Rush dalszövegek

 

 

@ALBUM: 2112

Author: Rush

Album title: 2112

@SONG: 2112

 

Lyrics by Neil Peart

With acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand

 

I. Overture

 

And the meek shall inherit the earth.

 

II. Temples of Syrinx

 

... "The massive grey walls of the Temples rise from the heart of every

Federation city. I have always been awed by them, to think that every single

facet of every life is regulated and directed from within! Our books, our

music, our work and play are all looked after by the benevolent wisdom of the

priests..."

 

We've taken care of everything

The words you hear the songs you sing

The pictures that give pleasure to you eyes.

 

It's one for all and all for one

We work together common sons

Never need to wonder how or why.

 

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

 

Look around this world we made

Equality our stock in trade

Come and join the Brotherhood of Man

Oh what a nice contented world

Let the banners be unfurled

Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand.

 

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

 

III. Discovery

 

... "Behind my beloved waterfall, in the little room that was hidden beneath

the cave, I found it. I brushed away the dust of the years, and picked it up,

holding it reverently in my hands. I had no idea what it might be, but it was

beautiful" ...

... "I learned to lay my fingers across the wires, and to turn the keys to make

them sound differently. As I struck the wires with my other hand, I produced

my first harmonious sounds, and soon my own music! How different it could be

from the music of the Temples! I can't wait to tell the priests about it! ..."

 

What can this strange device be?

When I touch it, it gives forth a sound

It's got wires that vibrate and give music

What can this thing be that I found?

 

See how it sings like a sad heart

And joyously screams out its pain

Sounds that build high like a mountain

Or notes that fall gently like rain.

 

I can't wait to share this new wonder

The people will all see its light

Let them all make their own music

The Priests praise my name on this night.

 

IV. Presentation

 

... "In the sudden silence as I finished playing, I looked up to a circle of

grim, expressionless faces. Father Brown rose to his feet, and his somnolent

voice echoed throughout the silent Temple Hall." ...

... "Instead of the grateful joy that I expected, they were words of quiet

rejection! Instead of praise, sullen dismissal. I watched in shock and horror

as Father Brown ground my precious instrument to splinters beneath his feet..."

 

I know it's most unusual

To come before you so

But I've found an ancient miracle

I thought that you should know

 

Listen to my music

And hear what it can do

There's something here as strong as life

I know that it will reach you.

 

Yes, we know it's nothing new

It's just a waste of time

We have no need for ancient ways

The world is doing fine

 

Another toy will help destroy

The elder race of man

Forget about your silly whim

It doesn't fit the plan.

 

I can't believe you're saying

These things just can't be true

Our world could use this beauty

Just think what we might do.

 

Listen to my music

And hear what it can do

There's something here as strong as life

I know that it will reach you.

 

Don't annoy us further

We have our work to do.

Just think about the average

What use have they for you?

 

Another toy will help destroy

The elder race of man

Forget about your silly whim

It doesn't fit the plan.

 

V. Oracle: The Dream

 

... "I guess it was a dream, but even now it all seems so vivid to me. Clearly

yet I see the beckoning hand of the oracle as he stood at the summit of the

staircase" ...

... "I see still the incredible beauty of the sculptured cities and the pure

spirit of man revealed in the lives and works of this world. I was overwhelmed

by both wonder and understanding as I saw a completely different way to life, a

way that had been crushed by the Federation long ago. I saw now how

meaningless life had become with the loss of all these things ..."

 

I wandered home though the silent streets

And fell into a fitfull sleep

Escape to realms beyond the night

Dream can't you show me the light?

 

I stand atop a spiral stair

An oracle confronts me there

He leads me on light years away

Through astral nights, galactic days

 

I see the works of gifted hands

That grace this strange and wondrous land

I see the hand of man arise

With hungry mind and open eyes

 

They left the planet long ago

The elder race still learn and grow

Their power grows with purpose strong

To claim the home where they belong

Oh, to tear the Temples down...

Oh, to change..

 

VI. Soliloquy

 

... "I have not left this cave for days now, it has become my last refuge in my

total despair. I have only the music of the waterfall to comfort me now. I

can no longer live under the control of the Federation, but there is no other

place to go. My last hope is that with my death I may pass into the world of

my dream, and know peace at last."

 

The sleep is still in my eyes

The dream is still in my head

I heave a sigh and sadly smile

And lie a while in bed

I wish that it might come to pass

Not fade like all my dreams

 

Just think of what my life might be

In a world like I have seen

I don't think I can carry on

Carry on this cold and empty life

Oh...noo.

 

My spirits are low in the depths of despair

My lifeblood spills over..

 

VII. The Grand Finale

 

Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation

Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation

Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation

We have assumed control.

We have assumed control.

We have assumed control.

 

 

@SONG: A Passage To Bangkok

 

Lyrics by Neil Peart

 

Our first stop is in Bogota

To check Columbian fields

The natives smile and pass along

A sample of their yield

Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams

Golden Acapulco nights

Then Morocco, and the East,

Fly by morning light

 

We're on the train to Bangkok

Aboard the Thailand Express

We'll hit the stops along the way

We only stop for the best

 

Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon

We burn the midnight oil

The fragrance of Afghanistan

Rewards a long day's toil

Pulling into Katmandu

Smoke rings fill the air

Perfumed by a Nepal night

The Express gets you there

 

 

@SONG: The Twilight Zone

 

Lyrics by Neil Peart

 

A pleasant faced man steps up to greet you

He smiles and says he's pleased to meet you

Beneath his hat the strangeness lies

Take it off, he's got three eyes

Truth is false and logic lost

Now the fourth dimension is crossed

 

You have entered the Twilight Zone

Beyond this world strange things are known

Use the key, unlock the door

See what your fate might have in store

Come explore your dreams' creation

Enter this world of imagination

 

Wake up lost in an empty town

Wondering why no one else is around

Look up to see a giant boy

You've just become his brand new toy

No escape, no place to hide

Here where Time and Space collide

 

 

@SONG: Lessons

 

Lyrics by Alex Lifeson

 

Sweet memories Flashing very quickly by

Reminding me Giving me a reason why

I know that My goal is more than a thought

I'll be there When I teach what I've been taught

 

You know we've told you before

But you didn't hear us then

So you still question why

You didn't listen again

 

Sweet memories I never thought it would be like this

Reminding me Just how close I came to missing

I know that This is the way for me to go

You'll be there When you know what I know

 

 

@SONG: Tears

 

Lyrics by Geddy Lee

 

All of the seasons

And all of the days

All of the reasons

Why I've felt this way

So long

So long

 

Then lost in that feeling

I looked in your eyes

I noticed emotion

And that you had cried

For me

I can see

 

What would touch me deeper

Tears that fall from eyes

That only cry?

Would it touch you deeper

Than tears that fall from eyes

That know why?

 

A lifetime of questions

Tears on your cheek

I tasted the answers

And my body was weak

For you

The truth

 

 

@SONG: Something For Nothing

 

Lyrics by Neil Peart

 

Waiting for the winds of change

To sweep the clouds away

Waiting for the rainbow's end

To cast its gold your way

Countless ways

You pass the days

 

Waiting for someone to call

And turn your world around

Looking for an answer to

The question you have found

Looking for

An open door

 

You don't get something for nothing

You don't get freedom for free

You won't get wise

With the sleep still in your eyes

No matter what your dreams might be

 

What you own is your own kingdom

What you do is your own glory

What you love is your own power

What you live is your own story

In your head is the answer

Let it guide you along

Let your heart be the anchor

And the beat of your own song

 

 

 

@ALBUM: Roll The Bones

-----------------------------------------------------

Lyrics to Roll The Bones (best guess version)

 

 

@SONG: Dreamline

 

 

He's got a roadmap of Jupiter

A radar fix on the stars

All along the highway

She's got a liquid-crystal compass

A picture book of the rivers

Under the Sahara

 

They travel in the time of the prophets

On a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun

Like lovers and hereos, and the restless part of everyone

We're only at home when we're on the run

On the run

 

He's got a starmap of Hollywood

A list of cheap motels

All along the freeway

She's got a sister out in Vegas

Promise of a decent job

Far away from her home town

 

They travel on the road to redemption

A highway out of yesterday -- that tomorrow will bring

Like lovers and heroes, birds in the last days of spring

We're only at home when we're on the wing

On the wing

 

WE ARE YOUNG

WANDERING THE FACE OF THE EARTH

WONDERING WHAT OUR DREAMS MIGHT BE WORTH

LEARNING THAT WE'RE ONLY IMMORTAL --

FOR A LIMITED TIME

 

Time is a gypsy caravan

Steals away in the night

To leave you stranded in Dreamland

Distance is a long-range filter

Memory a flickering light

Left behind in the heartland

 

We travel in the dark of the new moon

A starry highway traced on the map of the sky

Like lovers and heroes, lonely as the eagle's cry

We're only at home when we're on the fly

On the fly

 

We travel on the road to adventure

On a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun

Like lovers and hereos, and the restless part of everyone

We're only at home when we're on the run

On the run...

 

@SONG: Bravado

 

 

If we burn our wings

Flying too close to the sun

If the moment of glory

Is over before it's begun

If the dream is won --

Though everything is lost

We will pay the price,

But we will not count the cost

 

When the dust has cleared

And victory denied

A summit too lofty

River a little too wide

If we keep our pride

Though paradise is lost

We will pay the price,

But we will not count the cost

 

And if the music stops

There's only the sound of the rain

All the hope and glory,

All the sacrifice in vain

And if love remains

Though everything is lost

We will pay the price,

But we will not count the cost

 

@SONG: Roll The Bones

 

 

Well, you can stake that claim --

Good work is the key to good fortune

Winners take that praise

Losers seldom take that blame

If they don't take that game

And sometimes the winner takes nothing

We draw our own designs

But fortune has to make that frame

 

We go out in the world and take our chances

Fate is just the weight of circumstances

That's the way that lady luck dances

Roll the bones

 

Why are we here?

Because we're here

Roll the bones

Why does it happen?

Because it happens

Roll the bones

 

Faith is cold as ice --

Why are little ones born only to suffer

For the want of immunity

Or a bowl of rice?

Well, who would hold a price

On the heads of the innocent children

If there's some immortal power

To control the dice?

 

We come in to the world and take our chances

Fate is just the weight of circumstances

That's the way that lady luck dances

Roll the bones

 

 

Jack, relax.

Get busy with the facts.

No zodiacs or almanacs,

No maniacs in polyester slacks.

Just the facts.

Gonna kick some gluteus max.

It's a paralax, you dig?

You move around

The small gets big. It's a rig

It's action -- reaction

Random interaction.

So who's afraid

Of little abstraction

Can't get no satisfaction

>From the facts?

You'd better run, homeboy

A fact's a fact

>From Nome to Rome, boy.

 

What's the deal? Spin the wheel.

If the dice are hot -- take a shot.

Play your cards. Show us what you got --

What you're holding.

If the cards are cold

Don't go folding.

Lady Luck is golden;

She favors the bold. That's cold

Stop throwing stones --

The night has a thousand saxaphones.

So get out there and rock,

And roll the bones.

Get busy!

 

@SONG: Face Up

 

 

Your turn my head

I spin my wheels

Running on empty --

You know how that feels

 

I'm on a roll now --

Or is it a slide?

Can't be too careful

With that dangerous pride

If I could only reach that dial inside

And turn it up

 

FACE UP -- Or you can only back down

FACE UP -- Hit the target or you better hit the ground

FACE UP -- There's still time to turn the game around

FACE UP -- Turn it up --

Or turn that wild card down

Turn it up!

 

Don't complain

Don't explain

I don't think my new resolve

Can stand the strain

 

I'm in a groove now

Or is it a rut?

I need some feedback

But all the lines are cut

I get so angry, but I keep my mouth shut

And turn it up

 

You get all squeezed up inside

Like the days were carved in stone

You get all wired up inside

And it's bad to be alone

 

You can go out, you can take a ride

And when you get out on your own

You get all smoothed out inside

And it's good to be alone

Turn it up

 

@SONG: Where's My Thing? (Part IV, "Gangster Of Boats" Trilogy) -- Instrumental

 

 

@SONG: The Big Wheel

 

 

Well, I was only a kid -- Didn't know enough to be afraid

Playing the game, but not the way the big boys played

Nothing to lose -- maybe I had something to trade

The way the big wheel spins

 

Well, I was only a kid, on a holy crusade

I placed no trust in a faith that was ready-made

Take no chances on paradise delayed

So I do a slow fade

 

PLAYING FOR TIME

Don't want to wait for heaven

LOOKING FOR LOVE

For an angel to forgive my sins

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Chasing something new to believe in

LOOKING FOR LOVE

The way the big wheel spins

 

Well, I was only a kid, cruising around in a trance

Prisoner of fate, victim of circumstance

I was lined up for glory, but the tickets sold out in advance

The way the big wheel spins

 

Well, I was only a kid, gone without a backward glance

Going for broke, going for another chance

Hoping for heaven -- hoping for a fine romance

If I do the right dance

 

Wheel goes round, landing on a twist of faith

Taking your chances you have the right answers

When the final judgement begins

 

Wheel goes round, landing on a leap of fate

Life redirected in ways unexpected

Sometimes the odd number wins

The way the big wheel spins

 

@SONG: Heresy

 

 

All around that dull gray world

>From Moscow to Berlin

People storm the barricade

Walls go tumbling in

 

The counter-revolution

People smiling through their tears

Who can give them back their lives

And all those wasted years?

All those precious wasted years

Who will pay?

 

All around that dull gray world

Of ideology

People storm the marketplace

And buy up fantasy

 

The counter-revolution

At the counter of a store

People buy the things they want

And borrow for a little more

All those wasted years

All those precious wasted years

Who will pay?

 

Do we have to be forgiving at last?

What else can we do?

Do we have to say goodbye to the past?

Yes I guess we do

 

All around this great big world

All the crap we had to take

Bombs and basement fallout shelters

All our lives at stake

 

The bloody revolution

All the warheads in its wake

All the fear and suffering

All a big mistake

All those wasted years

All those precious wasted years

Who will pay?

 

@SONG: Ghost Of A Chance

 

 

Like a million little doorways

All the choices we made

All the stages we passed through

All the roles we played

 

For so many different directions

Our separate paths might hve turned

With every door that we opened

Every bridge that we burned

 

Somehow we find each other

Through all that masquerade

Somehow we found each other

And somehow we have stayed

In a state of grace

 

I DON'T BELIEVE IN DESTINY

OR THE GUIDING HAND OF FATE

I DON'T BELIEVE IN FOREVER

OR LOVE AS A MYSTICAL STATE

 

I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE STARS OR THE PLANETS

OR ANGELS WATCHING FROM ABOVE

BUT I BELIEVE THERE'S A GHOST OF A CHANCE

TO FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE

AND MAKE IT LAST

 

Like a million little crossroads

Through the backstreets of youth

Each time we turn a new corner

A tiny moment of truth

 

For so many different connections

Our separate paths might have made

With every door that we opened

Every game we played

 

@SONG: Neurotica

 

 

You just don't get it

What it is ... well, you're not really sure

You move like you're walking on this ice

Talking like you're still insecure

 

Time is a spiral -- Space is a curve

I know you get dizzy, but try not to lose your nerve

Life is a diamond you turn into dust

Waiting for rescue, And I know you just

Don't get it

You just don't get it

 

Neurotica -- Exotica

It's just Erotica -- Hypnotica

It's just Psychotica -- Chaotica

It's just Exotica -- Neurotica

 

You just don't get it

Baby don't you ask yourself why?

If you don't like the answer -- forget it

You know I hate to see you cry

 

Fortune is random -- Fate shoots from the hip

I know you get crazy, but try not to lose your grip

Life is a diamond you turn into dust

Looking for trust, and I know that you just

Don't get it

You just don't get it

 

SNAP!

Hide in your shell, let the world go to hell

It's like Russian roulette to you

SNAP!

Sweat running cold, you can't face growing old

It's a personal threat to you

SNAP!

The world is a cage for your impotent rage

But don't let it get to you

SNAP!

 

@SONG: You Bet Your Life

 

 

Just another hunter, like a wolf in the sun

Just another junkie on a scoring run

Just another victim of the things he has done

Just another day -- in the life of a loaded gun

 

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- You name the game

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- The stakes are the same

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

 

Just another winner, pours his life down the drain

Just another island in a hurricane

Just another loser, like a cat in the rain

Just another day -- in the path of a speeding train

 

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- You name the game

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- The stakes are the same

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

 

anarchist reactionary running-dog revisionist

hindu muslim catholic creation/evolutionist

rational romantic mystic cynical idealist

minimal expressionist post-modern neo-symbolist

 

armchair rocket scientist graffiti existentialist

deconstruction primitive performance photo-realist

be-bop or a one-drop or a hip-hop lite-pop-metallist

gold adult contemporary urban country capitalist

 

Just another gypsy with a plastic guitar

Just another dancer with her eyes on the stars

Just another dreamer who was going too far

Just another drunk -- at the wheel of a stolen car

 

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- You name the game

THE ODDS GET EVEN -- The stakes are the same

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

 

 

@ALBUM: caress.of.steel

Author: Rush

Album title: Caress Of Steel

@SONG: Bastille Day

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

Ooh, there's no bread, let 'em eat cake

There's no end to what they'll take

Flaunt the fruits of noble birth

Wash the salt into the earth

 

But they're marching to Bastille Day.

La guillotine will claim her bloody prize.

Free the dungeons of the innocent

The king will kneel

And let his kingdom rise.

Ooh, there's stained velvet, dirty lace,

naked fear on every face

See them bow their heads to die

As we would bow as they rode by

And we're marching to Bastille Day

La guillotine will claim her bloody prize

Sing, oh choirs of cacophony

The king has kneeled

To let his kingdom rise.

 

Lessons taught but never learned

All around us anger burns

Guide the future by the past

Long ago the mould was cast

For they marched up to Bastille Day

La guillotine claimed her bloody prize

Hear the echoes of the centuries

power isn't all that money buys.

 

 

@SONG: I Think I'm Going Bald

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

I looked in the mirror today;

my eyes just didn't seem so bright.

I've lost a few more hairs.

I think I'm going bald,

I think I'm going bald.

 

Seems like only yesterday

We would sit and talk of dreams all night,

Dreams of youth and simple truths.

Now we're all so involved,

So involved with life.

 

I walk down vanity fair,

Memory lane ev'rywhere

Wall Stree shuffles there,

Dressed in flowing hair.

 

Once we loved the flowers,

Now we ask the price of the land.

Once we would take water,

But now it must be wine.

Now we've been and now we've seen

What price peace of mind.

Take a piece of my mind.

 

My life is slipping away.

I'm aging every day.

But even when I'm grey,

I'll still be grey my way.

 

 

@SONG: Lakeside Park

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

Midway hawkers calling "Try your luck with me."

Merry-go-round wheezing same old melody.

A thousand ten-cent wonders, who could ask for more.

A pocketful of silver, the key to heaven's door.

 

Lakeside Park, willows in the breeze.

Lakeside Park, so many memories.

Laughing rides, midway lights,

Shining stars on summer nights.

 

Days of barefoot freedom, racing with the waves,

Nights of starlit secrets, crackling driftwood flames,

Drinking by the lighthouse, smoking on the pier,

Still, we saw the magic was fading every year.

 

Everyone would gather on the twenty fourth of May,

Sitting in the sand to watch the fireworks display.

Dancing fires on the beach, singing songs together,

Though it's just a memory, some memories last forever.

 

 

@SONG: The Necromancer

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

I. Into Darkness

 

As grey traces of dawn tinge the eastern sky, the three travelers, men of

Willow Dale, emerge from the forest shadow. Fording the River Dawn, they turn

south, journeying into the dark and forbidding lands of the Necromancer.

Even now the intensity of his dread power can be felt, weakening the body and

saddening the heart. Ultimately they will become empty, mindless spectres,

stripped of will and soul. Only their thirst for freedom gives them hunger for

vengeance...

 

Silence shrouds the forest

as the birds announce the dawn.

Three trav'llers ford the river

and southward journey on.

The road is lined with peril,

and the air is charged with fear.

The shadow of his nearness

weighs like iron tears.

 

 

II. Under the Shadow

 

Shreds of black cloud loom in overcast skies;

the Necromancer keeps watch with his magic prism eyes.

He views all his lands and is already aware

Of the three helpless invaders

trapped in his lair...

 

Broading in the tower,

watching o'er his land,

holding ev'ry creature,

helplessly they stand.

 

Gaze into his prisms,

knowing they are near.

Lead them to the dungeons.

Spectres numb with fear,

they bow defeated.

 

 

III. Return of the Prince

 

Enter the Champion.

Prince By-Tor appears to battle for freedom from chains of long years.

The spell has been broken...the Dark Lands are bright, the Wraith of the

Necromancer soars away...in the night.

 

Stealthily attacking,

By-Tor slays his foe.

The men are free to run now

from labyrinths below.

Wraith of the Necromancer

shadows through the sky;

another land to darken

with evil prism eye.

 

 

@SONG: The Fountain Of Lamneth

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

I. In the Valley

 

I am born;

I am me.

I am new.

I am free.

 

Look at me;

I am young.

Sight unseen;

life unsung.

 

My eyes have just been opened,

and they're open very wide.

Images around me

don't identify inside.

 

Just one blur I recognize,

the one that soothes and feeds.

My way of life is easy,

and as simple are my needs.

 

Yet my eyes are drawn toward

the mountain in the east.

Fascinates and captivates;

gives my heart no peace.

 

The mountain holds the sunrise

in the prison of the night,

till bursting forth from rocky chains,

the valley floods with light.

 

Living one long sunrise,

for to me all things are new.

I've never watched the sky grow

pale, or strolled through fields of dew.

 

I do not know of dust to dust.

I live from breath to breath.

I live to climb that mountain

to the Fountain of Lamneth.

 

 

II. Didacts and Narpets

 

Listen!

 

 

III. No One At the Bridge

 

Crying back to consciousness,

the coldness grips my skin.

The sky is pitching violently,

and drawn by shrieking winds.

 

Seaspray blurs my vision.

Waves roll by so fast.

Save my ship of freedom.

I'm lashed, helpless, to the mast.

 

Remembering when first I held

the wheel in my own hands,

I took the helm so eagerly

and sailed for distant lands.

 

But now the sea's too heavy.

And I just don't understand,

why must my crew desert me

when I need a guiding hand?

 

Call out for direction

and there's no one there to steer.

Shout out for salvation

but there's no one there to hear.

 

Cry out supplication

for the maelstrom is near.

Scream out desperation

but no one cares to hear.

 

IV. Panacea

 

The whiteness of confusion

is unfolding from my mind.

I stare around in wonder.

Have I left my life behind.

 

I catch the scent of ambergris

And turn my head, surprised.

My gaze is caught and held and I

am helpless, mesmerized.

 

Panacea, liquid grace.

Oh, let me touch your gentle face.

Enchantment falls arond me

and I know I cannot leave.

 

Here's a meaning for my life,

a shelter from the storm.

Pacify my troubles with

her body, soft and warm.

 

Naked in our unity,

a smile for ev'ry tear.

Gentle hands that promise me

comfort through the years.

 

Yet I know I must be gone

before the light of dawn.

 

Panacea, passion pure.

I can't resist your gentle lure.

My heart will lie beside you,

and my wandering body grieve.

 

 

V. Bacchus Plateau

 

Another endless day.

Silhouettes of grey.

Another glass of wine.

Drink with eyes that shine.

 

To days

without that chill at morning.

Long nights,

time out of mind.

 

Draw another goblet

from the cask of forty-three.

Crimson, misty mem'ry,

hazy glimpse of me.

 

Give me back my wonder.

I've something more to give.

I guess it doesn't matter.

There's not much more to,

not much more to live.

 

Another foggy dawn.

The mountain almost gone.

Another doubtful fear.

The road is not so clear.

 

My soul

grows ever weary,

and the end

is ever near.

 

VI. The Fountain

 

Look the mist is rising,

and the sun is peaking through.

See the steps grow lighter

as I reach their final few.

 

Hear the dancing waters;

I must be drawing near.

Feel, my heart is pounding

with embattled hope and fear.

 

The key, the end, the answer,

stripped of their disguise.

Still it's al confusion,

and tears spring to my eyes.

 

Though I've reached a signpost;

it's really not the end.

Like old Sol behind the mountain,

I'll be coming up again.

 

Now at last I fall before

The Fountain of Lamneth.

I thought I would be singing,

but I'm tired, out of breath.

 

Many journeys end here,

but the secret's told the same.

Life is just the candle,

and a dream must give it flame.

 

I'm in motion.

I am still.

I am crying.

I am still.

I'm together.

I'm apart.

I'm forever

at the start.

Still, I am.

 

 

 

@ALBUM: Chronicles

 

@SONG:Finding My Way (Rush)

 

Yeah, oh yeah!

Ooh, said I,

I'm comin' out to get you.

Ooh, sit down.

I'm comin' out to find you.

Ooh, yeah. Ooh yeah.

Findin' my way!

 

I've been gone so long

I've lost count of the years.

Well, I sang some sad songs,

oh yes, and cried some bad tears.

 

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, whoa.

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, yeah.

 

I'm runnin',

finding my way back home.

Oh yeah!

 

Yeah, oh yeah!

Ooh, said I,

I'm comin' back to look for you.

Ooh, sit down.

I'm goin' by the back door.

Ooh, yeah. Ooh yeah.

Findin' my way!

 

You've done me no right,

but you've done me some wrong.

Left me lonely each night

while I sing my sad song.

 

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, whoa.

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, yeah.

 

I'm runnin',

findin' my way back home.

I'm comin'.

Ooh, babe, I said I'm runnin'.

Whoa, babe, I said I'm comin'

to get you, mama.

Said I'm runnin'.

 

Ooh, babe, I said I'm comin'

for you, babe.

I said I'm runnin'.

Ooh yes, babe, I said I'm comin'

to get you, babe. I said I'm comin'.

Ooh, yeah.

 

I'm findin',

I'm findin' my way back home.

Well, I've had it for now,

livin' on the road.

Ooh, yeah.

Ooh, yeah.

 

Findin' my way!

 

 

@SONG: Working Man (Rush)

 

I get up at seven, yeah,

and I go to work at nine.

I got no time for livin'.

Yes, I'm workin' all the time.

 

It seems to me

I could live my life

a lot better than I think I am.

I guess that's why they call me,

they call me the workin' man.

 

They call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

I get home at five o'clock,

and I take myself out a nice, cold beer.

Always seem to be wond'rin'

why there's nothin' goin' down here.

 

It seems to me

I could live my life

a lot better than I think I am.

I guess that's why they call me,

they call me the workin' man.

 

They call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

Well they call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

 

@SONG: Fly By Night (Fly By Night)

 

Why try? I know why

This feeling inside me says it's time I was gone

Clear head, new life ahead

I want to be king now, not just one more pawn

 

Fly by night away from here

Change my life again

Fly by night, goodbye my dear

My ship isn't coming and I just can't pretend

 

Moonrise, thoughtful eyes

Staring back at me from the window beside

No fright or hindsight

Leaving behind that empty feeling inside

 

Start a new chapter, I find what I'm after

Is changing every day.

The change of a season's enough of a reason

To want to get away

Quiet and pensive, my thoughts apprehensive

The hours drift away

Leaving my homeland, playing a lone hand

My life begins today

 

 

@SONG: Anthem (Fly By Night)

 

Know your place in life is where you want to be

Don't let them tell you that you owe it all to me

Keep on looking forward; no use in looking 'round

Hold your head above the ground and they won't bring you down

 

Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind

A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind

We marvel after those who sought

New wonders in the world, wonders in the world,

Wonders in the world they wrought.

 

Live for yourself -- there's no one else

More worth living for

Begging hands and bleeding hearts will

Only cry out for more

 

Well, I know they've always told you

Selfishness was wrong

Yet it was for me, not you, I

Came to write this song

 

 

@SONG: Bastille Day (Caress Of Steel)

 

Ooh, there's no bread, let 'em eat cake

There's no end to what they'll take

Flaunt the fruits of noble birth

Wash the salt into the earth

 

But they're marching to Bastille Day.

La guillotine will claim her bloody prize.

Free the dungeons of the innocent

The king will kneel

And let his kingdom rise.

 

Ooh, blood stained velvet, dirty lace,

naked fear on every face

See them bow their heads to die

As we would bow as they rode by

And we're marching to Bastille Day

La guillotine will claim her bloody prize

Sing, oh choirs of cacophony

The king has kneeled

To let his kingdom rise.

 

Lessons taught but never learned

All around us anger burns

Guide the future by the past

Long ago the mould was cast

For they marched up to Bastille Day

La guillotine claimed her bloody prize

Hear the echoes of the centuries

power isn't all that money buys.

 

 

@SONG: Lakeside Park (Caress Of Steel)

 

Midway hawkers calling "Try your luck with me."

Merry-go-round wheezing same old melody.

A thousand ten-cent wonders, who could ask for more.

A pocketful of silver, the key to heaven's door.

 

Lakeside Park, willows in the breeze.

Lakeside Park, so many memories.

Laughing rides, midway lights,

Shining stars on summer nights.

 

Days of barefoot freedom, racing with the waves,

Nights of starlit secrets, crackling driftwood flames,

Drinking by the lighthouse, smoking on the pier,

Still, we saw the magic was fading every year.

 

Everyone would gather on the twenty fourth of May,

Sitting in the sand to watch the fireworks display.

Dancing fires on the beach, singing songs together,

Though it's just a memory, some memories last forever.

 

 

@SONG: Overture (Instrumental) (2112)

 

 

@SONG: The Temples Of Syrinx (2112)

 

We've taken care of everything

The words you hear the songs you sing

The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes.

 

It's one for all and all for one

We work together common sons

Never need to wonder how or why.

 

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

 

Look around this world we made

Equality our stock in trade

Come and join the Brotherhood of Man

Oh what a nice contented world

Let the banners be unfurled

Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand.

 

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.

We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx

All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

 

 

@SONG: What You're Doing (Rush/All The World's A Stage)

 

Well, I see you standin' there

with your finger in the air.

Ev'rything we do,

you wanna leave it up to you.

 

Who do you think you are?

You think you are a star,

try'n' to run the town,

always try'n' to put us down.

 

Well, you think that you're right.

You think you're out of sight.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

Well, you say you've been try'n'.

You know that you're ly'n'.

I think you need some groovin'.

Who do you think you're foolin' now?

 

Well, you better start changin'.

You life needs rearrangin'.

You better do some talkin'

or you better do some walkin' now.

 

Yeah, you think that you're right.

You think you're out of sight.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

I know what you're doing,

all that you been doin' wrong.

I don't know what you're feelin',

oh, but you been feelin' long.

 

Well, you think that you're right.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

 

@SONG: A Farewell to Kings (A Farewell To Kings)

 

When they turn the pages of history

When these days have passed long ago

Will they read of us with sadness

For the seeds that we let grow

We turned our gaze

>From the castles in the distance

Eyes cast down

On the path of least resistance

 

Cities full of hatred

Fear and lies

Withered hearts

And cruel tormented eyes

Scheming demons

Dressed in kingly guise

Beating down the multitude

And scoffing at the wise

 

The hypocrites are slandering

The sacred halls of Truth

Ancient nobles showering

Their bitterness on youth

Can't we find

The minds that made us stong

Can't we learn

To feel what's right and wrong

 

Cities full of hatred

Fear and lies

Withered hearts

And cruel, tormented eyes

Scheming demons

Dressed in kingly guise

Beating down the multitude

And scoffing at the wise

Can't we raise our eyes

And make a start

Can't we find the minds

To lead us closer to the Heart

 

 

@SONG: Closer To The Heart (A Farewell To Kings)

 

And the men who hold high places

Must be the ones to start

To mould a new reality

Closer to the Heart

 

The Blacksmith and the Artist

Reflect it in their art

Forge their creativity

Closer to the Heart

 

Philosophers and Ploughmen

Each must know his part

To sow a new mentality

Closer to the Heart

 

You can be the Captain

I will draw the Chart

Sailing into destiny

Closer to the Heart

 

 

@SONG: The Trees (Hemispheres)

 

There is unrest in the forest,

There is trouble with the trees,

For the maples want more sunlight

And the oaks ignore their pleas.

 

The trouble with the maples,

(And they're quite convinced the're right)

They say the oaks are just too lofty

And they grab up all the light.

But the oaks can't help their feelings

If they like the way they're made.

And they wonder why the maples

Can't be happy in their shade.

 

So the maples formed a union

And demanded equal rights.

"These oaks are just too greedy;

We will make them give us light."

Now there's no more oak oppression,

For they passed a noble law,

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet, axe, and saw.

 

 

@SONG: La Villa Strangiato (Instrumental) (Hemispheres)

(An Exercise in Self-Indulgence)

 

Includes:

1. Buenas Noches, Mein Froinds!

2. To sleep, perchance to dream...

3. Strangiato Theme

4. A Lerxst in Wonderland

5. Monsters!

6. Danforth and Pape

7. The Waltz of the Shreves

8. Never turn your back on a Monster!

9. Monsters! (Reprise)

10. Strangiato Theme (Reprise)

11. A Farewell to Things

 

 

@SONG: Freewill (Permanent Waves)

 

There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance,

A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

 

A planet of playthings,

We dance on the strings

Of powers we cannot perceive

"The stars aren't aligned

Or the gods are malign"-

Blame is better to give than receive.

 

ou can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.

If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice.

ou can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;

I will choose a path that's clear-

I will choose Free Will.

 

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,

The cards were stacked against them- they weren't born in lotus-land.

 

All preordained-

A prisoner in chains-

A victim of venomous fate.

Kicked in the face,

ou can't pray for a place

In heaven's unearthly estate.

 

Each of us-

A cell of awareness-

Imperfect and incomplete.

Genetic blends

With uncertain ends

On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

 

 

@SONG: The Spirit of Radio (Permanent Waves)

 

Begin the day with a friendly voice,

A companion unobtrusive

Plays the song that's so elusive

And the magic music makes your morning mood.

 

Off on your way, hit the open road,

There is magic at your fingers

For the Spirit ever lingers,

Undemanding contact in your happy solitude.

 

Invisible airwaves crackle with life

Bright antenna bristle with the energy

Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength

Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free

 

All this machinery making modern music

Can still be open-hearted.

Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question

Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty.

 

One likes to believe in the freedom of music,

But glittering prizes and endless compromises

Shatter the illusion of integrity.

 

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,

Concert hall

And echoes with the sounds of salesmen.

 

 

@SONG: Tom Sawyer (Moving Pictures)

 

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

 

And 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 eyes 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.

 

And 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 skies 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.

 

 

@SONG: Red Barchetta (Moving Pictures)

 

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.

 

 

@SONG: Limelight (Moving Pictures)

 

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.

 

 

@SONG: A Passage To Bangkok (2112/Exit...Stage Left)

 

Our first stop is in Bogota

To check Columbian fields

The natives smile and pass along

A sample of their yield

Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams

Golden Acapulco nights

Then Morocco, and the East,

Fly by morning light

 

We're on the train to Bangkok

Aboard the Thailand Express

We'll hit the stops along the way

We only stop for the best

 

Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon

We burn the midnight oil

The fragrance of Afghanistan

Rewards a long day's toil

Pulling into Katmandu

Smoke rings fill the air

Perfumed by a Nepal night

The Express gets you there

 

 

@SONG: Subdivisions (Signals)

 

Sprawling on the fringes of the city

In geometric order

An insulated border

In between the bright lights

And the far unlit unknown

 

Growing up it all seems so one-sided

Opinions all provided

The future pre-decided

Detached and subdivided

In the mass production zone

 

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

 

Subdivisions --

In the high school halls

In the shopping malls

Conform or be cast out

Subdivisions --

In the basement bars

In the backs of cars

Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth

The unattractive truth

But the suburbs have no charms to soothe

The restless dreams of youth

 

Drawn like moths we drift into the city

The timeless old attraction

Cruising for the action

Lit up like a firefly

Just to feel the living night

 

Some will sell their dreams for small desires

Or lose the race to rats

Get caught in ticking traps

And start to dream of somewhere

To relax their restless flight

 

Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...

 

 

@SONG: New World Man (Signals)

 

He's a rebel and a runner

He's a signal turning green

He's a restless young romantic

Wants to run the big machine

 

He's got a problem with his poisons

But you know he'll find a cure

He's cleaning up his systems

To keep his nature pure

 

Learning to match the beat of the Old World man

Learning to catch the heat of the Third World man

 

He's got to make his own mistakes

And learn to mend the mess he makes

He's old enough to know what's right

But young enough not to choose it

He's noble enough to win the world

But weak enough to lose it --

He's a New World man...

 

He's a radio receiver

Turned to factories and farms

He's a writer and arranger

And a young boy bearing arms

 

He's got a problem with his power

With weapons on patrol

He's got to walk a fine line

And keep his self-control

 

Trying to save the day for the Old World man

Trying to pave the way for the Third World man

 

He's not concerned with yesterday

He knows constant change is here today

He's noble enough to know what's right

But weak enough not to choose it

He's wise enough to win the world

But fool enough to lose it --

He's a New World man...

 

 

@SONG: Distant Early Warning (Grace Under Pressure)

 

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?

ou 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

 

 

@SONG: Red Sector A (Grace Under Pressure)

 

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 hear 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?...

 

 

@SONG: The Big Money (Power Windows)

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money underground

Big money got a mighty voice

Big money make no sound

Big money pull a million strings

Big money hold the prize

Big money weave a mighty web

Big money draw the flies

 

Sometimes pushing people around

Sometimes pulling out the rug

Sometimes pushing all the buttons

Sometimes pulling out the plug

It's the power and the glory

It's a war in paradise

It's a cinderella story

On a tumble of the dice

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money take a cruise

Big money leave a mighty wake

Big money leave a bruise

Big money make a million dreams

Big money spin big deals

Big money make a mighty head

Big money spin big wheels

 

Sometimes building ivory towers

Sometimes knocking castles down

Sometimes building you a stairway --

Lock you underground

It's that old-time religion

it's the kingdom they would rule

It's the fool on television

Getting paid to play the fool

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money give and take

Big money done a power of good

Big money make mistakes

Big money got a heavy hand

Big money take control

Big money got a mean streak

Big money got no soul...

 

 

@SONG: Manhattan Project (Power Windows)

 

Imagine a time when it all began

In the dying days of a war

A weapon -- that would settle the score

Whoever found it first would be sure to do their worst --

They always had before...

 

Imagine a man where it all began

A scientist pacing the floor

In each nation -- always eager to explore

To build the best big stick

To turn the winning trick --

But this was something more...

 

The big bang -- took and shook the world

Shot down the rising sun

the end was begun -- it would hit everyone

When the chain reaction was done

The big shots -- try to hold it back

Fools try to wish it away

The hopeful depend on a world without end

Whatever the hopeless may say

 

Imagine a place where it all began

They gathered from across the land

To work in the secrecy of the desert sand

All of the brightest boys

To play with the biggest toys --

More than they bargained for...

 

Imagine a man when it all began

The pilot of "Enola Gay"

Flying out of the shockwave on that August day

All the powers that be, and the course of history,

Would be changed for evermore...

 

 

@SONG: Force Ten (Hold Your Fire)

 

Tough times demand tough talk

demand tough hearts demand tough songs

demand --

 

We can rise and fall like empires

Flow in and out like the tide

Be vain and smart, humble and dumb

We can hit and miss like pride

 

We can circle around like hurricanes

Dance and dream like lovers

Attack the day like birds of prey

Or scavengers under cover

 

Look in -- to the eye of the storm

Look out -- for the force without form

Look around -- at the sight and the sound

Look in look out look around --

 

We can move with savage grace

To the rhythms of the night

Cool and remote like dancing girls

In the heat of the beat and the lights

 

We can wear the rose of romance

An air of joie de vivre

Too-tender hearts upon our sleeves

Or skin as thick as thieves'

 

rising falling at force ten

we twist the world and ride the wind

 

Look in -- look the storm in the eye

Look out -- to the sea and the sky

Look around -- at the sight and the sound

Look in look out look around --

 

 

@SONG: Time Stand Still (Hold Your Fire)

 

I turn my back to the wind

To catch my breath,

Before I start off again.

Driven on without a moment to spend

To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

 

I let my skin get too thin

I'd like to pause.

No matter what I pretend

Like some pilgrim --

Who learns to transcend --

Learns to live

As if each step was the end

 

Time stand still -- I'm not looking back

But I want to look around me now

See more of the people and the places that surround me now

 

Freeze this moment a little bit longer

Make each sensation a little bit stronger

Experience slips away...

 

I turn my face to the sun

Close my eyes.

Let my defences down --

All those wounds that I can't get unwound

 

I let my past go too fast

No time to pause --

If I could slow it all down

Like some captain, whose ship runs aground --

I can wait until the tide comes around

 

Make each impression a little bit stronger

Freeze this motion a little bit longer

The innocence slips away...

 

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder

Children growing up -- old friends growing colder

Experience slips away...

 

 

@SONG: Mystic Rhythms (Grace Under Pressure)

 

So many things I think about

When I look far away

Things I know -- things I wonder

Things I'd like to say

The more we think we know about

The greater the unknown

We suspend our disbelief

And we are not alone --

 

Mystic rhythms -- capture my thoughts

And carry them away

Mysteries of night escape the light of day

Mystic rhythms -- under northern lights

Primitive things stir

The hearts of everyone

 

We sometimes catch a window

A glimpse of what's beyond

Was it just imagination

Stringing us along?

More things than are dreamed about

Unseen and unexplained

We suspend our disbelief

And we are entertained

 

Mystic rhythms -- capture my thoughts

And carry them away

Nature seems to spin

A supernatural way

Mystic rhythms -- under city lights

Or a canopy of stars

We feel the powers and we wonder what they are

We feel the push and pull of restless rhythms from afar

 

 

@SONG: Show Don't Tell (Presto)

 

How many times do you hear it?

It goes on all day long

Everyone knows everything

And no one's ever wrong

Until later

 

Who can you believe?

It's hard to play it safe

But apart from a few good friends

We don't take anything on faith

Until later

 

Show Don't Tell

 

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

You've figured out the score

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

I've heard it all before

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

I don't care what you say

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

 

You can twist perceptions

Reality won't budge

You can raise objections

I will be the judge

And the jury

 

I'll give it due reflection

Watching from the fence

Give the jury direction

Based on the evidence

I, the jury

 

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Hey - order in the court

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Let's try to keep it short

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Enough of your demands

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Witness take the stand

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

 

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Hey - order in the court

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Let's try to keep it short

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

I don't care what you say

SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME

Let's see exhibit A

 

 

@ALBUM: a.farewell.to.kings

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyrics to Rush - A Farewell to Kings

 

@SONG: A Farewell to Kings

 

When they turn the pages of history

When these days have passed long ago

Will they read of us with sadness

For the seeds that we let grow

We turned our gaze

>From the castles in the distance

Eyes cast down

On the path of least resistance

 

Cities full of hatred

Fear and lies

Withered hearts

And cruel tormented eyes

Scheming demons

Dressed in kingly guise

Beating down the multitude

And scoffing at the wise

 

The hypocrites are slandering

The sacred halls of Truth

Ancient nobles showering

Their bitterness on youth

Can't we find

The minds that made us stong

Can't we learn

To feel what's right and wrong

 

Cities full of hatred

Fear and lies

Withered hearts

And cruel, tormented eyes

Scheming demons

Dressed in kingly guise

Beating down the multitude

And scoffing at the wise

Can't we raise our eyes

And make a start

Can't we find the minds

To lead us closer to the Heart

 

@SONG: Xanadu

 

"To seek the sacred river Alph

To walk the caves of ice

To break my fast on honey dew

And drink the milk of paradise..."

 

I had heard the whispered tales

Of immortality

The deepest mystery

>From an ancient book. I took a clue

I scaled the frozen mountain tops

Of eastern lands unknown

Time and Man alone

Searching for the lost --- Xanadu

 

Xanadu --- To stand within The Pleasure Dome

Decreed by Kubla Khan

To taste anew the fruits of life

The last immortal man

To find the sacred river Alph

To walk the caves of ice

Oh, I will dine on honey dew

And drink the milks of Paradise

 

A thousand years have come and gone

But time has passed me by

Stars stopped in the sky

Frozen in an everlasting view

Waiting for the world to end

Weary of the night

Praying for the light

Prison of the lost --- Xanadu

 

Xanadu --- Held within The Pleasure Dome

Decreed by Kubla Khan

To taste my bitter triumph

As a mad immortal man

Nevermore shall I return

Escape these caves of ice

For I have dined on honey dew

And drunk the milk of Paradise

 

@SONG: Closer To The Heart

 

And the men who hold high places

Must be the ones to start

To mould a new reality

Closer to the Heart

 

The Blacksmith and the Artist

Reflect it in their art

Forge their creativity

Closer to the Heart

 

Philosophers and Ploughmen

Each must know his part

To sow a new mentality

Closer to the Heart

 

ou can be the Captain

I will draw the Chart

Sailing into destiny

Closer to the Heart

 

@SONG: Cinderella Man

 

A modest man from Mandrake

Travelled rich to the city

He had a need to discover

A use for his newly-found wealth

 

Because he was human

Because he had goodness

Because he was moral

They called him insane

 

Delusions of grandeur

Visions of splendour

A manic depressive

He walks in the rain

 

Eyes wide open

Heart undefended

Innocence untarnished

 

Cinderella Man

Doing what you can

They can't understand

What it means

 

Cinderella Man

Hang on to your plans

Try as they might

They cannot steal your dreams

 

In the betrayal of his love he awakened

To face a world of cold reality

And a look in the eyes of the hungry

Awakened him to what he could do

 

He held up his riches

To challenge the hungry

Purposeful motion

For one so insane

 

They tried to fight him

Just couldn't beat him

This manic depressive

Who walks in the rain

 

@SONG: Mandrigal

 

When the dragons grow too mighty

To slay with pen or sword

I grow weary of the battle

And the storm I walk toward

When all around is madness

And there's no safe port in view

I long to turn my path homeward

To stop awhile with you

 

When life becomes so barren

And as cold as winter skies

There's a beacon in the darkness

In a distant pair of eyes

In vain to search for order

In vain to search for truth

But these things can still be given

our love has shown me proof

 

@SONG: Cygnus X-1

 

Book One --- The Voyage

Prologue

 

In the constellation of Cygnus

There lurks a mysterious, invisible force

The Black Hole

Of Cygnus X-1

 

Six Stars of the Northern Cross

In mourning for their sister's loss

In a final flash of glory

Nevermore to grace the night...

 

1

 

Invisible

To telescopic eye

Infinity

The star that would not die

 

All who dare

To cross her course

Are swallowed by

A fearsome force

 

Through the void

To be destroyed

Or is there something more?

Atomized --- at the core

Or through the Astral Door ---

To soar...

 

2

 

I set a course just east of Lyra

And northwest of Pegasus

Flew into the light of Deneb

Sailed across the Milky Way

 

On my ship, the 'Rocinante'

Wheeling through the galaxies,

Headed for the heart of Cygnus

Headlong into mystery

 

The x-ray is her siren song

My ship cannot resist her long

Nearer to my deadly goal

Until the Black Hole ---

Gains control...

 

3

 

Spinning, whirling,

Still descending

Like a spiral sea,

Unending

 

Sound and fury

Drowns my heart

Every nerve

Is torn apart....

 

To be continued

 

 

@ALBUM: Hold Your Fire

Author: Rush

 

@SONG: Force Ten

 

Tough times demand tough talk

demand tough hearts demand tough songs

demand --

 

We can rise and fall like empires

Flow in and out like the tide

Be vain and smart, humble and dumb

We can hit and miss like pride

 

We can circle around like hurricanes

Dance and dream like lovers

Attack the day like birds of prey

Or scavengers under cover

 

Look in -- to the eye of the storm

Look out -- for the force without form

Look around -- at the sight and the sound

Look in look out look around --

 

We can move with savage grace

To the rhythms of the night

Cool and remote like dancing girls

In the heat of the beat and the lights

 

We can wear the rose of romance

An air of joie de vivre

Too-tender hearts upon our sleeves

Or skin as thick as thieves'

 

rising falling at force ten

we twist the world and ride the wind

 

Look in -- look the storm in the eye

Look out -- to the sea and the sky

Look around -- at the sight and the sound

Look in look out look around --

 

@SONG: Time Stand Still

 

I turn my back to the wind

To catch my breath,

Before I start off again.

Driven on without a moment to spend

To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

 

I let my skin get too thin

I'd like to pause.

No matter what I pretend

Like some pilgrim --

Who learns to transcend --

Learns to live

As if each step was the end

 

Time stand still -- I'm not looking back

But I want to look around me now

See more of the people and the places that surround me now

 

Freeze this moment a little bit longer

Make each sensation a little bit stronger

Experience slips away...

 

I turn my face to the sun

Close my eyes.

Let my defences down --

All those wounds that I can't get unwound

 

I let my past go too fast

No time to pause --

If I could slow it all down

Like some captain, whose ship runs aground --

I can wait until the tide comes around

 

Make each impression a little bit stronger

Freeze this motion a little bit longer

The innocence slips away...

 

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder

Children growing up -- old friends growing colder

Experience slips away...

 

@SONG: Open Secrets

 

It went right by me --

At the time it went over my head

I was looking out the window

I should have looked at your face instead

 

It went right by me --

Just another wall

There should have been a moment

When we let our barriers fall

I never meant what you're thinking --

That is not what I meant at all...

 

Well I guess we all have these feelings

We can't leave unreconciled

Some of them burned on our ceilings

Some of them learned as a child

 

The things that we're concealing

Will never let us grow

Time will do its healing

You've got to let it go

 

Closed for my protection --

Open to your scorn

Between these two directions

My heart is sometimes torn

 

I lie awake with my secrets

spinning around my head

something that somehow escaped me --

Something you shouldn't have said

I was looking out the window

I should have looked at your face instead...

 

I find no absolution

In my rational point of view

Maybe some things are instinctive

But there's one thing you could do

You could try to understand me --

I could try to understand you...

 

@SONG: Second Nature

 

A memo to a higher office

Open letter to the powers-that-be

To a God, a king, a head of state

A captain of industry

To the movers and the shakers --

Can't everybody see?

 

It ought to be second nature --

I mean, the places where we live!

Let's talk about this sensibly --

We're not insensitive

I know progress has no patience --

But something's got to give

 

I know you're different --

You know I'm the same

We're both too busy

To be taking the blame

I'd like some changes

But you don't have the time

We can't go on thinking

It's a victimless crime

No one is blameless

But we're all without shame

We fight the fire -- while we're feeding the flames

 

Folks have got to make choices --

And choices got to have voices

Folks are basically decent

Conventional wisdom would say

Well, we read about the exceptions

In the papers every day

 

It ought to be second nature --

At least, that's what I feel

"Now I lay me down in Dreamland" --

I know perfect's not for real

I thought we might get closer --

But I'm ready to make a deal

 

Today is different, and tomorrow the same

It's hard to take the world the way that it came

Too many rapids keep us sweeping along

Too many captains keep on steering us wrong

It's hard to take the heat --

It's hard to lay blame

To fight the fire -- while we're feeding the flames

 

@SONG: Prime Mover

 

Basic elemental instinct to survive

Stirs the higher passions

Thrill to be alive

 

Alternating currents in a tidewater surge

Rational resistance to an unwise urge

(anything can happen)

 

From the point of conception

To the moment of Truth

At the point of surrender

To the burden of proof

 

From the point of ignition

To the final drive

The point of the journey is not to arrive

(anything can happen)

 

Basic temperamental filters on our eyes

Alter our perceptions

Lenses polarize

 

Alternating currents force a show of hands

Rational responses force a change of plans

(anything can happen)

 

From a point on the compass

To magnetic north

The point of the needle moving back and forth

 

From the point of entry --

Until the candle is burned

The point of departure is not to return

(anything can happen)

 

I set the wheels in motion

turn up all the machines

activate the programs

and run behind the scene

 

I set the clouds in motion

turn up light and sound

activate the window

and watch the world go 'round --

(anything can happen)

 

@SONG: Lock and Key

 

I don't want to face the killer instinct --

Face it in your or me

 

We carry a sensitive cargo

Below the waterline --

Ticking like a time bomb

With a primitive design

 

Behind the finer feelings --

This civilized veneer --

The heart of a lonely hunter

Guards a dangerous frontier

 

The balance can sometimes fail --

Strong emotions can tip the scale --

 

Don't want to silence a desperate voice

For the sake of security

No one wants to make a terrible choice

On the price of being free

I don't want to face the killer instinct -- face it in you or me

So we keep it under lock and key...

 

It's not a matter of mercy

It's not a matter of laws

Plenty of people will kill you for some fanatical cause

 

It's not a matter of conscience --

A search for probable cause

It's just a matter of instinct -- a matter of fatal flaws

 

No reward for resistance

No assistance -- no applause...

 

we don't want to be victims

on that we all agree, so we lock up the killer instinct --

and throw away the key...

 

@SONG: Mission

 

Hold your fire --

Keep it burning bright

Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites --

A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission

 

I hear their passionate music

Read the words that touch my heart

I gaze at their feverish pictures

The secrets that set them apart

 

When I feel the powerful visions

Their fire has made alive

I wish I had that instinct -- I wish I had that drive

 

Spirits fly on dangerous missions

Imaginations on fire

Focused high on soaring ambitions

Consumed in a single desire

 

In the grip of a nameless possession --

A slave to the drive of obsession --

A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission...

 

I watch their images flicker

Bringing light to a lifeless screen

I walk through their beautiful buildings

And I wish I had their dreams

 

But dreams don't need to have motion

To keep their spark alive

Obsession has to have action --

Pride turns on the drive

 

It's cold comfort

To the ones without it

To know how they struggled --

How they suffered about it

 

If their lives were exotic and strange

They would likely have gladly exchanged them

For something a little more plain

Maybe something a little more sane

 

We each pay a fabulous price

For our visions of paradise

But a spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission...

 

@SONG: Turn the Page

 

Nothing can survive in a vacuum

No one can exists all alone

We pretend things only happen to strangers

We've all got problems of our own

 

It's enough to learn to share our pleasures

We can't sooth pain with sympathy

All that we can do is be reminded --

We shake our heads at the tragedy

 

Every day we're standing in a time capsule

Racing down a river from the past

Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel

Facing down the future coming fast

 

It's just the age

It's just a stage --

We disengage -- We turn the page...

 

Looking at the long-range forecast

Catching all the names in the news

Checking out the state of the nation

Learning the environmental blues

 

Truth is after all a moving target

Hairs to split, and pieces that don't fit

How can anybody be enlightened?

Truth is after all so poorly lit

 

@SONG: Tai Shan

 

High on the sacred mountain

Up the seven thousand stairs

In the golden light of autumn

There was magic in the air

 

Clouds surrounded the summit

The wind blew strong and cold

Among the silent temples

And the writing carved in gold

Somewhere in my instincts

The primitive took hold...

 

I stood at the top of the mountain

And China sang to me

In the peaceful haze of harvest time

A song of eternity --

 

If you raise your hands to heaven

You will live a hundred years

I stood there like a mystic

Lost in the atmosphere

 

The clouds were suddenly parted

For a moment I could see

The patterns of the landscape

Reaching to the eastern sea

I looked upon a presence

Spanning forty centuries...

 

I thought of time and distance

The hardships of history

I heard the hope and the hunger

When China sang to me...

 

@SONG: High Water

 

When the waters rose in the darkness

In the wake of the endless flood

It flowed into our memory -- it flowed into our blood

 

When something broke the surface

Just to see the starry dome --

We still feel that relation

When the water takes us home

In the flying spray of the ocean

The water takes you home --

 

Springing from the weight of the mountains

Like the heart of the earth would burst

Flowing out from marble fountains

In the dreams of a desert thirst

 

Something swam through the jungles

Where the mighty rivers roam --

Something breaks the silence

When the water takes you home

I hear the wordless voices

When the water takes me home --

 

Waves that crash on the shoreline

Torrents of tropical rain streaming down

Beyond our memory

Streaming down inside our veins

 

When something left the ocean

To crawl high above the foam --

We still feel that elation

When the water takes us home

In a driving rain of redemption

The water takes me home...

 

 

@ALBUM: fly.by.night

Author: Rush

Album title: Grace Under Pressure

@SONG: 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

 

 

We ran by the water

On the wet summer lawn

 

I remember --

 

 

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 learned your love for life

I feel the way that you would

 

I remember --

 

I feel the way you would

This just can't be understood...

 

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 hear 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?

Yeah, you -- it takes a little more persistence

To get up and go the distance...

 

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

 

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

 

 

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)

 

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...

 

 

 

@ALBUM: Power Windows

Author: Rush

 

@SONG: The Big Money

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money underground

Big money got a mighty voice

Big money make no sound

Big money pull a million strings

Big money hold the prize

Big money weave a mighty web

Big money draw the flies

 

Sometimes pushing people around

Sometimes pulling out the rug

Sometimes pushing all the buttons

Sometimes pulling out the plug

It's the power and the glory

It's a war in paradise

It's a cinderella story

On a tumble of the dice

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money take a cruise

Big money leave a mighty wake

Big money leave a bruise

Big money make a million dreams

Big money spin big deals

Big money make a mighty head

Big money spin big wheels

 

Sometimes building ivory towers

Sometimes knocking castles down

Sometimes building you a stairway --

Lock you underground

It's that old-time religion

it's the kingdom they would rule

It's the fool on television

Getting paid to play the fool

 

Big money goes around the world

Big money give and take

Big money done a power of good

Big money make mistakes

Big money got a heavy hand

Big money take control

Big money got a mean streak

Big money got no soul...

 

@SONG: Grand Designs

 

A to B --

Different degrees...

 

So much style without substance

So much stuff without style

It's hard to recognize the real thing

It comes along once in a while

Like a rare and precious metal beneath a ton of rock

It takes some time and trouble to separate from the stock

You sometimes have to listen to a lot of useless talk

 

Shapes and forms against the norms --

Against the run of the mill

Swimming against the stream

Life in two dimensions is a mass production scheme

 

So much poison in power, the principles get left out

So much mind on the matter, the spirit gets forgotten about

Like a righteous inspiration overlooked in haste

Like a teardrop in the ocean, a diamond in the waste

Some world-views are spacious -- and some are merely spaced

 

Against the run of the mill

Static as it seems

We break the surface tension with our wild kinetic dreams

Curves and lines -- of grand designs...

 

@SONG: Manhattan Project

 

Imagine a time when it all began

In the dying days of a war

A weapon -- that would settle the score

Whoever found it first would be sure to do their worst --

They always had before...

 

Imagine a man where it all began

A scientist pacing the floor

In each nation -- always eager to explore

To build the best big stick

To turn the winning trick --

But this was something more...

 

The big bang -- took and shook the world

Shot down the rising sun

the end was begun -- it would hit everyone

When the chain reaction was done

The big shots -- try to hold it back

Fools try to wish it away

The hopeful depend on a world without end

Whatever the hopeless may say

 

Imagine a place where it all began

They gathered from across the land

To work in the secrecy of the desert sand

All of the brightest boys

To play with the biggest toys --

More than they bargained for...

 

Imagine a man when it all began

The pilot of "Enola Gay"

Flying out of the shockwave on that August day

All the powers that be, and the course of history,

Would be changed for evermore...

 

@SONG: Marathon

 

It's not how fast you can go

The force goes into the flow

If you pick up the beat

You can forget about the heat

More than just survival

More than just a flash

More than just a dotted line

More than just a dash

 

It's a test of ultimate will

The heartbreak climb uphill

Got to pick up the pace

If you want to stay in the race

More than just blind ambition

More than just simple greed

More than just a finish line

Must feed this burning need --

In the long run...

 

From first to last

The peak is never passed

Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes

One moment's high, and glory rolls on by

Like a streak of lightening that flashes and fades

In the summer sky

 

Your meters may overload

You can rest at the side of the road

You can miss a stride

But nobody gets a free ride

 

More than high performance

More than just a spark

More than just the bottom line

Or a lucky shot in the dark --

In the long run...

 

You can do a lot in a lifetime

If you don't burn out too fast

You can make the most of the distance

First you need endurance --

First you've got to last...

 

@SONG: Territories

 

I see the Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth

Like the Chinese call the country of their birth

We all figure that our homes are set above

Other people than the ones we know and love

In every place with a name

They play the same territorial game

Hiding behind the lines

Sending up warning signs

 

The whole wide world

An endless universe

Yet we keep looking through

The eyeglass in reverse

Don't feed the people

But we feed the machines

Can't really feel

What international means

In different circles, we keep holding our ground

In different circles, we keep spinning round and round

 

We see so many tribes -- overrun and undermined

While their invaders dream of lands they've left behind

Better people -- better food -- and better beer

Why move around the world when Eden was so near?

The bosses get talking so tough

And if that wasn't evil enough

We get the drunken and passionate pride

Of the citizens along for the ride

 

They shoot without shame

In the name of a piece of dirt

For a change of accent

Or the colour of your shirt

Better the pride that resides

In a citizen of the world

Than the pride that divides

When a colourful rag is unfurled

 

@SONG: Middletown Dreams

 

The office door closed early

The hidden bottle came out

The salesman turned to close the blinds

A little slow now, a little stout

But he's still heading down those tracks

Any day now for sure

Another day as drab as today

Is more than a man can endure

 

Dreams flow across the heartland

Feeding on the fires

Dreams transport desires

Drive you when you're down --

Dreams transport the ones who need to get out of town

 

the boy walks with his best friend

Through the fields of early May

They walk awhile in silence

One close -- one far away

But he'd be climbing on that bus

Just him and his guitar

To blaze across the heavens

Like a brilliant shooting star

 

The middle-aged madonna

Calls her neighbour on the phone

Day by day the seasons pass

And leave her life alone

But she'll go walking out that door

On some bright afternoon

To go and paint big cities

From a lonely attic room

 

It's understood

By every single person

Who'd be elsewhere if they could

So far so good

And life's not unpleasant

In their little neighbourhood

 

They dream in Middletown...

 

@SONG: Emotion Detector

 

When we lift the covers from our feelings

We expose our insecure spots

Trust is just as rare as devotion--

Forgive us our cynical thoughts

If we need too much attention --

Not content with being cool

We must throw ourselves wide open

And start acting like a fool

If we need too much approval

Then the cuts can seem too cruel

 

Right to the heart of the matter

Right to the beautiful part

Illusions are painfully shattered

Right where discovery starts

In the secret wells of emotion

Buried deep in our hearts

 

It's true that love can change us

But never quite enough

Sometimes we are too tender

Sometimes we're too tough

If we get too much attention

It gets hard to overrule

So often fragile power turns

To scorn and ridicule

Sometimes our big splashes

Are just ripples in the pool

 

Feelings run high

 

@SONG: Mystic Rhythms

 

So many things I think about

When I look far away

Things I know -- things I wonder

Things I'd like to say

The more we think we know about

The greater the unknown

We suspend our disbelief

And we are not alone --

 

Mystic rhythms -- capture my thoughts

And carry them away

Mysteries of night escape the light of day

Mystic rhythms -- under northern lights

Primitive things stir

The hearts of everyone

 

We sometimes catch a window

A glimpse of what's beyond

Was it just imagination

Stringing us along?

More things than are dreamed about

Unseen and unexplained

We suspend our disbelief

And we are entertained

 

Mystic rhythms -- capture my thoughts

And carry them away

Nature seems to spin

A supernatural way

Mystic rhythms -- under city lights

Or a canopy of stars

We feel the powers and we wonder what they are

We feel the push and pull of restless rhythms from afar

 

 

@ALBUM: Rush

Author: Rush

Album title: Rush

@SONG: Finding My Way

 

Yeah, oh yeah!

Ooh, said I,

I'm comin' out to get you.

Ooh, sit down.

I'm comin' out to find you.

Ooh, yeah. Ooh yeah.

Findin' my way!

 

I've been gone so long

I've lost count of the years.

Well, I sang some sad songs,

oh yes, and cried some bad tears.

 

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, whoa.

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, yeah.

 

I'm runnin',

finding my way back home.

Oh yeah!

 

Yeah, oh yeah!

Ooh, said I,

I'm comin' back to look for you.

Ooh, sit down.

I'm goin' by the back door.

Ooh, yeah. Ooh yeah.

Findin' my way!

 

You've done me no right,

but you've done me some wrong.

Left me lonely each night

while I sing my sad song.

 

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, whoa.

Look out! I'm comin'.

Whoa, yeah.

 

I'm runnin',

findin' my way back home.

I'm comin'.

Ooh, babe, I said I'm runnin'.

Whoa, babe, I said I'm comin'

to get you, mama.

Said I'm runnin'.

 

Ooh, babe, I said I'm comin'

for you, babe.

I said I'm runnin'.

Ooh yes, babe, I said I'm comin'

to get you, babe. I said I'm comin'.

Ooh, yeah.

 

I'm findin',

I'm findin' my way back home.

Well, I've had it for now,

livin' on the road.

Ooh, yeah.

Ooh, yeah.

 

Findin' my way!

 

 

@SONG: Need Some Love

 

I'm runnin' here,

I'm runnin' there.

I'm lookin' for a girl.

'Cause there's nothin' I need,

there's nothin' I want more

in the whole wide world.

 

Well, I need it quick

and I need it now,

before I start to fade away.

