Driven: Rush in the '90s and In the End , page 35
“One of my favorites, but I could say that about all the songs,” explained Nick, speaking with Joe Bosso for MusicRadar. “To me, it’s all about the riff, and this riff takes me back to the old days. That was one of the cool things about working on this record, helping Rush to know that it was okay to be like this. ‘You guys can do this. You guys did it a long time ago; you can do it again. You own it!’ There’s a lot of interplay happening between everybody. There was a demo, but we added a keyboard and the high strings — it morphed. Vocally, it was about getting Geddy up in that high register where he belongs. His energy level is pretty cool here. I’ve said this for years: Alex Lifeson is the chameleon of rock guitar. He’s got so much feeling. He brings me to tears when he plays; in fact, he’s in tears while he’s playing it! Some of his solos were from the demos, some he played in the studio a few times, and there were a few that he tracked multiple times. In every case, he had pure emotion.”
“The drum pattern on that song is one that I put together and Neil connected with it,” noted Lifeson, interviewed by Jeb Wright. “I think I come from a different place than Neil does and sometimes he will find what I do as an interesting approach that he would have never thought of himself. It gave him a launching point.”
But Geddy had his hands full. As he told Phil Ashcroft from Fireworks, “As soon as I recorded the bass line for ‘The Anarchist,’ and then put the vocal on it, I looked at Nick and said, ‘This song is going to be a motherfucker to play live!’ And he goes, ‘What? Really? It’s not so complicated.’ The thing is, it’s not about what’s complicated; it’s about the direction they’re moving in — the bass is moving in one direction and the vocals are moving in another direction. I’m going to have to play that fucker so many times that I can’t think about it anymore, and that’s why we’ve left ourselves more rehearsal time before this tour than we have for any other record, because I think we’re going to need it — at least I know I will!”
True to Geddy’s lyric specifications, the songs on the record remain substantially independent — the comparison he used was to the Who’s Tommy — “The Anarchist” bears none of the plot trappings of what came before, with Neil painting a psychological picture of a bitter anarchist. Not particularly prone to anarchy through thoughtful politics, this particular individual wants to blow things up because nothing has gone right for him — anarchy is a satisfying way to bring all those more fortunate to his level. Neil’s preamble brings into view the character of the peddler, who asks the loaded question, “What do you lack?” When the anarchist hears this, he answers “vengeance,” evoking images of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause or Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.
“Carnies” underscores another gathering sentiment across the first half of Clockwork Angels — when the band is aggressive and heavy on this record, there’s an element of early blues-boom hard rock about the riffing, circa Led Zeppelin and Free, bleeding into early King Crimson. “Carnies” oscillates between these tank-like passages, an almost Killing Joke–like sense of post-punk, and then more up-tempo, melodic playing circa Rush back on, say, Permanent Waves or Grace Under Pressure.
At the narrative end, Owen Hardy finds work with a carnival, again like Neil, who worked the amusement park back home in St. Catharines as a kid for a summer job. The difference is that Neil manned the booths before his trip to the city and Owen is doing this in the city, although the carnival also travels. Neil readily admits the parallels, telling Mike Doherty, “Ah, the classic dreamer, and one of the lovely distinctions that Kevin and I wove over the character with reflection to our own pasts. When I was in the band J.R. Flood in St. Catharines, where we were doing pretty well, I said to my bandmates, ‘Let’s go to London.’ I did, on my own, but it surprises me to this day that no one wanted to go with me. I went hungry and wasn’t finding fame and fortune as quickly as I’d fantasized, but there was nothing daunting to me at the time. Like Owen, I did stumble into things, and a trail of events that could not have happened otherwise in one sense led me toward the person I am today. I lived away from home for the first time; I got a real job and proved myself in a workday situation, and thus I was never afraid anymore. As crises came up later on, ‘Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this,’ I’d be like, ‘No, I don’t have to.’”
