Time/Songs:

On the Cover of Moving Pictures

"When Hugh Syme was developing the multitude of puns for the cover, he wanted the guys 'moving pictures' to have some 'moving pictures' to be moving past the people who were 'moved' by the 'picture' - get it? So he asked us to think of some ideas for these pictures. The 'man descending to hell' is actually a woman - Joan of Arc - being burned at the stake (as per 'Witch Hunt'), and the card-playing dogs are there because it was a funny, silly idea - one of the most cliche'd pictures we could think of - a different kind of 'moving picture.'"

- Neil Peart

December 1985 Backstage Club Newsletter

Excerpt from a 1983 "Creem" interview with Hugh Syme.

Q: OK, let's move on to Moving Pictures, which is-

Q: Who decided on what paintings would be carried?

The one painting had to be of Joan Of Arc as far as I was concerned- which ended up being a bit of a nightmare because I couldn't find any archival pictures or paintings which were suitable. So I ended up getting some burlap, and a pine post, two sticks and a bottle of scotch.

Deborah Samuel, the photographer who I used on that session, got wrapped up in burlap so she could make her cameo appearance. We just lit lighter fluid in pie plates in the foreground. It was basically a half hour session because we had no other alterative but to do it ourselves.

Tom Sawyer - The song

"Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be - namely me I guess."

Neil Peart

December 1985 Backstage Club newsletter

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

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society.
Catch the mist, catch the myth
Catch the mystery, catch the drift.

The world is, the world is,
Love and life are deep,
Maybe as his skies are wide.

Today's Tom Sawyer,
He gets high on you,
And the space he invades
He gets by on you.

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren't permanent,
But change is.

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society.
Catch the witness, catch the wit,
Catch the spirit, catch the spit.

The world is, the world is,
Love and life are deep,
Maybe as his eyes are wide.

Exit the warrior,
Today's Tom Sawyer,
He gets high on you,
And the energy you trade,
He gets right on to the friction of the day.

Red Barchetta - The song

What inspired the writing of Red Barchetta?

This song was inspired by a short story written by Richard S. Foster. The story first appeared in Road & Track Nov,1973 pp.148-150 and is titled: "A Nice Morning Drive".

What is a barchetta?

The barchetta is a type of Ferrari race car. Barchetta is actually pronounced "Barketta", according to 2 Italian friends of mine. Another source of information is: "The Complete Ferrari" by Godfrey Eaton; 1986 by Cadogan Books Ltd.

Alex Lifeson on Red Barchetta

"That was the intention with Red Barchetta-- to create a song that was very vivid, so that you had a sense, if you listen to it and listen to the lyrics, of the action. It does become a movie. I think that song really worked with that in mind; it was succesful with that intention. It's something that I think we've tried to carry on-- become a little more visual with our music, since then. But that one in particular was very satisfying. It was always one of my favorites. I think it's probably my favorite from that album. I like the way the parts knit together. I like the changes. I like the melody of the song. I love the dynamics of it, the way it opens with the harmonics and creates a mood, then gets right into the driving, right up to the middle section where it's really screaming along, where you really feel like you're in the open car, and the music's very vibrant and moving. And then it ends as it began with that quiet dynamic, and lets you down lightly. So it picks you up for the whole thing and drops you off at your next spot."

- Alex Lifeson, from "In the Studio: Moving Pictures"

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.

YYZ - The song

What does YYZ stand for?

YYZ is the transmitter code for Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport. Every airport is assigned a unique 3 letter code, and that code is always being transmitted so that pilots can tell, roughly, where they are and verify that their navigational radios are tuned properly. These codes are also written on your luggage tags when you fly. The intro to the song is Morse code for "YYZ."

Grammy nomination

YYZ was nominated and was the runner up in the Best Rock Instrumental in the 1982 Grammy's losing to The Police's "Behind my Camel"

YYZ
---
Instrumental

Limelight - The song

Geddy reflects about Limelight

"Well, Limelight was probably more of Neil's song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time...he was having a very difficult time dealing with. I mean we all were, but I think he was having the most difficulty of the three of us adjusting; in the sense that I think he's more sensitive to more things than Alex and I are, it's harder for him to deal with those interruptions on his personal space and his desire to be alone. Being very much a person who needs that solitude, to have someone coming up to you constantly and asking for your autograph is a major interruption in your own little world. I guess in the one sense that we're a little bit like misfits in the fact that we've chosen this profession that has all this extreme hype and this sort of self-hyping world that we've chosen to live in...and we don't feel comfortable really in that kind of role."

