My brother and I recently experienced something that can only be described as transcendent for two sixty-something rock-and-roll geezers. Surrounded by some 20,000 screaming fans (many of them also sixty-somethings and seventy-somethings), we saw Rush’s Fifty Something tour at Chicago’s United Center.
As a rock-and-roll fan, I could die knowing that my thirst for awesome concerts had been more than quenched. Not to brag (but of course bragging), a “short” list includes The Who, Bruce Springsteen (twice), The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd (though post-Roger Waters), The Grateful Dead (also twice), Eric Clapton with opening acts Robert Cray and Steven Ray Vaughn (the night before Vaughn was killed in a helicopter crash), David Bowie, U2, Black Sabbath on their very last tour, Santana, and Boston. I also saw Rush in 1980 on their Permanent Waves tour. Until six weeks ago, David Bowie amazed me as the best concert I’d ever seen.
Fast forward to this year, and Rush’s Fifty Something tour far surpassed any of the above. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson (at age 73!) were joined by an amazing new drummer, Anika Nilles, and she didn’t miss a beat in re-creating the powerhouse drum-pummeling of the late Neil Peart. At many moments, the concert turned into a tribute to Peart, leaving many a sixty-something and seventy-something choking up a bit. Lee, Lifeson, and Nilles didn’t even play four of my favorite Rush songs, and yet it was still the best concert I had ever seen.
Rush is from Canada, a nation that has been in the news a lot recently, thanks to Donald Trump’s ridiculous trade war. Since we’re in this mess, Americans—er, U.S. citizens, because Canadians are also Americans—should ponder what we get from Canada. Not surprisingly, given this administration’s thirst for control over the world’s energy supplies, our biggest import by far is oil, and other energy sources like natural gas, electricity, uranium, and propane are high on the list.
And what has Canada contributed to the world over the years? A quick Claude search lists the inventions of basketball and insulin, countless other amazing musicians (including Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young), great authors (including Margaret Atwood and Nobel Laureate Alice Munro), and legendary actors (including Christopher Plummer, Donald Sutherland, and William Shatner). Alexander Graham Bell did much of his research in Canada before inventing the telephone. Did you see “The Odyssey” in IMAX? That tech was invented in Canada.
And yet I believe Canada’s greatest export is a form of rugged individualism that the United States now falsely claims as its own. Our nation doesn’t hold a candle to Canada’s. To survive in the cold frontiers of the Yukon, the Northern Territories, and Nunavut, and even the northern parts of the lower provinces, “rugged” has to be part of your makeup.
This sense of being your own person, not swayed by people who tell you who you should be, is all over the lyrics Rush.
Their biggest hit, “New World Man,” describes this sort of character:
He’s a rebel and a runner, he’s a signal turning green
He’s a restless, young romantic, wants to run the big machine
He’s got a problem with his poisons, but you know he’ll find a cure
He’s cleaning up his systems to keep his nature pure…
Learning to match the beat of the Old World Man
He’s learning to catch the heat of the Third World Man
He’s a New World Man
One of their best-known songs, “Tom Sawyer” (with the most amazing drum work by Peart AND by Nilles in concert), outlines the blueprint for a modern-day individualist:
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
What can speak to rugged individualism like the concept of “Free Will”:
Each of us, a cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends with uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that’s far too fleet
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
Rugged individuals know that hard effort is part of the bargain of life, and you don’t get “Something for Nothing”:
No, 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
What you own is your own kingdom
What you do is your own glory
What you love is your own power
What you live is your own story
A few other prominent examples:
In the band’s classic “2112”—their depiction of a futuristic, dystopian, techno-fascist state—we generally focus on the oppressors, the priests of “The Temples of Syrinx.” But the protagonist of this seven-part masterpiece is a person who sees a way out of it by creating something new: music. He has the vision for change: “I see the hand of man arise / With hungry mind and open eyes.”
The narrator of “Red Barchetta” lives in a future, oppressive society with a “motor law” that presumably strips people of the freedom they feel when driving. He escapes to his uncle’s farm, where he can experience the wind at his back and the thrill of a roaring engine while racing through the valley in the titular automobile…and escaping from the oppressors who try to chase him down.
The narrator of “Fly by Night” is leaving town to reinvent himself, to change his life and find a better path.
I could go on.
As I ponder what the United States has become under a man who has erased much of our individualism, turned our citizens against each other, and created flocks of haters who can’t think for themselves, I often wonder what it will take to turn things back to a place where our nation regains this sense of individualism, creativity, critical thinking, and love for our fellow humans. Different leaders are just part of the equation, but like history’s greatest leaders, the change they must bring about isn’t a matter of policies. We need a change in consciousness, which starts with our leaders but is really on all of us.
And so I leave you with the lyrics of my very favorite Rush song, "Closer to the Heart”:
And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Yes, closer to the heart
Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Yes, closer to the heart, yeah!
Whoa-whoa!
You can be the captain
And I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
Thank you, Neil, Geddy, Alex, and now Anika.
Lee, I absolutely love this. Yeah, I'm a little biased for sure, but all of it is so true. (I wish we were lucky enough to hear "Something for Nothing" but I think it appeared on one of the other setlists.) Their messages are clear, especially Neil's lyrics which will be eternal despite him leaving the earth way too soon. But the way things are going here in the USA, individualism has eroded to the point where it's doubtful that will change in our lifetimes. Perhaps we need a real "Starman" to return us to real greatness and sanity.