Knock yourself out:

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 they'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.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The 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.

(Trees fighting is so stupid,
but no more so than
twenty minute drum solos)

when I was thirteen I thought those lyrics (to "the trees") where pure, undiluted genius....ugh plus: the conviction in the delivery of all these lyrics by Geddy Lee drives the crap rating off the charts

CRAP, funny tho, still CRAP

but conclude that our poet is an idiot, using words incorrectly because he likes the way they sound.

Peart's lyrics are objectively bad, no doubt. (Though I love Rush in a wierd way that I can't explain or even defend....I couldn't make one rationally thought-out argument for why they are GOOD, so maybe it's true love in that way)....

But I would say that using words incorrectly because you like the way they sound isn't necessarily a poor approach, it can work sometimes.

"Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be won by persistence."

typo... should read "...worn by persistence."

Oh Steve, I won't hate you... I realize I'm walking a thin line here and that most Rush lyrics are horrible, sophomoric, bullshit but I like a lot of them for their honesty, yes, HONESTY. I don't think they write solely on deadlines and I don't think N.P. considers himself a genius or even takes himself that seriously. They're just writing geeky rock songs with mildly literate prose.

Sometimes a silly song like "Vital Signs" pops up where N.P. decides to just have fun with the sounds of words and partial meanings and pulls words from their surroundings, Yes they were heavily using synths and sequencers at that time. If I ‘m not mistaken you’ve done this sort of thing, no?

I like a lot of it. But I also recognize I have a sentimental attachment as it is the first music I was aware of being a fan of and is the first music I learned to play.

This is a thread about Peart’s lyrics so I don't mind a little fun making 'cause it is the worst and funniest thing about Rush, besides the fact that they’re Canadian. Bring it on!

So, here's another. Possibly my most favorite Rush song but not necessarily my favorite words:

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.

I hope this thread never dies.

A simple vote of CRAP for Rush is far too dignified of a death.

TheMilford wrote:"Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be won by persistence."

typo... should read "...worn by persistence."

Still nonsensical babble. Also a stronger argument that it should be about pissing.

steve wrote:

TheMilford wrote:"Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be won by persistence."

typo... should read "...worn by persistence."

Still nonsensical babble. Also a stronger argument that it should be about pissing.

...or anal sex.

c'mon steve you can do better than that!

steve wrote:

Don wrote:The rap on "Roll the Bones" cannot be beat. That's right - there is a rap on a Rush song. Rush, they are so white, YYZ notwithstanding.

"YYZ" proves the whiteness point, actually. This song features a rhythm derived from the morse code rendition of the letters YYZ, the FAA designation of Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport.

So white. So nerd. So music geek. So Canadian chauvinist. So utterly, utterly lame.

OK, a clarification, then: YYZ is as funky as Rush could ever hope to be, yet too far from whiteness for their comfort. But Rush, those clever Canuckers, tricked most of us, and good, by deriving the above's rhythm from morse code, almost nonpareil in whiteness and dorkiness. Almost: keep these dudezz away from ham radio!

TheMilford wrote:Unstable condition,
A symptom of life,
Of 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...

Pretty basic advice to any beginning writer is to avoid abstraction at all costs. Most young authors--most adolescents--are just beginning to be troubled by Big Ideas and Profound Feelings, which they attempt to share by simply mentioning their ideas and feelings. This is an almost always disastrous strategy. As Francis Ponge says, "You achieve nothing when to express grandeur you simply use the word grandeur."

I'm not saying that abstraction has no place in writing, but it's dangerous stuff, and the ratio of abstraction in somebody's work is usually analagous to his or her full-of-shitness; said person would rather bludgeon the reader with his or her thoughts and feelings than actually engender thought and feeling by provoking such responses in another. Such hacks desire validation not real communication. They are children.

For the record, there is only one concrete term in the passage quoted above: circuits. And even that one's debatable. If a freshman creative writing student turned this drivel in to me, I'd be hard-pressed to find anything encouraging to say to him. I say "him" because, in my experience, this sort of self-important nerd-speak is almosty exclusively the province of males. At least shitty women writers have the good graces to talk about what cocksuckers their boyfriends are. Which is to say that I know what they're talking about even if they do it in an utterly trite and forgettable way.

Mr. Peart, your lyrics are abominable, best suited for scribbling on the back of a spiral notebook in study hall circa 1982, along with myriad pot leaves and the initials of the gorgeous stoner chick you'll never have the balls to talk to. Rather, you'll sublimate your sexual energy into a horrifically ostentatious drum "style," a kind of proxy masturbation that will seduce other fruitless would-be fornicators--and only them--as will the chronic self-indulgence of your highfalutin lyrics, which the bulk of your listeners will be too stoned to ever truly question...

Until now.