That's why I'm searchin',

that's why I'm lookin'

each and ev'ry day.

 

Oo, I need some love.

I said I need some love!

Oo yes, I need some love

This feelin' I can't rise above.

Yeah, yeah!

 

Well I been hustlin' here,

I been hustlin' there.

I been searchin' for about a week.

And I started feelin'

this strange sensation.

My knees are startin' gettin' weak.

 

Well I need what keeps

a young man alive;

I'm sayin' I need it now.

I'm gonna get the message

across to you

someway, somehow.

 

Oo, I need some love.

I said I need some love!

Oo yes, I need some love

This feelin' I can't rise above.

Oo, yeah yeah!

 

 

@SONG: Take A Friend

 

Well, I'm lookin' at you,

and I'm wond'rin' what you're gonna do.

Looks like you got no friends,

no one to stick with you till the end.

 

Take yourself a friend.

Kep 'em till the end.

Whether woman or man,

it makes you feel so good,

so good.

 

Yes, you think you're all right,

and now you're lonely ev'ry night.

Well, you need a friend,

someone on whom you can always depend.

 

Take yourself a friend.

Kep 'em till the end.

Whether woman or man,

it makes you feel so good,

so good.

 

Yes, you need some advice.

Well, let me put it to you nice.

I said you need a friend,

someone who'll stick with you to the end.

 

Take yourself a friend.

Kep 'em till the end.

Whether woman or man,

it makes you feel so good,

so good.

 

 

@SONG: Here Again

 

I said I played this song

so many times before

that the melody keeps repeating

growing new ideas,

blowing chords and notes

like a mountain river bleeding.

 

Well, I say as I look back,

And all the thoughts I've had,

They reflect just what I'm learning.

Yes, you know that the hardest part,

Yes, I say it is to stay on top,

On top of a world forever churning.

 

Well, you say you can laugh,

But I can see that your eyes are glass.

Well, do you see, can't you see, what I'm feeling?

Yes, I've seen your face before.

Why, I've seen it everywhere,

Showing up to me without a scent revealing.

 

Well, I said will it ever change?

Will it stay the same?

I'd surely like to know before it's over.

Well, I said I played some.

I said it won't be long,

Won't be long before I stop and play it over.

 

Oh, oh I've, I've seen your face before.

Is it ever gonna, ever gonna change again?

Oh, oh I've, I've been in one place too long.

Is it ever gonna, ever gonna change again?

 

 

@SONG: What You're Doing

 

Well, I see you standin' there

with your finger in the air.

Ev'rything we do,

you wanna leave it up to you.

 

Who do you think you are?

You think you are a star,

try'n' to run the town,

always try'n' to put us down.

 

Well, you think that you're right.

You think you're out of sight.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

Well, you say you've been try'n'.

You know that you're ly'n'.

I think you need some groovin'.

Who do you think you're foolin' now?

 

Well, you better start changin'.

You life needs rearrangin'.

You better do some talkin'

or you better do some walkin' now.

 

Yeah, you think that you're right.

You think you're out of sight.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

I know what you're doing,

all that you been doin' wrong.

I don't know what you're feelin',

oh, but you been feelin' long.

 

Well, you think that you're right.

Tell me something, mister;

why'd you have to make us so uptight?

 

 

@SONG: In The Mood

 

Hey now, baby,

well, I like your smile.

Won't you come and talk to me.

for a little while.

 

Well, you're makin' me crazy,

the way you roll them eyes.

Won't you come and sit with me.

I'll tell you all my lies.

 

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight.

I feel I'm in the mood.

Hey baby, the hour is late.

I feel I've got to move.

 

Well, hey now, baby,

Don't you talk so fast.

I'm just try'n' to make these good times,

I'm try'n' to make it last.

 

Ev'rything's getting hazy.

Now honey, where'd you go?

I just want to find out, baby,

where'd you learn what you know?

 

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight.

I feel I'm in the mood.

Hey baby, the hour is late.

I feel I've got to move.

 

Well, hey now, baby,

siad, I like your style.

You really got me, baby,

way down deep inside.

 

Oo, you drive me crazy.

Baby, you're the one.

I just want to rock-and-roll you woman,

until the night is gone.

 

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight.

I feel I'm in the mood.

Hey baby, the hour is late.

I feel I've got to move.

 

 

@SONG: Before And After

 

Love won't see my comin'

on a Sunday noon today.

Still don't believe we're fadin',

but now the world should wait.

 

And now you're fina'lly list'nin'

to what I have to say.

Well, the time is right,

and it is today.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Maybe we could talk about it

and try to get it straight.

After all these years, baby,

maybe it's too late.

 

But I really need to

have you by my side,

And that's the only feelin',

baby, I can't hide.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Well you aren't list'nin',

I ain't talkin',

we ain't gettin' nowhere.

 

I keep tryin' to get

through to you baby.

All you do is stare.

 

I don't wanna see that.

I need you by my side.

Well, I don't want to be your lover.

Babe, I wanna be your man.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Well, now my story's over, baby,

and I ain't gonna tell it twice.

Well, you better start list'nin',

or get out of my life.

 

Or you're gonna be left out,

I said left out in the cold.

Yeah, before you get my lovin',babe,

you'll be too old.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Well, I'm talkin' to you baby.

Well, I said

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

 

@SONG: Working Man

 

I get up at seven, yeah,

and I go to work at nine.

I got no time for livin'.

Yes, I'm workin' all the time.

 

It seems to me

I could live my life

a lot better than I think I am.

I guess that's why they call me,

they call me the workin' man.

 

They call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

I get home at five o'clock,

and I take myself out a nice, cold beer.

Always seem to be wond'rin'

why there's nothin' goin' down here.

 

It seems to me

I could live my life

a lot better than I think I am.

I guess that's why they call me,

they call me the workin' man.

 

They call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

Well they call me the workin' man.

I guess that's what I am.

 

 

 

Author: Rush

Album title: Hemispheres

@SONG: Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres I. Prelude

 

When our weary world was young

The struggle of the ancients was begun.

The gods of Love and Reason

Sought alone to rule the fate of Man.

 

They battled through the ages,

But still neither force would yield.

The people were divided,

Every soul a battlefield.

 

@SONG: II. Apollo: Bringer of Wisdom

 

"I bring truth and understanding,

I bring wit and wisdom fair,

Precious gifts beyond compare.

We can build a world of wonder,

I can make you all aware.

I will find you food and shelter,

Show you fire to keep you warm

Through the endless winter storms.

You can live in grace and comfort

In the world that you transform."

 

The people were delighted

Coming forth to claim their prize

They ran to build their cities

And converse among the wise.

But one day the streets fell silent,

Yet they knew not what was wrong.

The urge to build these fine things

Seemed not to be so strong.

The wise men were consulted,

And the Bridge of Death was crossed

In quest of Dionysus,

To find out what they had lost.

 

@SONG: III. Dionysus: Bringer of Love

 

"I bring love to give you solace

In the darkness of the night,

In the Heart's eternal light.

You need only trust your feelings;

Only love can steer you right.

I bring laughter, I bring music,

I bring joy and I bring tears.

I will soothe your primal fears.

Throw off those chains of reason

And your prison disappears."

 

The cities were abandoned,

And the forests echoed song.

They danced and lived as brothers;

They knew love could not be wrong.

But the winter fell upon them

And it caught them unprepared,

Bringing wolves and cold starvation,

And the hearts of men despaired.

 

@SONG: IV. Armageddon: The Battle of Heart and Mind

 

The Universe divided

As the Heart and Mind collided,

With the people left unguided

For so many troubled years.

In a cloud of doubts and fears,

Their world was torn asunder into hollow Hemispheres.

 

Some fought themselves, some fought each other.

Most just followed one another,

Lost and aimless like their brothers,

For their hearts were so unclear,

And the truth could not appear.

Their spirits were divided into blinded Hemispheres.

 

Some who did not fight

Brought tales of old to light.

My Rocinante' sailed by night

On her final flight.

To the heart of Cygnus' fearsome force

We set our course.

Spiralled through that timeless space

To this immortal place.

 

 

@SONG: V. Cygnus: Bringer of Balance

 

I have memory and awareness,

But I have no shape or form.

As a disembodied spirit,

I am dead and yet unborn.

I have passed into Olympus

As was told in tales of old,

To the city of Immortals,

Marble white and purest gold.

 

I see the gods in battle rage on high,

Thunderbolts across the sky.

I cannot move, I cannot hide,

I feel a silent scream begin inside.

 

Then all at once the chaos ceased.

A stillness fell, of sound and peace.

The warriors felt my silent cry

And stayed their struggle, mystified.

 

Apollo was atonished;

Dionysus thought me mad.

But they heard my story further,

And they wondered, and were sad.

 

Looking down from Olympus

On a world of doubt and fear,

Its surface splintered

Into sorry Hemispheres.

 

They sat a while in silence,

Then they turned at last to me.

"We will call you Cygnus,

The god of Balance you shall be."

 

@SONG: The Sphere: A Kind of Dream

 

We can walk our road together

If our goals are all the same.

We can run alone and free

If we pursue a different aim.

Let the truth of love be lighted,

Let the love of truth shine clear.

Sensibility, armed with sense and liberty,

With the Heart and Mind united in a single perfect Sphere.

 

@SONG: Circumstances

 

A boy alone, so far from home,

Endless rooftops from my window.

I felt the gloom of empty rooms

On rainy afternoons.

Sometimes, in confusion,

I felt so lost and disillusioned,

Innocence gave me confidence

To go up against reality.

 

All the same, we take our chances,

Laughed at by Time,

Tricked by Circumstances.

Plus ca change,

Plus c'est la meme chose,

The more that things change,

The more they stay the same.

 

Now I've gained some understanding

Of the only world that we see.

Things that I once dreamed of

Have become reality.

These walls that still surround me

Still contain the same old me,

Just one more who's searching for a world that ought to be.

 

@SONG: The Trees

 

There is unrest in the forest,

There is trouble with the trees,

For the maples want more sunlight

And the oaks ignore their pleas.

 

The trouble with the maples,

(And they're quite convinced the're right)

They say the oaks are just too lofty

And they grab up all the light.

But the oaks can't help their feelings

If they like the way they're made.

And they wonder why the maples

Can't be happy in their shade.

 

So the maples formed a union

And demanded equal rights.

"These oaks are just too greedy;

We will make them give us light."

Now there's no more oak oppression,

For they passed a noble law,

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet, axe, and saw.

 

@SONG: La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence) (Instrumental)

 

Includes:

1. Buenas Noches, Mein Froinds!

2. To sleep, perchance to dream...

3. Strangiato Theme

4. A Lerxst in Wonderland

5. Monsters!

6. Danforth and Pape

7. The Waltz of the Shreves

8. Never turn your back on a Monster!

9. Monsters! (Reprise)

10. Strangiato Theme (Reprise)

11. A Farewell to Things

 

 

 

 

@ALBUM: fly.by.night

Author: Rush

Album title: Fly By Night

@SONG: Anthem

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

Know your place in life is where you want to be

Don't let them tell you that you owe it all to me

Keep on looking forward; no use in looking 'round

Hold your head above the ground and they won't bring you down

 

Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind

A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind

We marvel after those who sought

New wonders in the world, wonders in the world,

Wonders in the world they wrought.

 

Live for yourself -- there's no one else

More worth living for

Begging hands and bleeding hearts will

Only cry out for more

 

Well, I know they've always told you

Selfishness was wrong

Yet it was for me, not you, I

Came to write this song

 

 

@SONG: Best I Can

 

(Lee)

 

I've got a livin' that's rough, a future that's tough

You know what I mean

Blankers and boasters, all the bluffers and posers

I'm not into that scene

 

You can tell me that I got no class

Look around, you'll see who's laughin' last

Don't give me speeches 'cause they're oh so droll

Leave me alone, let me rock and roll

 

Got an itchin' to rock, a hate for small talk

I'm funny that way

Got my sights on the stars, won't get that far

But I'll try anyway

I just like to please, don't like to tease

I'm easy like that

Don't like long rests, I must confess

I'm an impatient cat

 

I do the best that I can

I'm just what I am

I do the best I can

Well, I know what I am

 

Rock and roll-in's a scream, makin' millions my dream

Well, I do that a lot

I'll just give it a try, won't let good times pass me by

They're all I've got

 

@SONG: Beneath, Between And Behind

 

(Peart, Lifeson)

 

Ten score years ago, defeat the kingly foe

A wondrous dream came into being

Tame the trackless waste, no virgin land left chaste

All shining eyes, but never seeing

 

Beneath the noble birth

Between the proudest words

Behind the beauty, crack appear

Once, with heads held high

They sang out to the sky

Why do their shadows bow in fear?

 

The guns replace the plow, facades are tarnished now

The principles have been betrayed

The dreams's gone stale, but still, let hope prevail

History's debt won't be repaid

 

@SONG: By-Tor And The Snow Dog

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

The tomb of Hades, lit by flickering torchlight

The nether world is gathered in the glare

Prince By-Tor takes the cavern to the north light

The sign of Eth is rising in the air.

By-Tor, knight of darkness,

Centurion of evil, devil's prince.

 

Across the River Styx, out of the lamplight

His nemesis is waiting at the gate

The Snow Dog, ermine glowing in the damp night

Coal-black eyes shimmering with hate.

