Test For Echo

• Released September 10, 1996 by Atlantic Records
• Went Gold (500,000 copies) on October 21, 1996
• Purchase This Album

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1. Test For Echo (5:55)
2. Driven (4:26)
3. Half The World (3:42)
4. The Color Of Right (4:48)
5. Time And Motion (5:01)
6. Totem (4:57)
7. Dog Years (4:54)
8. Virtuality (5:43)
9. Resist (4:23)
10. Limbo (5:28)
11. Carve Away The Stone (4:05)

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Lyrics

• Test For Echo (DuBois, Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Here we go -- vertigo
  Video vertigo
  Test for echo
  
  Here we go -- in slo-mo
  Video vertigo
  Test for echo
  
  Some kind of trouble on the sensory screen
  Camera curves over caved-in cop cars
  Bleacher-creatures, would-be desperados
  Clutch at plausible deniability
  Don't touch that dial --
  We're in denial
  Until the showcase trial on TV
  
  Some kind of pictures on the sense o'clock news
  Miles of yellow tape -- silhouetted chalklines
  Tough-talking hood boys in pro-team logo knock-offs
  Conform to uniforms of some corporate entity
  Don't change that station
  It's Gangster Nation
  Now crime's in syndication on TV
  
  What a show -- vertigo
  Video vertigo
  Test for echo
  
  Touch and go -- in slo-mo
  Video vertigo
  Test for echo
  
  Some kind of drama live on satellite
  Hidden camera coverage from the crime scene to the courtroom
  Nail-biting hood boys in borrowed ties and jackets
  Clutching at the straws of respectability
  Can't do the time?
  Don't do the crime
  And wind up in the perp walk on TV
  
  
• Driven (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Driven up and down in circles
  Skidding down a road of black ice
  Staring in and out storm windows
  Driven to a fool's paradise
  
  BUT IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
  
  Driven to the margin of error
  Driven to the edge of control
  Driven to the margin of terror
  Driven to the edge of a deep, dark hole
  
  Driven day and night in circles
  Spinning like a whirlwind of leaves
  Stealing in and out back alleys
  Driven to another den of thieves
  
  BUT IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
  
  Driven in -- Driven to the edge
  Driven out -- On the thin end of the wedge
  Driven off -- By things I've never seen
  Driven on -- By the road to somewhere I've never been
  
  IT'S MY TURN TO DRIVE
  
  The road unwinds towards me
  What was there is gone
  The road unwinds before me
  And I go riding on
  
  
• Half The World (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Half the world hates
  What half the world does every day
  Half the world waits
  While half gets on with it anyway
  
  Half the world lives
  Half the world makes
  Half the world gives
  While the other half takes
  
  Half the world is
  Half the world was
  Half the world thinks
  While the other half does
  
  Half the world talks
  With half a mind on what they say
  Half the world walks
  With half a mind to run away
  
  Half the world lies
  Half the world learns
  Half the world flies
  As half the world turns
  
  Half the world cries
  Half the world laughs
  Half the world tries
  To be the other half
  
  Half of us divided
  Like a torn-up photograph
  Half of us are trying
  To reach the other half
  
  Half the world cares
  While half the world is wasting the day
  Half the world shares
  While half the world is stealing away
  
  
• The Color Of Right (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  I don't have an explanation
  For another lonely night
  I just feel this sense of mission
  And the sense of what is right
  
  Take it easy on my now --
  I'd be there if I could
  I'm so full of what is right
  I can't see what is good
  
  It's a hopeless situation
  Lie awake for half the night
  You're not sure what's going on here
  But you're sure it isn't right
  
  Make it easy on yourself
  There's nothing more you can do
  You're so full of what is right
  You can't see what is true
  
  A quality of justice
  A quantity of light
  A particle of mercy
  Makes the color of right
  
  Gravity and distance
  Change the passage of light
  Gravity and distance
  Change the color of right
  
  
• Time And Motion (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Time and motion
  Wind and sun and rain
  Days connect like boxcars in a train
  
  Fill them up with precious cargo
  Squeeze in all that you can find
  Spontaneous elation
  And the long-enduring kind
  
  Time and motion
  Flesh and blood and fire
  Lives connect in webs of gold and razor wire
  
  Spin a thread of precious contact
  Squeeze in all that you can find
  Spontaneous relations
  And the long-enduring kind
  
  The mighty ocean
  Dances with the moon
  The silent forest
  Echoes with the loon
  
  Time and motion
  Live and love and dream
  Eyes connect like interstellar beams
  
  Superman in Supernature
  Needs all the comfort he can find
  Spontaneous emotion
  And the long enduring kind
  
