaining anti-Rush ranting, read this guy’s reviews. He’s quite funny with lines like

Rush are a throwback to a time when bands didn’t sniff at the idea of all three people in a band soloing endlessly throughout each and every song while the singer screeched like a Siamese eunuch with his tongue caught in a lawnmower.

or

Their prog years (1976-1978) showed them rolling out hoary ol’ thematic cliches like the Distant Future Where Music is Banned or the damned Mystical Battle of the Gods that’s always showing up. Why not make a 25-minute obscure prog bonanza about finding a really great-fitting pair of shoes or that one time your friend snorted Pixie Stick and ended up having to have an appendectomy?

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

Please capitalize your name properly and use the same information each time you comment. We will not send you spam, and your email address will not be posted.


Remember me?

Formatting
*bold*=bold
_italic_=italic
"link":http://url.com=link


Related Entries
  1. Rush “Far Cry”
    Rush has made their new song, “Far Cry,” available on their website.
  1. Rush #1 among Geeks
    According to a recent Register poll, geeks love Rush.
  1. The Pitfalls of Having a Loving Dad
    NPR’s The Unger Report thanking Dad for raising good kids.
  1. Rush’s album of cover songs!
    Rush will release an album of covered 60s tunes.
  1. Tragedy of the Commons
    Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
Validation

XHTML & CSS