Fly By Night--Rush (1975)

This is the chronologically second album in the Rush catalogue, and the first with percussionist/lyricist/cool font & lettering guy Neil Peart. He has had a lot of great song & album ideas/"concepts," brought a literary influence to the band, and I personally think that "Quietly pensive, my thoughts apprehensive" is one of the best rhymes in all of rock music. The owl on the cover is very huge and menacing and would be even better on the vinyl version. You could even glue on some standard googly eyes and make a ScareJeff. I'm starting to ramble so we'd probably get to the track-by-rack soon but first I'd like to say that it was nice to include pictures of their road master, road crew, and producer/engineer/arranger. The last guy, Terry Brown, looks very kindly and I believe he is wearing flannel.

Anthem The title is kind of ironic in that you think of anthems as songs for a big group of people like a country. But this is essentially a song in praise of individuality and looking out for number one. I gotta tell you though, I never really understood this song until reading the lyrics in FBN. So if you've only heard this song on Chronicles and just sort of sat there going "Huh?" when I was explaining the irony of the title, don't worry because it will make sense when you read the lyrics. It's sort of a harsh song but I still like it, especially the repetition of "wonders in the world."

Best I Can In parts of this song Geddy Lee sounds like somebody else but I can't place who. Like some 80's guy. Oh, well. The funny thing is, the song has 70's written all over it in many other resepects. Like the guitar effects, fills, and the attitude inherent in the ending. "Leave me alone and let me rock and roll." Was there ever a more impressive imperative sentence? This is my clever way of saying that I'm not too impressed with the lyrics in this song.

Beneath, Between & Behind Continuing in our series of songs with "B" prepositions that began with "Before and After." It starts off with a riff that's somewhere between "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" and "Four Sticks." This is another song that is more meaningful when the lyrics are read. (Is anyone picking up on the fact that I'm a majorly visual, non-audio person? Either that or Geddy Lee is incoherent....nah) What I'm getting at is that when I listen to this song, I'm like, yeah this is cool, the typical verse-chorus-v-c-solo-v-c rock song, but when I read the lyrics it has a deeper meaning.

sign of eth made transparent courtesy of Transweb Transparent Gif Service

By-Tor & The Snow Dog I found an image (courtesy of Microsoft Bookshelf) that had the sign of eth. So now you can visualize it rising in the air! In other image-related news, I guarantee I would buy a shirt with the words "snow dog" written on it how Neil wrote them in the liner notes. This is a really interesting song, and not just because it uses the word Styx in a non-Dennis DeYoung, non-James "JY" Young, non-Tommy "I look like David Spade" Shaw context. (If you've seen the Behind the Music you know what I'm talking about!) This was the first Rush song to be divided into sections using Roman numerals, and not just I, II, III but also i, ii, iii. It was also the longest song so far. Quality rhyme of "disciples of the Snow Dog sound the knell" with "By-Tor in defeat returns to hell." This reminds me, it's time for something that has inadvertantly become a feature of every Rush review, the unnecessary Rush/Yes comparison. First off, the "battle" section of this song (that would be section III) is very musically similar to the "battle" section of Gates of Delirium. Also, in a fight between the Snow Dog and the Moon-Dog from "We Have Heaven," who would win? I say Snow Dog because for one thing this is the review of his song, plus he defeated "Knight of darkness...centurion of evil...devil's prince...a close personal friend of mine and a heck of a modern American...By-Tor!" It's sort of like Schultz's cats--Fritz and Toby. Toby is cool but Fritz could totally take him.

Fly By Night Their big radio hit from his album, an interesting choice to follow a song that probably has never been played on a commercial radio station (unless I was their program director...hehe). The title is noteable because fly-by-night m eans, according to The American College Dictionary, "1. irresponsible; unreliable. 2. a person who leaves secretly at night in order to avoid paying his debts." Now apart from the sexist language in that defⁿ, this is pretty funny. Th e song itself tends to focus on the more positive aspects of change--"My life begins today."

Making Memories The shortest song on the album. I hesitate to call it a throwaway track but it hasn't made much of an impression on me yet. A nice little "on the road" song with a nod towards the end to the increasingly appreciative American a udiences.

Rivendell This song comes from something in The Lord of the Rings. I'm going to ask Helen for more info so I know what's going on. What I can tell you about the song is that Geddy Lee's voice sounds like he's going to burst into tears at any moment. It's a cool song just because it's so different: quiet, calm, acoustic. Great imagery in the lyrics--I picture a bunch of people sitting around a campfire or something. I think I would have put it at the end of the album so people could have a nice song to listen to before they fell asleep.

In the End This is one of those songs that is trying to make a statement but I just don't get it. The lyrics almost seem to contradict themselves....a most ingenious paradox. This song feels like it would have fit in better on the first album. It's not that I don't like this song, I just haven't really listened to it enough yet, being at the end of the album as it is and all.

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