By-Tor and the Snow Dog

Square for battle, let the fray begin.

 

The battle's over and the dust is clearing

Disciples of the Snow Dog sound the knell

Rejoicing echoes as the dawn is nearing

By-Tor in defeat retreats to Hell

Snow Dog is victorious

The land of the Overworld is saved again.

 

 

@SONG: Fly By Night

 

(Lee, Peart)

 

Why try? I know why

This feeling inside me says it's time I was gone

Clear head, new life ahead

I want to be king now, not just one more pawn

 

Fly by night away from here

Change my life again

Fly by night, goodbye my dear

My ship isn't coming and I just can't pretend

 

Moonrise, thoughtful eyes

Staring back at me from the window beside

No fright or hindsight

Leaving behind that empty feeling inside

 

Start a new chapter, I find what I'm after

Is changing every day.

The change of a season's enough of a reason

To want to get away

Quiet and pensive, my thoughts apprehensive

The hours drift away

Leaving my homeland, playing a lone hand

My life begins today

 

 

@SONG: Making Memories

 

(Lee, Lifeson, Peart)

 

There's a time for feelin' as good as we can

The time is now, and there's no stoppin' us

There's a time for livin' as high as we can

Behind us you will only see our dust.

 

You know we're havin' good days

And we hope they're gonna last

Our future still looks brighter than our past

We feel no need to worry

No reason to be sad

Our mem'ries remind us, maybe road life's not so bad.

 

Just keep smilin', move onward ev'ry day

And try to keep our thoughts away from home

We're trav'lin' around, no time to settle down

And satisfy our wanderlust to roam.

 

Well from sea to shining sea, and a hundred points between

Still we go on diggin' ev'ry show

The cities in the land all extend a welcome hand

Till morning when it's time for us to go.

 

 

@SONG: Rivendell

 

(Lee, Peart)

 

Sunlight dances through the leaves

Soft winds stir the signing trees

Lying in the warm grass

Feel the sun upon your face

Elfin songs and endless nights

Sweet wine and soft relaxing lights

Time will never touch you

Here in this enchanted place

 

You feel there's something calling you

You're wanting to return

To where the misty mountains rise and friendly fires burn

A place you can escape the world

Where the dark lord cannot go

Peace of mind and sanctuary by loud water's flow

 

I've traveled now for many miles

It feels so good to see the smiles of

Friends who never left your mind

When you were far away

>From the golden light of coming dawn

Till the twilight where the sun is gone

We treasure ev'ry season

And ev'ry passing day

 

We feel the coming of a new day

Darkness gives way to light a new way

Stop here for a while until the world,

The world calls you away

Yet you know I've had the feeling

Standing with my senses reeling

This is the place to grow old till

I reach my final day.

 

 

@SONG: In The End

 

(Lee, Lifeson)

 

Well, I can see what you mean

It just takes me longer

And I can feel what you feel

It just makes you stronger

 

I know, I know, I know

Oh, the feeling grows

I see, I see, I see

It's got to be

You can take me for a little while

You can take me, you can make me smile in the end

 

Well, I can do what you do

You just do it better

And I can cry like you cry

It just makes me sadder

 

Well, I can shine like you shine

It doesn't make me brighter

But if I think like you think

It don't make my load much lighter

 

 

Author: Rush

Album title: Moving Pictures

 

@SONG: Tom Sawyer

 

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

 

And 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 eyes 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.

 

And 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 skies 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.

 

@SONG: Red Barchetta

 

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.

 

@SONG: YYZ (Instrumental)

 

 

@SONG: Limelight

 

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.

 

@SONG: The Camera Eye

 

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.

Headfirst 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 the 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.

 

Wide-angle watcher

On life's ancient tales,

Steeped in the history of London.

 

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.

 

@SONG: Witch Hunt

 

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,

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,

Our immigrants and infidels.

They say there is strangeness to danger us

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.

 

@SONG: Vital Signs

 

Unstable condition,

A symptom of life,

Of mental and environmental change.

Atmosphereic 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 elevate 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 won 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...

 

 

 

Author: Rush

Album title: Presto

@SONG: Show Don't Tell

 

How many times do you hear it?

It goes on all day long

Everyone knows everything

No one's ever wrong

Until later

 

Who can you believe?

It's hard to play it safe

But apart from a few good friends

We don't take anything on faith

Until later

 

Show don't tell

 

Show me don't tell me

You've figured out the score

Show me don't tell me

I've heard it all before

Show me don't tell me

I don't care what you say

Show me don't tell me

 

You can twist perceptions

Reality won't budge

You can raise objections

I will be the judge

And the jury

 

I'll give it due reflection

Watching from the fence

Give the jury direction

Based on the evidence

I, the jury

 

Show me don't tell me

Hey -- order in the court

Show me don't tell me

Let's try to keep it short

Show me don't tell me

Enough of your demands

Show me don't tell me

Witness take the stand

Show me don't tell me

 

Show me don't tell me

Hey -- order in the court

Show me don't tell me

Let's try to keep it short

Show me don't tell me

I don't care what you say

Show me don't tell me

Let's see exhibit A

 

@SONG: Chain Lightning

 

Energy is contagious

Enthusiasm spreads

Tides respond to lunar gravitation

Everything turns in synchronous relation

 

Laughter is infectious

Excitement goes to my head

Winds are stirred by planets in rotation

Sparks ignite and spread new information

 

Respond, vibrate, feed back, resonate

 

Sun dogs fire on the horizon

Meteor rain stars across the night

This moment may be brief

But it can be so bright

 

Hope is epidemic

Optimism spreads

Bitterness breeds irritation

Ignorance breeds imitation

 

Sun dogs fire on the horizon

Meteor rain stars across the night

This moment may be brief

But it can be so bright

Reflected in another source of light

When the moment dies

The spark still flies

Reflected in another pair of eyes

 

Dreams are sometimes catching

Desire goes to my head

Love responds to your invitation

Love responds to imagination

 

Respond, vibrate, feed back, resonate

 

@SONG: The Pass

 

Proud swagger out of the schoolyard

Waiting for the world's applause

Rebel without a conscience

Martyr without a cause

 

Static on your frequency

Electrical storm in your veins

Raging at unreachable glory

Straining at invisible chains

 

And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge

Staring down into a heartless sea

Can't face life on a razor's edge

Nothing's what you thought it would be

 

All of us get lost in the darkness

Dreamers learn to steer by the stars

All of us do time in the gutter

Dreamers turn to look at the stars

Turn around and turn around and turn around

Turn around and walk the razor's edge

Don't turn your back

And slam the door on me

 

It's not as if this barricade

Blocks the only road

It's not as if you're all alone

In wanting to explode

 

Someone set a bad example

Made surrender seem all right

The act of a noble warrior

Who lost the will to fight

 

And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge

Staring down into a heartless sea

Done with life on a razor's edge

Nothing's what you thought it would be

 

No hero in your tragedy

No daring in your escape

No salutes for your surrender

Nothing noble in your fate

Christ, what have you done?

 

@SONG: War Paint

 

Girl before the mirror

Appraises her disguise

Child become a mother

Tries to fix her eyes

No more of his excuses

It has to be today

She can keep her fantasy

If she can get away

 

Paint her name on a one-way street

Painted cheeks with angry heat

Wounded pride on painted eyes

Paint the night with battlecries

 

All puffed up with vanity

We see what we want to see

To the beautiful and the wise

The mirror always lies

 

Boy before the mirror

Checks his camouflage

Polishes his armor

And the charger in the garage

No more lame excuses

It has to be tonight

He can take the princess

If he can take the fight

 

Pound the drums with martial beat

Pound the streets with marching feet

Wounded pride, distorted eyes

Paint the night with battlecries

 

All puffed up with vanity

We see what we want to see

To the powerful and the wise

The mirror always lies

 

Boys and girls together

Mistake conceit for pride

 

 

Girls and boys together

See what it is we lack

Boys and girls together

Let's paint the mirror black

Paint it black

 

@SONG: Scars

 

 

I've stood upon my mountaintop

And shouted at the sky

Walked above the pavement

With my senses amplified

 

 

All my nerves are naked wires

Tender to the touch

Sometimes super-sensitive

But who can care too much?

 

 

Scars of pleasure

Scars of pain

Atmospheric changes

Make them sensitive again

 

Each emotional injury

Leaves behind its mark

Sometimes they come tumbling out

Like shadows in the dark

 

 

When I think about all I have seen

And all I'll never see

When I think about the people

Who have opened up to me

 

 

Snow falls deep around my house

And holds the winter light

I've heard the lions hunting

In the Serengeti night

 

 

Forests turned to factories

And river, sea, and sky

Hungry child in the desert

And the flies that cloud her eyes

 

 

Pleasure leaves a fingerprint

As surely as mortal pain

In memories they resonate

And echo back again

 

@SONG: Presto

 

If I could wave my magic wand...

 

I am made from the dust of the stars

And the oceans flow in my veins

Here I hide in the heart of the city

Like a stranger coming out of the rain

 

The evening plane rises up from the runway

Over constellations of light

I look down into a million houses

And wonder what you're doing tonight

 

If I could wave my magic wand

I'd make everything all right

 

I'm not one to believe in magic

But I sometimes have a second-sight

I'm not one with a sense of proportion

When my heart still changes overnight

 

I had a dream of a winter garden

A midnight rendezvous

Silver, blue, and frozen silence

What a fool I was for you

 

I had a dream of the open water

I was swimming away out to sea

So deep I could never touch bottom

What a fool I used to be

 

If I could wave my magic wand

I'd set everybody free

 

I'm not one to believe in magic

Though my memory has a second-sight

I'm not one to go pointing my finger

When I radiate more heat than light

 

Don't ask me

I'm just improvising

My illusion of careless flight

Can't you see

My temperature's rising

I radiate more heat than light

 

Don't ask me

I'm just sympathizing

My illusions a harmless flight

Can't you see

My temperature's rising

I radiate more heat than light

 

@SONG: Superconductor

 

Packaged like a rebel or a hero

Target mass appeal

To make an audience feel

He really means it

 

Package the illusion of persona

Careful to conceal

The fact that she's only too real

She's got to screen it

 

Hit you in a soft place

A melody so sweet

A strong and simple beat

That you can dance to

 

Watch his every move

Superconductor

Orchestrate illusions

Superconductor

Watch his every move

Superconductor

Hoping you'll believe

Designing to deceive

That's entertainment

 

He can put a target on the market

Bask in your applause

Reality withdraws

Now he believes it

 

The role becomes the actor

She's addicted to applause

The stage a world because

She never leaves it

 

Hit you in a soft place

With sentimental ease

They know the fantasies

That you romance to

 

Watch her every move

Superconductor

She can manipulate reactions

Superconductor

Watch her every move

Superconductor

Pin the donkeys on her tail

Fantasy for sale

That's entertainment...

 

@SONG: Anagram (for Mongo)

 

There's a snake coming out of the darkness

Parade from paradise

End the need for eden

Chase the dreams of merchandise

 

There is tic and toc in atomic

Leaders make a deal

The cosmic is largely comic

A con they couldn't conceal

 

There is no safe seat at the feast

Take your best stab at the beast

The night is turning thin

The saint is turning to sin

 

Raise the art to resistance

Danger dare to be grand

Pride reduced to humble pie

Diamonds down to sand

 

Take heart from earth and weather

The brightness of new birth

Take heart from the harvest

Shave the harvest from the earth

 

Reasoning is partly insane

Image just an eyeless game

The night is turning thin

The saint is turning to sin

 

Miracles will have their claimers

More will bow to Rome

He and she are in the house

But there's only me at home

 

Rose is a rose of splendor

Posed to respond in the end

Lonely things like nights,

I find, end finer with a friend

 

I hear in the rate of her heart

A tear in the heat of the art

 

The night turns thin

The saint turns to sin

 

@SONG: Red Tide

 

Nature has some new plague

To run in our streets

History some new wrinkle

We are doomed to repeat

Fugitives at the bedroom door

Lovers pause to find and open store

Rain is burning on the forest floor

And the red tide kisses the shore

 

This is not a false alarm

This is not a test

 

Stay out of the sun

It only burns my skin

Sky full of poison

And the atmosphere's too thin

Bless the sun, the rain no more

River running like an open sore

Black wind falling to the ocean floor

And the red tide washes ashore

 

This is not a false alarm

This is not a test

 

Nowhere we can fly away

Nowhere we can rest

The party is disrupted by

An uninvited guest

 

Deadline approaches

For the weary land

It used to be something

But we let it run down in our hands

Too late for debate, too bad to ignore

Quiet rebellion leads to open war

Bring a sea-change to the factory floor

As the red tide covers the shore

 

Now's the time to turn the tide

Now's the time to fight

Let us not go gently

To the endless winter night

Now's the time to make the time

While hope is still in sight

Let us not go gently

To the endless winter night

 

@SONG: Hand Over Fist

 

Hand over fist

Paper around the stone

Scissors cut the paper

Cut the paper to the bone

Hand over fist

Paper around the stone

Scissors cut the paper

And the rock must stand alone

 

I could disappear into the crowd

But not if I keep my head in the clouds

I could walk away so proud

It's easy enough if you don't laugh too loud

 

I thought I was okay alone

Wait for the postman and the telephone

Lost in a world of my own

I thought I could run alone

Thought I could run through the night alone

 

Hand over hand

Doesn't seem so much

Hand over hand

Is the strength of the common touch

 

You talk as we walk along

You never imagined I could be so wrong

Humming your favorite song

You know I've hated that song for so long

 

How can we ever agree?