  
• Totem (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  I've got twelve disciples and a Buddha smile
  The Garden of Allah, Viking Valhalla
  A miracle once in a while
  
  I've got a pantheon of animals in a pagan soul
  Vishnu and Gaia -- Aztec and Maya
  Dance around my totem pole
  
  I believe in what I see
  I believe in what I hear
  I believe that what I'm feeling
  Changes how the world appears
  
  Angels and demons dancing in my head
  Lunatics and monsters underneath my bed
  Media messiahs preying on my fears
  Pop culture prophets playing in my ears
  
  I've got celestial mechanics
  To synchronize my stars
  Seasonal migrations -- daily variations
  World of the unlikely and bizarre
  
  I've got idols and icons, unspoken holy vows
  Thoughts to keep well-hidden --
  Sacred and forbidden
  Free to browse among the holy cows
  
  That's why I believe
  
  Angels and demons inside of me
  Saviors and Satans all around me
  
  Sweet chariot, swing low, coming for me
  
  
• Dog Years (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  In a dog's life
  A year is really more like seven
  And all too soon a canine
  Will be chasing cars in doggie heaven
  
  It seems to me
  As we make our own few circles 'round the sun
  We get it backwards
  And our seven years go by like one
  
  Dog years -- It's the season of the itch
  Dog years -- With every scratch it reappears
  
  In the dog days
  People look to Sirius
  Dogs cry for the moon
  But those connections are mysterious
  
  It seems to me
  While it's true that every dog will have his day
  When all the bones are buried
  There is barely time to go outside and play
  
  Dog years -- It's the season of the itch
  Dog years -- With every scratch it reappears
  Dog years -- For every sad son of a bitch
  Dog years -- With his tail between his ears
  
  I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos
  Or a span of geological time
  Than be living in these dog years
  
  In a dog's brain
  A constant buzz of low-level static
  One sniff at the hydrant
  And the answer is automatic
  
  It seems to me
  As well make our own few circles 'round the block
  We've lost our senses
  For the higher-level static of talk
  
  
• Virtuality (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  Like a shipwrecked mariner adrift on an unknown sea
  Clinging to the wreckage of the lost ship Fantasy
  I'm a castaway, stranded in a desolate land
  I can see the footprints in the virtual sand
  
  Net boy, net girl
  Send your signal 'round the world
  Let your fingers walk and talk
  And set you free
  
  Net boy, net girl
  Send your impulse 'round the world
  Put your message in a modem
  And throw it in the Cyber Sea
  
  Astronauts in the weightlessness of pixellated space
  Exchange graffiti with a disembodied race
  I can save the universe in a grain of sand
  I can hold the future in my virtual hand
  
  Let's dance tonight
  To a virtual song
  Press this key
  And you can play along
  
  Let's fly tonight
  On our virtual wings
  Press this key
  To see amazing things
  
  Like a pair of vagabonds who wave between two passing trains
  Or the glimpse of a woman's smile through a window in the rain
  I can smell her perfume, I can taste her lips
  I can feel the voltage from her fingertips
  
  Net boy, net girl
  Send your heartbeat round the world
  
  
• Resist (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  I can learn to resist
  Anything but temptation
  I can learn to co-exist
  With anything but pain
  
  I can learn to compromise
  Anything but my desires
  I can learn to get along
  With all the things I can't explain
  
  I can learn to resist
  Anything but frustration
  I can learn to persist
  With anything but aiming low
  
  I can learn to close my eyes
  To anything but injustice
  I can learn to get along
  With all the things I don't know
  
  You can surrender
  Without a prayer
  But never really pray
  Pray without surrender
  
  You can fight
  Without ever winning
  But never ever win
  Without a fight
  
  
• Limbo (Lee, Lifeson)
  
  (Instrumental)
  
  
• Carve Away The Stone (Lee, Lifeson, Peart)
  
  You can roll that stone
  To the top of the hill
  Drag your ball and chain
  Behind you
  
  You can carry that weight
  With an iron will
  Or let the pain remain
  Behind you
  
  Chip away the stone
  (Sisyphus)
  Chip away the stone
  Make the burden lighter
  If you must roll that rock alone
  
  You can drive those wheels
  To the end of the road
  You will still find the past right
  Behind you
  
  Try to deny
  The weight of the load
  Try to put the sins of the past night
  Behind you
  
  Carve away the stone
  (Sisyhpus)
  Carve away the stone
  Make a graven image
  With some features of your own
  
  You call roll the stone
  To the top of the hill
  You can carry that weight
  With an iron will
  You can drive those wheels
  To the end of the road
  You can try to deny
  The weight of the load
  
  Roll away the stone
  (Sisyhpus)
  Roll away the stone
  If you could just move yours
  I could get working on my own