Moving Pictures Radio Special
Promo album by Anthem Records for radio broadcast, February 1981, transcribed by Spirit of Rush
Transcribers Note: Some lines from the following text may seem familiar as they were used in the Exit...Stage Left video.
ALEX: I know Geddy and I, we wanted to get a little more involved in the music, in that we wanted to write things that were a little more complex than what we were doing back then during the first album period. And when Neil came in he felt exactly the same way and he added that third element and gave us the push that we were looking for.
GEDDY: I think a lot of it... when you're very young and starting, grows out of hero worship to a large degree, you're going 'wow'! I mean these guys are doing great things, making good music and they're stimulating me. I'm listening to this record and I'm getting excited and they're moving me. So, when something affects you in your life that much, the natural thing is to want to learn from that and emulate it to a certain degree.
ALEX: It's like the Beatles... they saw us play at the Gasworks once and it's a little known fact that we wrote all their songs!!! (general laughter)
NEIL: I think one overriding principle that remains is our motivation for... in composition of music and in playing it, is,... what if? I think that leads me into a lot of lyrical ideas and, I know, musically, a lot of times you say 'Well what if?' I think that if you had to simplify a motivation or simplify a moving force in our music, that would probably suffice. That's the question you tend to ask most often, 'What if?'
["Tom Sawyer" plays]
INTERVIEWER:There's an influence there, of the scripting, that I can't put my finger on.
GEDDY: But there are a lot of unconventional things about that song for Rush. I mean, there's virtually no bass or guitar in a lot of parts of that. A lot of time it's just drums, voice and synthesiser.
NEIL: It's also a very modern urban setting for that Tom Sawyer mentality of having a very carefree stride, a very self-possessed kind of air that was inherent in those stories and is inherent in that period of life, you know... of being that age of adventurous boys. Also, being fearless is a quality you have as a young boy and then kinda, maybe lose as you get out into the working world and get subjected to a lot of pressure and intimidation - that spirit of boyhood adventure tends to get crushed or set aside.
GEDDY: The most important thing and the hardest thing to overcome is the fact that, basically, the competitive thing that goes down inside of you. When you sit down and write, it 's very hard to shake that basic thing of 'My ideas are better than your ideas' and sometimes you'll flog it to the nth degree until someone agrees with you. But, eventually, it's through experience of us working together we've...
ALEX: ...realised my ideas are better than yours!
GEDDY: The only thing is they only come once a year!
INTERVIEWER: Well, what happens? Like, Alex, do you come up with a riff or a break or something and you'll get Geddy and say, "How do you finish this?"
GEDDY: The usual setting is, I'll be slaving in the studio writing songs and Alex will be building his airplane and then he'll come in and say, "Ok, well, lets work on this song"...
["Red Barchetta" plays]
INTERVIEWER: In many ways "Red Barchetta" is probably one of the most important songs lyrically, on the album because of the fantasy, the Sci-Fi aspect to it, the Orwell scene of the police, outlawed motor vehicles and that, but yet, the car is such a basic, classic rock'n'roll element.
NEIL: Well it seems to me that the car has been one of the standard metaphors, and volumes have been written about the sociological and cultural impact of the car and what it represents in terms of culture and mass-culture in the individual's lifestyle and so on. But that probably is self-ex planatory. But it also has a fundamental sensual appeal and it 's a metaphor for sexuality and for freedom - certainly independence and all that . And it 's a very street-wise thing, I mean, you know, in more ways than one even. It is a part of real life in so many ways, as well as being a fantastic thing and a thing that's larger than life in many aspects... and it does actually help a lot to clarifY an Orwellian kind of statement, of which that song is. Actually, behind all that whimsical fantasy that it is, and was intended to be, in many ways for me it was a whimsical indulgence, because I have a strong feeling about sports cars, a kind of "top down" driving to me has always been very exciting and sensual.
["YYZ" plays]
INTERVIEWER: "YYZ" isn't exactly like the "Villa" track off Hemispheres.
NEIL: No. Actually, we had really intended for the last two albums to do a short instrumental because "La Villa Strangiato" was very satisfying, being it was really the first instrumental piece we'd done as a self-contained instrumental. Obviously we've done lots of instrumental passages and so on. We had a strong idea that we'd like to do a shorter, more concise instrumental that was actually a song - with a verse and a chorus and so on. Sort of, maybe, a la 'Weather Report'. A lot of their material is constructed as a regular song only it happens to be an instrumental. The title "YYZ" refers to Toronto National Airport. That's, like, the code that's used by the control tower and the pilots and so on... so the intro to the song is actually the Morse Code read - out for YYZ which is transmitted by T.I.A. Control Tower.