Like the rest of the world

We grow farther apart

I swear you don't listen to me

Holding my hand to my heart

Holding my fist to my racing heart

 

Take a walk outside myself

In some exotic land

Greet a passing stranger

Fell the strength in his hand

Feel the world expand

 

I feel my spirit resist

But I open up my fist

Lay hand over hand over

Hand over fist

 

@SONG: Available Light

 

The restless wind

Has seen all things

In every kind of light

Rising with the full moon

To go howling through the night

 

The sleepless wind

Has heard all things

Between the sea and sky

In the canyons of the city

You can hear the buildings cry

 

Oh the wind can carry

All the voices of the sea

Oh the wind can carry

All the echoes home to me

 

Run with wind and weather

To the music of the sea

All four winds together

Can't bring the world to me

Chase the wind around the world

I want to look at life --

In the available light

 

Play of light

A photograph

The way I used to be

Some half-forgotten stranger

Doesn't mean that much to me

 

Trick of light

Moving picture

Moments caught in flight

Make the shadows darker

Or the colors shine too bright

 

Oh the light can carry

All the visions of the sea

Oh the light can carry

All the images to me

 

Run to light from shadow

Sun gives me no rest

Promise offered in the east

Broken in the west

Chase the sun around the world

I want to look at life --

In the available light

 

All four winds together

Can't bring the world to me

Shadows hide the play of light

So much I want to see

Chase the light around the world

I want to look at life --

In the available light

 

I'll go with the wind

I'll stand in the light

 

 

@ALBUM: Signals

Author: Rush

 

@SONG: Subdivisions

 

Sprawling on the fringes of the city

In geometric order

An insulated border

In between the bright lights

And the far unlit unknown

 

Growing up it all seems so one-sided

Opinions all provided

The future pre-decided

Detached and subdivided

In the mass production zone

 

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

 

Subdivisions --

In the high school halls

In the shopping malls

Conform or be cast out

Subdivisions --

In the basement bars

In the backs of cars

Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth

The unattractive truth

But the suburbs have no charms to soothe

The restless dreams of youth

 

Drawn like moths we drift into the city

The timeless old attraction

Cruising for the action

Lit up like a firefly

Just to feel the living night

 

Some will sell their dreams for small desires

Or lose the race to rats

Get caught in ticking traps

And start to dream of somewhere

To relax their restless flight

 

Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...

 

@SONG: The Analog Kid

 

A hot and windy August afternoon

Has the trees in constant motion

With a flash of silver leaves

As they're rocking in the breeze

 

The boy lies in the grass with one blade

Stuck between his teeth

A vague sensation quickens

In his young and restless heart

And a bright and nameless vision

Has him longing to depart

 

You move me --

You move me --

With your buildings and your eyes

Autumn woods and winter skies

You move me --

You move me --

Open sea and city lights

Busy streets and dizzy heights

You call me --

You call me --

 

The fawn-eyed girl with sun-browned legs

Dances on the edge of his dream

And her voice rings in his ears

Like the music of the spheres

 

The boy lies in the grass, unmoving

Staring at the sky

His mother starts to call him

As a hawk goes soaring by

The boy pulls down his baseball cap

And covers up his eyes

 

Too many hands on my time

Too many feelings --

Too many things on my mind

When I leave I don't know

What I'm hoping to find

When I leave I don't know

What I'm leaving behind...

 

@SONG: Chemistry

 

Signals transmitted

Message received

Reaction making impact --

Invisibly

 

Elemental telepathy

Exchange of energy

Reaction making contact --

Mysteriously

 

Eye to I

Reaction burning hotter

Two to one

Reflection on the water

H to O

No flow without the other

Oh but how

Do they make contact

With one another?

 

Electricity? Biology?

Seems to me it's Chemistry

 

Emotion transmitted

Emotion received

Music in the abstract --

Positively

 

Elemental empathy

A change of synergy

Music making contact --

Naturally

 

One, two, three --

Add without subtraction

Sound on sound

Multiplied reaction

H to O

No flow without the other

Oh but how

Do we make contact

With one another?

 

@SONG: Digital Man

 

His world is under observation --

We monitor his station

Under faces and the places

Where he traces points of view

 

He picks up scraps of conversation --

Radio and radiation

From the dancers and romancers

With the answers -- but no clue

 

He'd love to spend the night in Zion

He's been a long while in Babylon

He'd like a lover's wings to fly on

To a tropic isle of Avalon

 

His world is under anaesthetic --

Subdivided and synthetic

His reliance on the giants

In the science of the day

 

He picks up scraps of information --

He's adept at adaptation

'Cause for strangers and arrangers

Constant change is here to stay

 

He's got a force field and a flexible plan

He's got a date with fate in a black sedan

He plays fast forward for as long as he can

But he won't need a bed --

He's a digital man

 

@SONG: The Weapon (Part II of Fear)

 

We've got nothing to fear -- but fear itself?

Not pain or failure, not fatal tragedy?

Not the faulty units in this mad machinery?

Not the broken contacts in emotional chemistry?

 

With an iron fist in a velvet glove

We are sheltered under the gun

In the glory game on the power train

Thy kingdom's will be done

 

And the things that we fear are a weapon to be held against us...

 

He's not afraid of your judgement

He knows of horrors worse than your Hell

He's a little bit afraid of dying --

But he's a lot more afraid of your lying

 

And the things that he fears are a weapon to be held against him...

 

Can any part of life -- be larger than life?

Even love must be limited by time

And those who push us down that they might climb --

Is any killer worth more than his crime?

 

Like a steely blade in a silken sheath

We don't see what they're made of

They shout about love, but when push comes to shove

They live for the things they're afraid of

 

And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...

 

@SONG: New World Man

 

He's a rebel and a runner

He's a signal turning green

He's a restless young romantic

Wants to run the big machine

 

He's got a problem with his poisons

But you know he'll find a cure

He's cleaning up his systems

To keep his nature pure

 

Learning to match the beat of the Old World man

Learning to catch the heat of the Third World man

 

He's got to make his own mistakes

And learn to mend the mess he makes

He's old enough to know what's right

But young enough not to choose it

He's noble enough to win the world

But weak enough to lose it --

He's a New World man...

 

He's a radio receiver

Turned to factories and farms

He's a writer and arranger

And a young boy bearing arms

 

He's got a problem with his power

With weapons on patrol

He's got to walk a fine line

And keep his self-control

 

Trying to save the day for the Old World man

Trying to pave the way for the Third World man

 

He's not concerned with yesterday

He knows constant change is here today

He's noble enough to know what's right

But weak enough not to choose it

He's wise enough to win the world

But fool enough to lose it --

He's a New World man...

 

@SONG: Losing It

 

The dancer slows her frantic pace

In pain and desperation,

Her aching limbs and downcast face

Aglow with perspiration

 

Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,

With just the briefest pause --

The flooding through her memory,

The echoes of old applause.

 

She limps across the floor

And closes her bedroom door...

 

The writer stare with glassy eyes --

Defies the empty page

His beard is white, his face is lined

And streaked with tears of rage.

 

Thirty years ago, how the words would flow

With passion and precision,

But now his mind is dark and dulled

By sickness and indecision

 

And he stares out the kitchen door

Where the sun will rise no more...

 

Some are born to move the world --

To live their fantasies

But most of us just dream about

The things we'd like to be

 

Sadder still to watch it die

Than never to have known it

For you -- the blind who once could see --

The bell tolls for the...

 

@SONG: Countdown

 

Lit up with anticipation

We arrive at the launching site

The sky is still dark, nearing dawn

On the Florida coastline

 

Circling choppers slash the night

With roving searchlight beams

This magic day when super-science

Mingles with the bright stuff of dreams

 

Floodlit in the hazy distance

The star of this unearthly show

Venting vapours, like the breath

Of a sleeping white dragon

 

Crackling speakers, voices tense

Resume the final count

All systems check, T minus nine

As the sun and the drama start to mount

 

The air is charged -- a humid, motionless mass

The crowds and the cameras,

The cars full of spectators pass

Excitement so thick -- you could cut it with a knife

Technology -- high, on the leading edge of life

 

The earth beneath us starts to tremble

With the spreading of a low black cloud

A thunderous roar shakes the air

Like the whole world exploding

 

Scorching blast of golden fire

As it slowly leaves the ground

Tears away with a mighty force

The air is shattered by the awesome sound

 

Like a pillar of cloud, the smoke lingers

High in the air

In fascination -- with the eyes of the world

We stare...

 

 

 

Author: Rush

Album title: Permanent Waves

 

@SONG: The Spirit of Radio

 

Begin the day with a friendly voice,

A companion unobtrusive

Plays the song that's so elusive

And the magic music makes your morning mood.

 

Off on your way, hit the open road,

There is magic at your fingers

For the Spirit ever lingers,

Undemanding contact in your happy solitude.

 

Invisible airwaves crackle with life

Bright antenna bristle with the energy

Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength

Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free

 

All this machinery making modern music

Can still be open-hearted.

Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question

Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty.

 

One likes to believe in the freedom of music,

But glittering prizes and endless compromises

Shatter the illusion of integrity.

 

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,

Concert hall

And echoes with the sounds of salesmen.

 

@SONG: Freewill

 

There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance,

A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

 

A planet of playthings,

We dance on the strings

Of powers we cannot conceive.

"The stars aren't aligned

Or the gods are malign"-

Blame is better to give than receive.

 

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.

If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice.

You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;

I will choose a path that's clear-

I will choose Free Will.

 

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,

The cards were stacked against them- they weren't born in lotus-land.

 

All preordained-

A prisoner in chains-

A victim of venomous fate.

Kicked in the face,

You can't pray for a place

In heaven's unearthly estate.

 

Each of us-

A cell of awareness-

Imperfect and incomplete.

Genetic blends

With uncertain ends

On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

 

@SONG: Jacob's Ladder

 

The clouds prepare for battle

In the dark and brooding silence.

Bruised and sullen stormclouds

Have the light of day obscured.

Looming low and ominous

In twilight premature

Thunderheads are rumbling

In a distant overture...

 

All at once, the clouds are parted.

Light streams down in bright unbroken beams...

 

Follow men's eyes as they look to the skies.

The shifting shafts of shining weave the fabric of their dreams...

 

@SONG: Entre Nous

 

We are secrets to each other

Each one's life a novel

No-one else has read.

Even joined in bonds of love,

We're linked to one another

By such slender threads.

 

We are planets to each other,

Drifting in our orbits

To a brief eclipse.

Each of us a world apart,

Alone and yet together,

Like two passing ships.

 

Just between us,

I think it's time for us to recognize

The differences we sometimes fear to show.

Just between us,

I think it's time for us to realize,

The spaces in between

Leave room for you and I to grow.

 

We are strangers to each other,

Full of sliding panels,

An illusion show.

Acting well-rehearsed routines

Or playing from the heart?

It's hard for one to know.

 

We are islands to each other,

Building hopeful bridges

On a troubled sea.

Some are burned or swept away,

Some we would not choose,

But we're not always free.

 

@SONG: Different Strings

 

Who's come to slay the dragon,

Come to watch him fall?

Making arrows out of pointed words,

Giant killers at the call?

Too much fuss and bother,

Too much complication and confusion.

Peel away the mystery,

Here's a clue to some real motivation.

 

All there really is,

The two of us,

And we both know why we've come along.

Nothing to explain,

It's a part of us

To be found within a song.

 

What happened to our innocence,

Did it go out of style?

Along with our naivete',

No longer a child.

Different eyes see different things,

Different hearts beat on different strings.

But there are times

For you and me, when all such things agree.

 

@SONG: Natural Science

 

1. Tide Pools

When the ebbing tide retreats

Along the rocky shoreline,

It leaves a trail of tidal pools

In a short-lived galaxy.

Each microcosmic planet

A complete society.

 

A simple kind mirror

To reflect upon our own.

All the busy little creatures

Chasing out their destinies.

Living in the pools,

They soon forget about the sea...

 

Wheels within wheels in a spiral array,

A pattern so grand and complex,

Time after time we lose sight of the way,

Our causes can't see their effects.

 

2. Hyerspace

A quantum leap forward

In time and in space,

The universe learned to expand.

 

Myths and the magic,

Triumphant and tragic,

A mechanized world out of hand.

 

Computerized clinic

For superior cynics

Who dance to a synthetic band.

 

In their own image,

Their world is fashion.

No wonder they don't understand.

 

3. Permanent Waves

Science, like nature

Must also be tamed

With a view toward its preservation.

Given the same

State of integrity,

It will surely serve us well.

 

Art as expression,

Not as market campaigns

Will still capture our imaginations.

Given the same

State of integrity,

It will surely help us along.

 

The most endangered species,

The honest man,

Will still survive annihilation.

Forming a world

State of integrity,

Sensitive, open and strong.

 

Wave after wave will flow with the tide, and bury the world as it does.

Tide after tide will flow and recede, leaving life to go on as it was...