Dreamers Learn To Steer By The Stars

Last night I was lurking about on the Internet, and on a website that shall remain nameless I downloaded an mp3 of Rush's song "The Pass": its an older song, from their 1989 album "Presto", an album which is otherwise a blank to me. I just remember this song, and the impact it had on me at the time. As with so many Rush songs, it struck a chord in me that no other band, no matter how much I love them, has been able to do.

The song has as usual, terrific lyrics from drummer Neil Peart. It is, apparently, one friend trying to coax another down from killing himself -- but not in a sappy way, like some might. They are actually pretty tough lyrics. The singer tells the friend he has nobody to blame but himself: he doesnt like life because his view of life is unrealistic, not because life has cheated him.

Proud swagger out of the schoolyard
Waiting for the world's applause
Rebel without a conscience
Martyr without a cause...

...And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
Staring down into a heartless sea
Can't face life on a razor's edge
Nothing's what you thought it would be

Hearing this song again last night and today, it still speaks to me just as it did fifteen years ago when I heard it -- in fact, I saw Rush on the Presto tour, and except for a lousy REM concert ten years ago and Green Day last week, it was the last rock concert I went to. Then, I was a very young man making some very hard decisions, and not making them very well, and the song seemed at the same time to challenge the decisions I made and comfort me that the bad times do not last forever. The bridge and chorus of the song are brilliant:

All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
Turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back
And slam the door on me

Now, nearing 40 and feeling in many ways just as confused by the decisions around me as the 24-year-old me did, the song speaks to me again. It speaks to a part of me that Rush has always spoken to, to be honest, the same part that they grabbed when I was 14 -- the part that dreams, the part that has ideas and visions, the part that looks at the night sky and wants to go flying, the part that loves the ocean. The part that spent three hours scrambling around on the rocks of the Brandywine River last Saturday, watching the carp float gently in the summer-depleted river: they seemed to say, stand still, wait, do not be impatient -- life will float to you in its time. It's the part of me I am trying to figure out how to reawaken.

It has never been easy to be a Rush fan, primarily from the standpoint that most of the time when you would read a review of their albums in the mainstream press, they were belittled and even joked about. They were a band for stoners and geeks. Well, so be it, I fall into the geek category. They write about technology and politics and myth and mystery and mixed it all up long before cyberpunk, the Matrix, and the internet even existed. They were the rock band for every kid who wanted to be Luke Skywalker, read the X-Men, or thought Alien was the greatest movie ever made. They were smarter than 90% of the bands out there and were true to their own vision.

So, I am glad to finally have The Pass in my audio library again; it is one of those most perfect meldings of Geddy Lee's bass and vocals, Alex Lifeson's guitars, and Neil Peart's time-defying drumming ever, right up there with all of 2112, The Analog Kid, Marathon, Time Stand Still -- when the chorus kicks in, you want to open up your arms and fly. I am sure you can get it on Itunes -- go check it out. Peace.