Owen confronts the Anarchist, who is about to conduct an act of terrorism at the Midsummer Festival in Crown City. The Anarchist throws the detonator to Hardy, who is then run out of town, presumed to be the perpetrator. In the lyric, Peart unambiguously relates this odd tale to the concept of fate: Hardy wishes out of this noisy and sense-overloading job, and then his prayers are answered by the angels, but mischievously, with edge.
Underscoring the oppressive nature of the song’s structure, Alex brings many weapons. As Nick told MusicRadar, “Geddy sang the song and after he finished, it was time to come up with the soundscapes. We have three guitar tracks — one on the left, one on the right and one in the middle — and they all have different clean amps with tremolo, panning effects and phasers, Leslie speakers and filtered little sounds. Alex doesn’t really discuss what he’s thinking before he does it. He’ll lay his parts down, and then he’ll call me into the room. I’ll either say, ‘That’s fucking amazing!’ or ‘It can be better’ or ‘It’s done, it’s perfect.’ Nine times out of ten I’ll say, ‘It’s perfect.’ This solo is so cool because of the carnival atmosphere, and that’s all Al. He made those sounds and did all that brilliant guitar work — he had such vision and so many ideas. It was pretty inspiring seeing him follow it all through.”
“I love the opening riff with the cool harmonics,” Alex told Joe Bosso. “It’s got a little bit of Hendrix or Robin Trower about it. The choruses are strong. The carnival-type vibe and the sounds make them quite different from the verse and bridge sections. The climbing bridge is reminiscent of something, but I don’t know what it is. A lot of moments on the album are like that: I’m reminded of something, but I couldn’t tell you what song it is or what era it’s from. That’s a great thing, though — people gravitate to that.”
Other than special case “BU2B2,” track six of twelve, “Halo Effect” is the shortest song on the album (at 3:14). It’s also the closest thing to a ballad on the album, and it’s consistent with soft Rush since Test for Echo as it sounds vaguely Celtic. “There are only really two shorter songs,” remarks Ged. “One is ‘Halo Effect,’ which is quite a beautiful and unusual piece of music. It’s shorter but I don’t know if it’s what you would term as accessible. I suppose it is to a certain degree, but to me that was just a thing the record needed to give you a break. Because there’s so much furious stuff happening before that, you need a mental break just to give it some dynamics.”
Accompanying a casual Neil playing open and cymbal-dominant, Geddy plucking hard on bass (uncommonly articulated for this record) and Alex strumming acoustic (also rare here) is the string section, added in California.
“It’s hard because you start hearing them everywhere,” remarks Geddy, on the temptation. “At first we just wanted strings on ‘The Garden.’ Then we thought ‘Halo Effect’ would really be beautiful with strings. And then you listen to other songs . . . that was Nick’s thing, Nick always hears strings on everything. Then you start thinking, ‘Well, there’s a little bit in “The Anarchist” that would sound great with strings.’ And before you know it, they’ve taken over the whole record if you’re not careful. I think it’s okay to indulge ourselves at this point, and I felt so confident in the strength and the solid bone structure of the songs that I think they can take the extra enhancements without losing the essential thing.”
The first stab at strings on this came from Alex, who added electronic strings to his demo. The actual string section used on the record was in fact commandeered by David Campbell, lifelong Scientologist, father of famed alt rock talent Beck Hansen and arranger on over 450 gold and platinum records. Noted Nick on the acoustic guitar work, “Alex played his Gibson Dove acoustic. We used two tracks, miking him with a U47 tube mic. I put the mic about three feet away so you can get the nice body of the guitar. It’s a pretty gorgeous sound.”
Lyrically, Geddy is really getting his way with this one, “Halo Effect” reading like a simple love song completely detached from plot. To be sure, it is our main character, Owen, who finds himself spurned by a potential love interest who is part of the circus troupe, but unlike “Carnies,” there’s no relating of the plot point to questions of fate, much less a grand religious debate. What’s remarkable about the lyric is how unremarkable it is — or at least how plain-spoken; stylistically, one would never suspect Neil was behind it.
“Another epic riff,” remarked Nick, on “Seven Cities of Gold.” “It sets the tone for the whole song. You know, there’s nothing in the world like a fucking cool Rush song, and that’s what this is. There’s a lot going on, so as a producer, I want to make sure that we don’t lose the song. I love the way it builds up, coming out of this chaotic funk, and then you have Neil just slamming. It makes me want to drive fast. We created a lot of spacey stuff in the middle section. For his solo, Alex played live off the floor. We put him out in the room with his headphones on, and he was right in front of his amp. We wanted to get the screaming feedback coming at him. I think he nailed it in one take. I’m so privileged to have witnessed it — and many moments like it.”
Asked by Chris Jisi at Bass Player about the wacky opening bass workout on the track, Geddy chuckles. “It’s sort of a retro white funk feel mixed with crazy, Robin Trower-y guitar licks. I’m plucking and hammering, while muting with my right hand. It feels like the opening to an old softcore porn movie! Part of it is stiff and not very funky, yet I’m trying to funk it up. It was a weird moment that we just liked and kept. I love the song — it has a nice tempo that you can kind of hold back on and play in a bluesy rock vibe.”
As for the inspiration for the lyric, Neil was amused by this idea that Spanish explorers traipsing around what is now the Southwestern U.S. were always on about the search for the City of Gold. In essence, our protagonist, our global wanderer and searcher, has encountered his second gleaming city, this one very different from the first. No steampunk airship could reach it, so he gets there by water and then a trek through Redrock Desert (a sly reference to the celebrated concert venue). There’s a nice reference to the “alchemy mines,” another concept that is Neil’s alone. Is the first city powered by ore from these pits? Are the cities of gold built from lesser minerals mined here and then transformed by a separate class of alchemists? Musically, this is just a big, loud stadium rocker with a grinding hard rock groove. Again, built into the riff is the story of how the British blues boom begat heavy metal, which Alex had understood as far back as “What You’re Doing” on the very first record.
“It’s very cinematic,” reflected Lifeson on this one, in a Total Guitar interview. “You can hear the danger of the big city as our traveler approaches. Then when Neil comes in and we break out the riff, you’re there — you’re in the city with all of its excitement and opportunity and trouble. The song has a swagger to it. It turned out exactly as I envisioned. I love the end . . . the guitar squealing and spitting as you leave the city.”
“The Wreckers” feels like the band’s homage to the Who — if only for the opening fifteen seconds! Neil is Keith, Geddy is John, Alex is Pete and no one plays Roger. Then we’re into replenishing Rush pop songwriting, mid-tempo, lots of electric guitar, Geddy singing in a comfortable range. Strings creep in, but nothing can take center stage from the song’s hooky power ballad chorus.
“It was very cool, the way that came about,” Alex told Mik Gaffney. “We were on a little bit of a downtime in the studio and Ged picked up one of my guitars. I have all my guitars in the studio — it’s like a family get-together. I might not use ninety percent of them, but they all like to be there. Anyway, I had an old acoustic there, in Nashville tuning, which is like the octave tuning on a twelve-string, so it has a light, airy sound to it. Ged started playing on it, grabbed some lyrics and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ He started playing the verse melody and I said, ‘Wow, this is great!’ Ged wanted to throw it down real quick in the studio so I grabbed a bass and played along, and that’s how we ended up writing it, with him on guitar and me on bass. It was really interesting because Ged plays guitar by using one finger and strumming back and forth, a lot like he plays bass, and I don’t do that, so he was getting a really different sound and feel to it. I play bass totally different to him. So the whole song had a different feel, which was very revealing to us.”
Elaborating on this, in conversation with Jeb Wright, Alex said, “On the original demo, Geddy played guitar and I played bass. When it was recorded, Geddy played the bass but he learned my bass part. He said, ‘I would never play this song like this.’ I learned something from him from the way he played the upstrokes on the acoustic, as I tend to use mostly down strokes. I found that with the Nashville tuning that he used, the upstroke had a particular effect on the song and the shimmering quality. The song eventually evolved and became a different thing but it’s still great when you can evolve and influence each other on your instruments just by looking in a different direction.”
“Just talking about this song chokes me up,” remarked Nick on “The Wreckers” in his MusicRadar track by track. “It’s got the spirit of the ’60s and ’70s, a real purity to it. I tried to get the two of them to switch for the tracking — Alex on bass and Geddy on guitar — but they decided to stick to their designated instruments. The tune is so big, it’s got such bounce and swing, but it took some effort. The guitar part in the verse was probably the hardest thing on the record for us to find. Alex had some difficulty playing the part Geddy had written — it was great, but it didn’t feel right to him. He had to search for the right part, and it took all day with me going, ‘Nope, that’s not it; nope, that’s not it.’ Finally he stumbled onto a picking figure, and Geddy and I just stood up and went, ‘That’s it! That’s the part.’ The tune came together real fast after that. It’s a very melancholy song. It’s almost mournful but in a positive way. I think the song is about trust. See, the wreckers were people who would make fake lighthouses on the coasts and the shores, and they would guide merchant ships into rocky waters in order to wreck them so that they could plunder the ships.”
Neil picked up the idea from a Daphne du Maurier novel called Jamaica Inn, which describes wreckers operating on the coast of Cornwall, in southwest Britain. Peart frames their crimes as a “shocking example of inhumanity.” In his “Seven Cities of Gold” lyric, Neil has Hardy narrowly escaping death in the desert and onto his next adventure. After the wrecking, he is the only survivor. In the lyric, he ruminates that sometimes things are too good to be true, in this case, the salvation of the ghostly light. In truth, everyone wants gold: the alchemists and their patrons want it conjured from nothing, Hardy wants to see a city of it, and the wreckers want to snatch and scavenge it, scooping it up from the ocean bottom, hopefully without survivors from the ship getting in the way.
Next up is blasting rocker “Headlong Flight,” which was launched as the record’s second single, two months before the issue of the full record. The song limped to #84 on the Canadian charts and #23 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock charts — not that much could be expected beyond that. “Headlong Flight” was arguably Rush’s heaviest song since “Stick It Out,” and it was both dense and chaotic to boot, while featuring some of Neil’s most spirited fills to date, but centered around rapid-fire snare rather than tuned toms. Geddy says the song began life as an instrumental to be called “Take That Lampshade Off Yo Head!” but that Neil’s supplied lyric fit so well, they had to turn it into the slashing late-period — last gasp? — heavy metal anthem it became. There’s a vague similarity in some of the guitar figures to “Bastille Day”; in case anyone missed it, Neil draws attention by directly quoting the 1975 classic on the drums.
As Geddy told Jerry Ewing, “There are nods to our past but specifically when it suits the story. For example, ‘Headlong Flight’ is the story of our protagonist looking back over his life, so it seemed apropos to do that in musical terms as well. So we looked back at some things we’d done musically in the past and put a new twist on that just for a moment before jumping headlong off in another direction.”
In terms of the bass part, Geddy told Chris Jisi, “I’m trying to come up with melodies that work around what’s going on, to add a level of orchestration. I do that pretty much by ear as opposed to specifically following the harmony. ‘Headlong’ is interesting; the opening main riff is a repeating figure throughout, but in different forms and time signatures. That’s how the song got going, out of this furious jam I had with Alex. I was jamming with him in the lower register, and he’d start riffing on my riff; then I would move up the neck and he would go somewhere else. When we found that line, it seemed to be such a classic, circular riff, with so much propulsion to it. I knew when Neil got to sink his teeth into it, it would really start to move.”
On the lyric side of things, Geddy took the message of “Headlong Flight” to be that Owen Hardy had looked back on all the positives and negatives of his life and come to the conclusion that if he had to live it all again he wouldn’t change a thing, a sentiment corroborated both by Neil’s preamble and dead-easy lyric. This is a Nietzschean sort of intellectual exercise, or on a lighter note, also the conundrum conjured by the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. Gold is mentioned and there are musings on the idea of fate. Also “quoted” is Friedrich Gruber, a reference to both Friedrich Nietzsche and Neil’s drum instructor in the ’90s, Freddie Gruber.