- Geddy Lee, from "In the Studio: Moving Pictures"

Alex and Neil on Limelight

"We were very, very careful not to let it get the best of us. That sudden success can really change you and you become lazy and you constantly have other people doing things for you and you lose perspective on why you're there and really what you're doing."

- Alex Lifeson, 1983 Interview

"Success puts a strain on the friendship and it puts the strains on your day-to-day relationship, and it's something that we did go through, you know, we're not immune to it. But we were able to overcome it just through our closeness and we were able to help each other with difficulties like that and then we could deal with the pressures and things and that."

- Neil Peart, 1983 Interview

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.

Camera Eye - The song

The Camera Eye
--- ------ ---
I
Grim-faced and forbidding,
Their faces closed tight,
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm,
Race the oncoming night,
They chase through the streets of Manhattan.
Head-first humanity,
Pause at a light,
Then flow through the streets of the city.

They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain,
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky.

The buildings are lost 
In their limitless rise.
My feet catch the pulse 
And the purposeful stride.

I feel the sense of possibilities,
I feel the wrench of hard realities.
The focus is sharp in the city.


II
Wide-angle watcher
On life's ancient tales,
Steeped in the history of London.

Green and grey washes 
In a wispy white veil
Mist in the streets of Westminster.
Wistful and weathered,
The pride still prevails,
Alive in the streets of the city.

Are they oblivious
To this quality?
A quality
Of light unique to
Every city's streets.

Pavements may teem 
With intense energy,
But the city is calm 
In this violent sea.

Witch Hunt - The song

On the mumblings at the beginning of the song:

"It is purposely mixed so that you cannot understand what is being said, but the tenor of the situation, the hatred, the ill will, and the fear comes through loud and clear. This effect was created by emptying the studio (in the middle of a snowy night) of production staff, road crew and band, and depositing everyone in the cold outside the isolated facility. With tape recorders rolling, Neil gave his best fanatic's speech, gradually getting more and more whipped up as everyone involved let themselves get carried away."

from the book Visions

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

- Alex Lifeson, from "In the Studio: Moving Pictures"

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,
The faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possesed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.

Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.

They say there are strangers who threaten us,
In our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness, too dangerous
In our theatres and bookstore shelves,
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand

Ignorance and prejudice
And fear 
Walk hand in hand.

Vital Signs - The song

Neil about the last song on the album:

You picked out a very important thing, because at the end of an album it's impossible for us to judge which songs will truly be popular and which won't. We're inevitably surprised. And then there are songs like "Vital Signs" from our Moving Pictures album. At the time it was a very transitional song. Everybody had mixed feelings about it, but at the same time it expressed something essential that I wanted to say. That's a song that has a marriage of vocals and lyrics I'm very happy with. But it took our audience a long time to get it, because it was rhythmically very different for us and it demanded the audience to respond in a different rhythmic way. There was no heavy downbeat; it was al counterpoint between upbeat and downbeat, and there was some reflection of reggae influence and a reflection of the more refined areas of new wave music that we had sort of takes under our umbrella and made happen. That song took about three tours to catch on. It was kind of a baby for us. We kept playing it and wouldn't give up. We put it in our encore last tour-putting it in the most exciting part of the set possible-and just demanded that people accept it because we believed in it. I still think that song represents a culmination-the best combination of music, lyrics, rhythm. It opens up so many musical approaches, from being very simplistic and minimal to becoming very overplayed. Everything we wanted in the song is there. So that song was very special to us. But we had to wait. We had to be patient and wait for the audience to understand us.

- Neil Peart, Guitar for the Practicing Musician 1986 interview

Vital Signs
----- -----
Unstable condition,
A symptom of life,
In mental and environmental change.
Atmospheric disturbance,
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange.

The impulse is pure;
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference.
Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence.

A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a mood lifter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to deviate from the norm.

An ounce of perception,
A pound of obscure.
Process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay,
Warm memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need.

Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be worn by persistence.
Leave out conditions,
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence.

A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a soft filter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm...