Grace Under Pressure

---

Buy at Amazon.com Distant Early Warning (4:59) An ill wind comes arising Across the cities of the plain There's no swimming in the heavy water- No singing in the acid rain Red alert Red alert It's so hard to stay together Passing through revolving doors We need someone to talk to And someone to sweep the floors- Incomplete Incomplete The world weighs on my shoulders But what am I to do? You sometimes drive me crazy- But I worry about you I know it makes no difference To what you're going through But I see the tip of the iceberg- And I worry about you... Cruising under your radar Watching from satellites Take a page from the red book- Keep them in your sights Red alert Red alert Left and rights of passage Black and whites of youth Who can face the knowledge That the truth is not the truth? Obsolete Absolute Absalom Absalom Afterimage (5:04) Suddenly- You were gone From all the lives You left your mark upon 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 feel the way you would - I feel the way you would Tried to believe But you know it's no good This is something That just can't be understood I remember- The shouts of joy Skiing fast through the woods - I hear the echoes I learned your love for life I feel the way that you would - I feel your presence I remember- I feel the way you would This just can't be understood... Red Sector A (5:10) All that we can do is just survive All that we can do to help ourselves Is stay alive... Ragged lines of ragged grey Skeletons, they shuffle away Shouting guards and smoking guns Will cut down the unlucky ones 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 Sickness to insanity Prayer to profanity Days and weeks and months go by Don't feel the hunger-too weak to cry I hear the sound of gunfire At the prison gate Are the liberators here- Do I hope or do I fear? For my father and my brother-it's too late But I must help my mother Stand up straight... Are we the last ones left alive? Are we the only human beings To survive?... The Enemy Within (Part I of Fear) (4:34) Things crawl in the darkness That imagination spins Needles at your nerve ends Crawl like spiders on your skin Pounding in your temples And a surge of adrenaline Every muscle tense- To fence The enemy within I'm not giving in To security under pressure I'm not missing out On the promise of adventure I'm not giving up On implausible dreams- Experience to extremes- Experience to extremes 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... To you-is it movement or is it action? It is contact or just reaction? And you-revolution or just resistance? Is it living, or just existence? Yeah, you-it takes a little more persistence To get up and go the distance... The Body Electric (5:00) One humanoid escapee One android on the run Seeking freedom beneath A lonely desert sun Trying to change its program Trying to change the mode- Crack the code Images conflicting Into data overload 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 S.O.S 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 In distress 1-0-0-1-0-0 Memory banks unloading Bytes break into bits Unit One's in trouble And it's scared out of its wits Guidance systems break down A struggle to exist- To resist- A pulse of dying power In a clenching plastic fist... It replays each of the days A hundred years of routines Bows its head and prays To the mother of all machines... Kid Gloves (4:18) A world of difference A world so out of touch Overwhelmed by everything But wanting more so much- Call it blind frustration Call it blind man's bluff Call each other names- Your voices rude-your voices rough Then you learn the lesson That it's cool to be so tough Handle with kid gloves Handle with kid gloves Then you learn the lessons Taught in school won't be enough Put on your kid gloves Put on your kid gloves Then you learn the lesson That it's cool to be so tough A world of indifference Heads and hearts too full Careless of the consequence Of constant push and pull Anger got bare knuckles Anger play the fool Anger wear a crown of thorns Reverse the golden rule Then you learn the lesson That it's tough to be so cool Handle with kid gloves Handle with kid gloves Then you learn the weapons And the ways of hard-knock school Put on your kid gloves Put on your kid gloves Then you learn the lesson That it's tough to be so cool red lenses (4:42) i see red it hurts my head guess it must be something that i read it's the colour of your heartbeat a rising summer sun the battle lost-or won the flash to fashion and the pulse to passion- feels red inside my head and truth is often bitter- left unsaid said red red thinking about the overhead- the underfed -couldn't we talk about something else instead? we've got mars on the horizon says the national midnight star (it's true) what you believe is what you are a pair of dancing shoes- the soviets are the blues- the reds under your bed lying- in the darkness dead ahead and the mercury is rising barometer starts to fall you know it gets to us all the pain that is learning and the rain that is burning- feel red still-go ahead you see black and white- and i see red (not blue) Between the Wheels (5:44) To live between a rock And a hard place In between time- Cruising in prime time- Soaking up the cathode rays To live between the wars In our time- Living in real time- Holding the good time- Holding on to yesterdays... 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... Wheels can take you around Wheels can cut you down We can go from boom to bust From dreams to a bowl of dust We can fall from rockets' red glare Down to "Brother can you spare-" Another war-another waste land- And another lost generation... It slips between your hands Like water This living in real time A dizzying lifetime Reeling by on celluloid Struck between the eyes By the big-time world Walking uneasy streets- Hiding beneath the sheets- Got to try and fill the void...

