Before I headed off to college, I was introduced to the band Rush in the best possible way: a live concert with friends who were fans. We piled into a car, maybe mine, and drove the 40 minutes or so to New Haven. It was the concert supporting their album, Roll the Bones. I think, at that time, I might have known the songs Subdivisions, Freewill and Tom Sawyer. Definitely Subdivisions because I have a rare but vivid memory of the video from when MTV still played music videos. But that was it. I had no idea what I was in for, and I had no idea that was the beginning of a music-oriented journey that has, and continues to influence me greatly.
College is where I truly got hooked. Surrounded by a motley jumble of future architects, artists, cognitive psychologists, computer scientists, actors, writers, and engineers, the pantheon of new music, art, hobbies, and experiences was laid out before me like a buffet at an all-you-can-eat complementary casino stay. The only difference being that these new gods were vibrant, exciting, tangible experiences and not shadowy reflections of a bygone era left to be worshipped by those who fear change and like power.
The guy across the hall was the true progenitor of my Rush fandom, as well as a significant factor in my becoming a guitar player. Mostly because I had a single room as a freshman and he didn’t want to sit in the hallway while his roommate had sex, but also because my room was huge in comparison and a place he could go to practice, whether I was there or not. He was one of those guys who seemed to have it all. Charisma for days, shoulder-length blonde hair, good looks, tall, disciplined, smarter than everyone else, and knew how to wield it to get his way. And he could play the guitar better than anyone I knew. He was the kind of guy you’d look at and secretly hope something bad would happen to, but you knew he was going to probably build something world-changing and retire at 27. Turns out, while he did have his share of bad, the world-changing and retiring-at-27 thing actually happened. Then he started a car company, which he sold to Toyota. All before 40. What an asshole.
But this isn’t about him. It’s about what he inadvertently stuffed in my head: the lyrics of Neil Peart and the music of Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. The guy across the hall brought with his guitar the albums Fly By Night, Moving Pictures, Hold Your Fire, and 2112. And when he finally would get the hell out of my room, their music stayed. Geddy, Alex, and Neil became my roommates. They joined Glen, Todd, Randy, and Dean. As well as Nick, Richard, Syd, David and Roger, and their musical opposite in Stephen. Thankfully, Ayn Rand did not stick around. Thankfully, my late-diagnosed ADHD made those atrocities she produced too cumbersome and too poorly composed to hold my attention. I was already a narcissistic asshole; I didn’t need any more help in that arena.
I found that the more I looked, the more it seemed the engineer and computer science majors were, on the whole, all Rush fans. And Dream Theater, and Yes, and… you get the idea. Prog Rock with its ever-changing time signatures, complicated polyrhythmic counterpointing guitar and bass, seamlessly weaving in and out of celestially inspired synths, and high tenor men crooning stories of gods and monsters, mixing in the difficulties of the great misunderstood Generation X.
Prog Rock? Seriously?
Seriously.
Sure, it was the 90s, and Singles had the best movie soundtrack since 2001: A Space Odyssey. Alternative and Grunge were changing music in a way that hadn’t been seen in decades. Yet, while everyone else was listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and the like, I was trying to learn the 12+ minute guitar opus La Villa Stangiato on an acoustic/electric Yamaha guitar with heavy gauge strings. A song the band couldn’t record in one shot because it is so complicated, I was trying to learn by tablature, I printed off the early World Wide Web after only playing guitar for a year and a half.
Suffice it to say, that did not go well. It went so un-well. So very very un-well. For nine hours straight, I worked away at that song in a Ritalin induced fog of hyper focus. By the end, I hadn’t done any homework, it was 11 pm, one of my finger pads had cracked and was bleeding, my heart felt like it was going to explode, and the only thing I could think to do was go to the campus coffee shop and drink like 40 cups of coffee. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it to any of my classes the next day. I say “pretty sure” because I don’t remember anything that transpired for days after that episode, except one thing. I had essentially learned the majority of the song. Sure, it was bad. But aside from the more intricate solos and a couple of very specific finger and picking patterns I was not dexterous enough to play, I could, for the most part, join in and play with my favorite band.
There are a couple of things that I feel should be elaborated upon. The first is that the Ritalin was prescribed, not poached from my neighbor. I really did drink like 40 cups of coffee, but they were those small tea-like cups that held about 4oz of watered-down shitty coffee. And I’m pretty sure it was probably decaf since I knew everyone who worked there, and I must have looked and acted like the crazy person I was. Friends don’t let friends drink that much caffeine. And, lastly, I really don’t remember much of the two weeks I was taking the Ritalin. But I remember those nine hours, I can still play much of the song, and on rare occasions, my left index finger starts to throb where it had cracked; a faint echo reverberating from a distance reminding me to tread cautiously through the tangle of wants and desires.
Wants and desires.
For someone with ADHD, executive function is underdeveloped. Executive function is actually nonexistent. So, when you want something or desire something, that desire becomes all-encompassing. Logic doesn’t play in this yard. Instead, logic is locked in the shadow-filled back room of the basement where its screams cannot be heard. Thus, nine hours at one task. Thus, after he finishes his set, cornering your favorite singer/songwriter in the bathroom of a small LA club so you can tell him he is the reason you write music, and you’d like to give him your demo as you thrust it into the hands he is still drying instead of waiting outside while he pees like a normal person. That’s the level of stupidity someone with no mechanism for differentiation acts out multiple times a day. That’s was and is my experience, anyway. [Sorry, Glen, you were kind to me in that profoundly awkward and invasive act of narcissistic bravado.]
There are many examples in my life of narcissistic moments of bravado like that. