Moving Pictures

• Released February 1981 by Mercury Records
• Went Platinum (1,000,000 copies) on March 27, 1981
• Went Double Platinum (2,000,000 copies) on October 12, 1984
• Went Quadruple Platinum (4,000,000 copies) on January 27, 1995
• Purchase This Album

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1. Tom Sawyer (4:34)
2. Red Barchetta (6:08)
3. YYZ (4:24)
4. Limelight (4:21)
5. The Camera Eye (10:57)
6. Witch Hunt (Part III of "Fear") (4:44)
7. Vital Signs (4:47)

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Lyrics

• Tom Sawyer (Dubois, Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  A modern-day warrior
  Mean mean stride,
  Today's Tom Sawyer
  Mean mean pride.
  
  Though his mind is not for rent,
  Don't put him down as arrogant.
  His reserve, a quiet defense,
  Riding out the day's events.
  The river
  
  What you say about his company
  Is what you say about society.
  Catch the mist, catch the myth
  Catch the mystery, catch the drift.
  
  The world is, the world is,
  Love and life are deep,
  Maybe as his skies are wide.
  
  Today's Tom Sawyer,
  He gets high on you,
  And the space he invades
  He gets by on you.
  
  No, his mind is not for rent
  To any god or government.
  Always hopeful, yet discontent,
  He knows changes aren't permanent,
  But change is.
  
  What you say about his company
  Is what you say about society.
  Catch the witness, catch the wit,
  Catch the spirit, catch the spit.
  
  The world is, the world is,
  Love and life are deep,
  Maybe as his eyes are wide.
  
  Exit the warrior,
  Today's Tom Sawyer,
  He gets high on you,
  And the energy you trade,
  He gets right on to the friction of the day.
  
  
• Red Barchetta (Lee, Lifeson, Peart) Inspired by "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard S. Foster
  
  My uncle has a country place
  That no one knows about.
  He says it used to be a farm,
  Before the Motor Law.
  And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
  And hop the Turbine Freight
  To far outside the Wire,
  Where my white-haired uncle waits.
  
  Jump to the ground
  As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline.
  Run like the wind,
  As excitement shivers up and down my spine.
  Down in his barn,
  My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
  For fifty-odd years.
  To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.
  
  I strip away the old debris
  That hides a shining car.
  A brilliant red Barchetta
  From a better, vanished time.
  I fire up the willing engine,
  Responding with a roar.
  Tires spitting gravel,
  I commit my weekly crime...
  
  Wind-
  In my hair-
  Shifting and drifting-
  Mechanical music-
  Adrenalin surge...
  
  Well-weathered leather,
  Hot metal and oil,
  The scented country air.
  Sunlight on chrome,
  The blur of the landscape,
  Every nerve aware.
  
  Suddenly ahead of me,
  Across the mountainside,
  A gleaming alloy air-car
  Shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
  I spin around with shrieking tires,
  To run the deadly race,
  Go screaming through the valley
  As another joins the chase.
  
  Drive like the wind,
  Straining the limits of machine and man.
  Laughing out loud
  With fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan.
  At the one-lane bridge
  I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
  Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside.
  
  
• YYZ (Lee, Peart)
  
  (Instrumental)
  
  
• Limelight (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Living on a lighted stage
  Approaches the unreal
  For those who think and feel
  In touch with some reality
  Beyond the gilded cage.
  
  Cast in this unlikely role,
  Ill-equipped to act,
  With insufficient tact,
  One must put up barriers
  To keep oneself intact.
  
  Living in the Limelight,
  The universal dream
  For those who wish to seem.
  Those who wish to be
  Must put aside the alienation,
  Get on with the fascination,
  The real relation,
  The underlying theme.
  
  Living in a fisheye lens,
  Caught in the camera eye.
  I have no heart to lie,
  I can't pretend a stranger
  Is a long-awaited friend.
  
  All the world's indeed a stage,
  And we are merely players,
  Performers and portrayers,
  Each another's audience
  Outside the gilded cage.
  
  Living in the Limelight,
  The universal dream
  For those who wish to seem.
  Those who wish to be
  Must put aside the alienation,
  Get on with the fascination,
  The real relation,
  The underlying theme.
  
  
• The Camera Eye (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  PART I
  
  Grim-faced and forbidding,
  Their faces closed tight,
  An angular mass of New Yorkers
  Pacing in rhythm,
  Race the oncoming night,
  They chase through the streets of Manhattan.
  Head-first humanity,
  Pause at a light,
  Then flow through the streets of the city.
  
  They seem oblivious
  To a soft spring rain,
  Like an English rain
  So light, yet endless
  From a leaden sky.
  
  The buildings are lost
  In their limitless rise.
  My feet catch the pulse
  And the purposeful stride.
  
  I feel the sense of possibilities,
  I feel the wrench of hard realities.
  The focus is sharp in the city.
  
  PART II
  
  Wide-angle watcher
  On life's ancient tales,
  Steeped in the history of London.
  
  Green and grey washes
  In a wispy white veil
  Mist in the streets of Westminster.
  Wistful and weathered,
  The pride still prevails,
  Alive in the streets of the city.
  
  Are they oblivious
  To this quality?
  A quality
  Of light unique to
  Every city's streets.
  
  Pavements may teem
  With intense energy,
  But the city is calm
  In this violent sea.
  
  
• Witch Hunt (PART III OF THE "FEAR" TRILOGY) (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  The night is black,
  Without a moon.
  The air is thick and still.
  
  The vigilantes gather on
  The lonely torchlit hill.
  
  Features distorted in the flickering light,
  The faces are twisted and grotesque.
  Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
  The mob moves like demons possesed.
  Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
  Confident their ways are best.
  
  The righteous rise
  With burning eyes
  Of hatred and ill-will.
  
  Madmen fed on fear and lies
  To beat and burn and kill.
  
  They say there are strangers who threaten us,
  In our immigrants and infidels.
  They say there is strangeness, too dangerous
  In our theatres and bookstore shelves,
  That those who know what's best for us
  Must rise and save us from ourselves.
  
  Quick to judge,
  Quick to anger,
  Slow to understand
  
  Ignorance and prejudice
  And fear
  Walk hand in hand.
  
  
• Vital Signs (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Unstable condition,
  A symptom of life,
  In mental and environmental change.
  Atmospheric disturbance,
  The feverish flux
  Of human interface and interchange.
  
  The impulse is pure;
  Sometimes our circuits get shorted
  By external interference.
  Signals get crossed
  And the balance distorted
  By internal incoherence.
  
  A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
  Everybody need a mood lifter,
  Everybody need reverse polarity.
  Everybody got mixed feelings
  About the function and the form.
  Everybody got to deviate from the norm.
  
  An ounce of perception,
  A pound of obscure.
  Process information at half speed.
  Pause, rewind, replay,
  Warm memory chip,
  Random sample, hold the one you need.
  
  Leave out the fiction,
  The fact is, this friction
  Will only be worn by persistence.
  Leave out conditions,
  Courageous convictions
  Will drag the dream into existence.
  
  A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
  Everybody need a soft filter,
  Everybody need reverse polarity.
  Everybody got mixed feelings
  About the function and the form.
  Everybody got to elevate from the norm...