Geddy Lee - Bass Guitars/ Synthesizers/Vocals Alex Lifeson - Guitars/Synthesizers Neil Peart - Drums/Accoustic And Electronic Percussion Music by Lee and Lifeson Lyrics by Peart Produced by Rush and Peter Henderson Engineered by Peter Henderson In Memory of Robbie Whelan Mercury, April 12, 1984

Notes:

• Certified Gold by RIAA: June 26, 1984 - Certified Platinum: June 26, 1984 - Highest Billboard Chart Position: 10
• "Steve Lillywhite is really not a man of his word. After agreeing to do our record, he got an offer from Simple Minds, changed his mind, blew us off and went and did the Simple Minds record. So it put us in a horrible position where we were on the verge of entering preprocduction and suddenly we had no producer. All the while we were writing and arranging material we had producers flying in, like every week, to meet with, to talk to. And it was just horrible timing, after going and trying to venture out on our own without our father figure, Terry Brown." - Geddy Lee, Contents Under Pressure
• "During our second stay at Le Studio, while recording Moving Pictures, I fell in love with the Laurentian winter. The assistant engineer, Robbie Whelan, a curly-haired, bright-eyed, enthusiastic young Englishman, introduced me to cross-country skiing, and I used to follow him through the snow-covered woodland trails... When we approached a downhill section, I would hear Robbie's whoops of excitement up ahead [webmaster note: read "The shouts of joy, skiing fast through the woods"]...On his way to work at Le Studio one morning in early 1983, Robbie was killed in a car accident. "Afterimage," was written for him." - Neil Peart, Roadshow
• "Lee's parents, Mary Rubenstein and Morris Weinrib, met in a Polish labour camp in 1941, were shipped to Auschwitz and later transported to separate camps in Germany before reuniting after the war and immigrating to Canada. The horrors of the Holocaust led Lee to doubt the existence of God, but he remains deeply spiritual and his parents' ordeal directly influenced his music. 'I remember the story my mother told me of my grandfather being taken away from their home in Poland. Adult males who caused trouble were taken away and shot. My mother snuck out of the house after her father's arrest and tracked him down where he along with others was lined up. She tripped and fell and got poked with a gun by a German soldier. Her father turned around and was pleading with her to go back. She did and that was the last time she saw him.'" - "Auschwitz Remembered", Toronto Star, pg. A13, Jan. 23, 2005
• "Perhaps the most well-known of Holocaust-influenced rock songs as it first appeared on the band's hit 1984 album Grace Under Pressure, and has been a staple of the band's live shows ever since. The seeds for this harrowing rocker were planted 60 years ago in April of 1945 when British soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Rush lead singer Geddy Lee's mother, Mary Rubenstein, was among the survivors. 'I once asked my mother her first thoughts upon being liberated,' Lee said. 'She didn't believe (liberation) was possible. She didn't believe that if there was a society outside the camp how they could allow this to exist... ' Lee related the story to band drummer and lyricist Neil Peart and also wrote the music. Peart came up with lines such as: 'Are we the last ones left alive?/ Are we the only human beings to survive?' 'The whole album,' Lee said, 'is about being on the brink and having the courage and strength to survive.'" - Rock 'N' Roll Never Forgets Holocaust's Horror, Palm Beach Post, May 6, 2005
• "The video [for "Distant Early Warning"] featured Geddy's son Julian. 'I don't remember too much, except sitting on this rocket thing as if I was riding it for a really long time,' Julian recalled. 'Neil let me play his drums, but I had to be REALLY careful!'" - Chemistry