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Rush (1968–2018) was a Canadian progressive rock band comprising bassist, keyboardist and vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart (who replaced original drummer John Rutsey in 1974).
All lyrics written by Neil Peart, except as noted.
Rush (1974)
- Well I get up at 7 yeah and I go to work at 9
I got no time for living
I'm working 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.
I get home at five o'clock and I take a sip out an ice cold beer
always seem to be wondering why there's nothing going on around 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.- Working Man, written by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
Fly By Night (1975)
- Live for yourself -- there's no one else
More worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more- Anthem
- 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.- By-Tor and the Snow Dog
- Snow Dog is victorious
The land of the Overworld is saved again- By-Tor and the Snow Dog
- Quiet and pensive
My thoughts apprehensive
The hours drift away
Leaving my homeland
Playing a lone hand
My life begins today
- 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- Rivendell
Caress Of Steel (1975)
- 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
- I am born, I am me, I am new, I am free.
Look at me, I am young, sight unseen, life unsung.- In the Valley from The Fountain of Lamneth
2112 (1976)
- You don't get something for nothing
You can't have freedom for free
You won't get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be- Something For Nothing
A Farewell To Kings (1977)
- 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- A Farewell To Kings
- Held within the pleasure dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan
To taste my bitter triumph, as a mad immortal man
Never more shall I return/Escape these caves of ice
For I have dined on honey dew and drunk the milk of paradise.
- And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones to start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the Heart- Closer To The Heart, written by Neil Peart and Peter Talbot
- 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 honor
In vain to search for truth
But these things can still be given
Your love has shown me proof- Madrigal
Hemispheres (1978)
- They battled through the ages,
But still neither force would yield.
The people were divided,
Every soul a battlefield.
- 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.
- 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.
Permanent Waves (1980)
- Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback on a 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.- The Spirit Of Radio
- One likes to believe in the freedom of music
but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.- The Spirit Of Radio
- 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.
- You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have 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.- Freewill
- Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.
- Freewill
- 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.- Entre Nous
- 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.- Different Strings
- 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.
- In their own image
Their world is fashioned-
No wonder they don't understand- Natural Science
- Science, like nature
Must also be tamed
With a view towards its preservation
Given the same
State of integrity
It will surely serve us well- Natural Science
Moving Pictures (1981)
- A modern day warrior,
Mean, mean stride,
Today's Tom Sawyer,
Mean, mean pride.- Tom Sawyer, written by Neil Peart and Pye Dubois
- 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.- Tom Sawyer
- And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society.- Tom Sawyer
- 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
- All the world's indeed a stage,
And we are merely players,
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage.- Limelight
- 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.- Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear)
- Everybody got to elevate from the norm.
- Leave out the fiction
Fact is, this friction will only be worn by persistence
Leave out conditions
Courageous convictions will drag a dream to existence
- Vital Signs
Signals (1982)
- 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
- The boy lies in the grass, unmoving
Staring at the sky
His mother starts to call him
As a hawk goes soaring by
And the boy pulls down his baseball cap
And covers up his eyes- The Analog Kid
- He's got a force field and a flexible plan
He's got a date with fate in a black sedan
He'll play fast forward for as long as he can
But he won't need a bed he's a digital man- Digital Man
- 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?- The Weapon (Part II of Fear)
- 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
Grace Under Pressure (1984)
- I remember-
How we talked and drank
Into the misty dawn
- I hear the voices
We ran by the water
On the wet summer lawn
- I see the foot prints
I remember-
- I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed
A wound that will not heal -- a heart that cannot feel --
Hoping that the horror will recede
Hoping that tomorrow, we'll all be freed
- 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...- The Enemy Within (Part I of Fear)
- One humanoid escapee
an android on the run
seeking freedom beneath the lonely desert sun- The Body Electric
- 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...- Between the Wheels
Power Windows (1985)
- So much poison in power
The principles get left out
So much mind on the matter
The spirit gets forgotten about- Grand Designs
- 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
- 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
- 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- Territories
- 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- Middletown Dreams
- 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- Emotion Detector
- 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
Hold Your Fire (1987)
- 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
- I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me...- Tai Shan
Presto (1989)
- 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 cars.
- 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?- The Pass
- I had a dream of a winter garden
a midnight rendezvous.
Silver, blue and frozen silence
what a fool I was for you!- Presto
- Take heart from earth and weather
the brightness of new birth
Take heart from the harvest
shave the harvest from the earth.- Anagram (For Mongo)
Roll The Bones (1991)
- 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, roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones, roll the bones.- Roll The Bones
- 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.- The Big Wheel
- All around this great big world
All the crap we had to take
Bombs and basement fallout shelters
All our lives at stake.
Counterparts (1993)
- A secret face -- a touch of grace
A man must learn to give a little space
A peaceful state -- a submissive trait
A man must learn to gently dominate.- Animate
- Young enough not to care too much
About the way things used to be
I'm young enough to remember the future --
The past has no claim on me.- "Cut To The Chase
- There is a fine line
Between love and illusion.- Between Sun & Moon
- You and I, we are pressed into these solitudes
Color and culture, language and race
Just variations on a theme
Islands in a much larger stream.- Alien Shore
Test For Echo (1996)
- I've got celestial mechanics
To synchronize my stars
Seasonal migrations -- daily variations
World of the unlikely and bizarre.- Totem, written by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart
- I can learn to resist
Anything but frustration
I can learn to persist
With anything but aiming low.- Resist, written by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart
Vapor Trails (2002)
- A certain amount of resistance
To the forces of the light and love
A certain measure of tolerance
A willingness to rise above.
- All this time we're burning like bonfires in the dark
A billion other blazes are shooting off their sparks
Every spark a drifting ember of desire
To fall upon the earth and spark another fire.- Peaceable Kingdom
- Dream - Temporary madness
Dream - A voice in the wilderness
Dream - Unconscious revelations
The morning says, the answer is yes.- Nocturne
Snakes & Arrows (2007)
- One day I feel I'm on top of the world
And the next it's falling in on me
I can get back on
I can get back home
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel,
And the next it's rolling over me.
- Sometimes the fortress is too strong
Or the love is too weak
What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and angry sword- Armor and Sword
- Now it's come to this
Like we're back in the Dark Ages
From the Middle East to the Middle West
It's a plague that resists all science- The Way The Wind Blows
Clockwork Angels (2012)
- In a world where I feel so small
I can't stop thinking big.
- Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe.- BU2B
- Life goes from bad to worse
I still choose to live
Find a measure of love and laughter
And another measure to give.- BU2B2
- All my illusions
Projected on her
The ideal, that I wanted to see.- Halo Effect
- All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary
Of a miracle too good to be true
All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary
Everything in life you thought you knew
All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary
'Cause sometimes the target is you.- The Wreckers
- Thank your stars you're not that way
Turn your back and walk away
Don't even pause and ask them why
Turn around and say goodbye.- Wish Them Well
- The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect.
- The Garden
- The future disappears into memory
With only a moment between.
Forever dwells in that moment.- The Garden
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