INTERVIEWER: So any radio station playing the track will find 747's landing on it's roof.
NEIL: (laughs) Really? They'll think it's T.I.A. There are parts of the song that are sort of semi-evocative of the feelings that are engendered, of course, when you're going to the airport to leave, you're sort of feeling edgy and tense because you're having to leave home and you're going away to work and you're thinking half at home and half away... about what you're going towards and it's a very transitional period and there's also the sense of being in an airport anywhere. I think that is true of exotic places, you know, you always have a sensation of infinite possibilities at an airport. You can change your mind and fly to anywhere in the world.
INTERVIEWER: That's exhilarating isn't it?
NEIL: You see people in the airport from all over the world and all of a sudden you're not in Toronto anymore, you're in the world and an airport shouldn't really be said to be a city because it never is... it's always a crossroads and that's, of course, a big part of the song. We tried to work a lot of the exotic nature of the airport in there. Then the big 'sappy' instrumental part... there's an instrumental bridge in the middle that's really orchestrated and really emotional and rich, which of course is again, half symbolising the tremendous emotional impact of coming home, you know, when you've been away for a month or even two months - that feeling you have when the plane hits the taxi-way of Toronto airport is pretty overwhelming.
["Limelight" plays]
INTERVIEWER: It seems to me, the stage is almost Rush's natural habitat.
NEIL: I must admit, I feel very comfortable there. I like playing live a lot, let's face it, there's a tremendous ambience about a concert hall too, before even the band starts playing, from the time that the doors open you feel that this place is electric. You know, that's one of the things I like most about the road... is that feeling of standing in the hall when the doors open and you feel the excitement bursting into the hall and that all happens before the band takes the stage, so you realise that this thing has an entity of itls own.
INTERVIEWER: Rush's music has taken on almost a personal flavouring in the lyrics and the music. In "Limelight" the line, "I can't pretend the stranger is a long awaited friend", is a very bitter kind of statement, and Rush, while they made...
GEDDY: I disagree. I don't think that's bitter. I think that particular line is just a pure objective view of "Hey! I'm not... I can't pretend things like that".
INTERVIEWER: But you got to pretend too, a certain part, just to function in life, don't you?
GEDDY: I don't think so. I think that song sort of says that you don t have to pretend, but you have to face the facts, because you can't pretend. You're going to come up with certain realities that are difficult to deal with...
NEIL: It's easier, often to pretend but I don't think it is in the long term because you build up a pretense and a pattern and a habit of pretense that I've seen a lot of people fall into, in a personal and professional level. You watch somebody play a facade for so long that the facade becomes the reality...
GEDDY: ...When you live and breathe the lifestyle that you can in rock'n 'roll it is very easy to get very far removed from the street, say.
INTERVIEWER: You're now working with a new instrument and I get the feeling, just listening, it's rekindled that novelty feeling that you have for an instrument and I think what's happened with you, and just listening to your bass playing, you've managed to transfer, consciously or subconsciously that renewed novelty and that enthusiasm back into your bass playing.
GEDDY: Oh yeah, undoubtedly. Because when you get a new instrument it is like you're starting all over again, as you say, it is very exciting for me at this point now to learn the keyboard. Every time I get a new chord down or every time I figure out a new sound on one of my synths, it's like, "WOW!" I like rediscovering what to play. And it's also helping me in rethinking my approach to the bass because you learn, when you play one instrument such as bass or guitar, you learn to look at the fingerboard in a particular way and you learn how to write your melodies in a particular style, as related to your instrument. But when you all of a sudden bring in a keyboard, when all of a sudden it's laid out totally different, the notes look in different places and you have a tendency to play notes on a keyboard that you wouldn't necessarily think of playing on a bass. So, all of a sudden, it renews your excitement about writing melodies and you can relate that to the instrument, the bass instrument, and I find I'm making myself play more interesting melody lines. Also, I have a given point where I'm playing bass, so it 's like, "Ok, I just don't have to sit in the background and keep the pedestrian beat happening, I can stretch out and do something a little more interesting, sort of weave the bass pattern around the other things that are going on". And I'm strictly, someone who plays basically with texture and melody and very simply trying to put the right things in the right place. On this album I expanded on that original concept, to encompass more choral work into more background stuff and even at times, to set a mood with very little other instruments happening but, say, the drums and keyboards, because there's qUite a lot of places on this album where I drop out as a bass player and "The Camera Eye" is a good example. Only about half that song has electric bass in it, the rest of it is being accomplished through bass pedals and keyboards, with group chordings and single line things happening. That was a definite move in a direction for me - expanding my role as a texture melody maker.
