TheMilford wrote:You know, Neil was once a tractor salesman... Don't need no stinking diploma for that.

I had always heard that Neil had a Ph.D. in English... This would explain why his lyrics are so bland. It would also explain why he would be a tractor salesman...

I don't think Phil Collins is a terribly educated fellow, but he wrote some of the best lyrics ever... Peter Gabriel wasn't as good. Heck, Fish out-Gabriels PG any day...

I'm bringing up Genesis, because they were way ahead of (and way better than) Rush... A song like "Dance on a Volcano" is something Rush could only hope to sound like...

Rush turning from a hard rock band to a prog band at the time they did was not too innovative at all.

I'd take an early IQ or Marillion album over what Rush were doing at the same time, any day...

TheMilford wrote:HA! totally! We used to role-up new player characters while listening to Rush and Blue Oyster Cult.

Then the Roll the Bones cover would be acceptable, since you use 3 six sided dice to roll for D&D player attributes.

We used to let people re-roll 2 of the dice if they wanted to.

But then there were the jerks that came with their characters they had already created... 17's and 18's for everything. MY ASS!

I think it's fair to roll the scores and then decide what specialty the character will be... Like if you have good dexterity, the character should be a theif.

I think it's so unfair that people think fans of progressive rock are into D&D, though. What an unfair stereotype.

As someone who is a HUGE fan of pre signals rush, i must say i never really gave the lyrics a whole lot of weight. There are other bloated 70's rock bands that the lyrics are way more important/meaningfull to me (Floyd, gabriel's genesis, tom waits, etc.). I mean, it's hard to take anything seriously coming out of geddys voice, which i like, but i can see someone really not liking. What i liked about Rush was all the cool complex parts and great bass playing and i love alex's guitar solos. Peart is cool and fits the band perfectly. The reason i started to dislike rush after the moving pictures record is that they started to get more synth oriented, and, most importantly stopped writing 8 minute long tunes with a thousand parts. Who the fuck wants to hear rush as song oreintated group, i want to hear the complex wank fest. Thats what they were good at, and is the reason a lot of folks like me dig em'. That roll the bones grace under pressure stuff is real crap. I want 20 minute trio wank worship.

Yeah... Rush and keyboards were always a dubious union... Like that really cheesy riff in Xanadu, that anyone can play. Rush's keyboard parts were not that great at all... Really seemed to be token keyboard parts to fit into the "prog rock" genre.

In my opinion, Tony Banks was a keyboard genius. I like him better than Wakeman and Emerson... They may be technically better, but those weird key transpositions that Banks did were amazing...

And his solo in "Down and Out" is about the crudest, sickest, bad-assest keyboard solo. That song is just so kick ass!

It's a fact -- when keyboards became programmable, and had banks of patches, they named these banks after Tony Banks. This is the truth!

And... If you listen to any of the new art rock stuff, Banks is a much bigger influence than Wakeman or Emerson.

Nice hair too... An early adopter of mousse, Banks was way ahead of his time.

Hey, Mr. Banks, this is MY Crap / Not Crap...

yut wrote:In my opinion, Tony Banks was a keyboard genius. I like him better than Wakeman and Emerson... They may be technically better, but those weird key transpositions that Banks did were amazing...


And... If you listen to any of the new art rock stuff, Banks is a much bigger influence than Wakeman or Emerson.

well, it helps that genesis wrote better "songs" than yes or elp. genesis was always about the song, where yes and especially elp were more about showing off musical prowess. In the same vein, thats why pink floyd are so much more important today as an overall influence on newer bands than yes, king crimson, or elp. rick wright and and banks were in better bands with better tunes.

http://www.egodeath.com/rushlyrics.htm

...oh & Crap.

I dont think any of you can get past his hot solder in the ass vocals enough to even give a shit what he is singing about.

John W. wrote:http://www.egodeath.com/rushlyrics.htm

That guy sure did his homework. The total vibe of his research seemed to be pointing in the crap direction, whether intentionally or not, though.

http://www.scottfromcanada.com/rush-for-dummies.html


this explanation of all rush lyrics is NOT CRAP.