ALEX: The last couple of albums, we went away to far away places for about three weeks and did all the writing and then went back on the road for a month to get back into shape. Both times it was after summer vacations. In that way, we were prepared physically, we were all tuned up, so we could go into the studio and play really well, like professional musicians! And most of the music was together, most everything was written and arranged and rehearsed and refined and all the rough edges were smoothed out...
INTERVIEWER: And even performed live I believe... before you went into the studio.
ALEX: We did a couple of songs in the set and we did a couple of others in the soundchecks every day.
INTERVIEWER: How does that change a song?
ALEX: It makes it so much easier once you're in the studio. First of all, to lay the tracks down, because you're familiar with the song - you've rehearsed it, you've practiced it.
GEDDY: Actually, while you're rehearsing the song you're preparing to record it.
INTERVIEWER: Neil, you play the drums in the band which is probably the most primal aspect of the music, and you write the lyrics, so that implies the thinker part of you... and you bring both these extremes to Rush. How do you think you balance them or...
GEDDY: I think Neil could probably explain this much better than I!
ALEX: Well... Oh, I'm not Neil!!
NEIL: (laughs) I am!... I think there's a very strong relation that's, maybe generally not recognised between drums and between words, because the rhythmic structure and the phrasing and the rhythm of verse especially, is very strongly rooted in the same kind of syncopation as the drums are. And the same patterns of thinking overall, work for me with words as much as they do with drum beats. I tend to think in small patterns and big patterns overlapping and I know that when I sit down and work on lyrics, it's very similar to figuring out a drum part in my mind, because it is all a kind of rhythmic structure of some kind - however loose - and it's the same with drums.
["Witch Hunt" plays]
INTERVIEWER: 'Witch Hunt', which is a very moody, thought provoking piece of music, is very rich with a lot of theatre and drama.
GEDDY: When Alex and I first received those lyrics, and read them, I mean, the scene was so vivid. Those lyrics are very very cinematic, they're very visual - you read through it and you have a clear cut picture in your mind of the scene that's going on. And we sat down and said, "ok let's try and capture that imagery that the lyrics evoke, let's try to put that together with music", you know. We worked very carefully with that in mind. And setting the instruments in the right place and having the right sound here to evoke that kind of image in your mind... and we looked at it very, very cinematically, which is something we've done in the past on various tunes, but this we did totally.
["Vital Signs" plays]
INTERVIEWER: In "Vital Signs" the guitar punches all the way through and it's really very different than what you've done before.
ALEX: I really enjoy playing like that and I like the sound of that, that clean fender staccato sound, so we just aimed for that.
GEDDY: "Vital Signs" is my bag as... I hate that word... as a keyboardist because the sequencer line, you know, is an integral melodic line and mood part of the tune. But it 's very subtle as far as the mix is concerned, it's this little thing that's weaving it's way in and out of the whole tune, then at the end - where all of a sudden we want to turn around the feel of the song and make it more orchestral and make it a little more universal, you know - very simple string lines come into play, filling up the background wash.
INTERVIEWER: It's interesting as you describe it, it's like doodling your way through the song and it's almost separate from the rest of the song but yet fits in, in the same sort of way...
GEDDY: ...Yet at the same time it's almost identical to the bass line. It's doing that same spidery weaving it's way through the whole tune.
INTERVIEWER:And that's like a musical attitude or idea or device, that up to this point, I haven't really heard in Rushs music.
GEDDY: No, it's a new thing for us, and that I think, is directly inspired by a lot of the electronic bands.
ALEX: There's also the "what if?" question that Neil mentioned earlier, as well. All through the last tour we were really thinking of, "what if we did something that was, that had that feel to it?" and we ended up doing it, and it was a lot of fun.
GEDDY: Your basic job as a musician is to entertain people and I really believe that. I think that's the first and foremost thing. I think when you listen to any kind of music or go to enjoy any kind of entertainment the first thing is, it has to be good enough to make you entertain - you have to capture their imaginations in some respect you know, it's entertainment, face it! But as to the depth of entertainment, that's where the second question comes in - how multi-layered do you want to make that? Do you want to make it pure and simple or just come out and you bop for ten minutes and people feel good, or do you want to put something in a little deeper in case someone cares to look. And I think the second one is the justification for your own self to do it. An artist first and foremost before his audience has to do something that is stimulating to himself, and that's what we try to do, and that's been our number one priority with us. If we can 't do something that keeps us stimulated and it has enough layers in the music and in the lyrics that we find is interesting and something new, then no matter how much it's going to be appreCiated by 'X' number of people, it's not worth it.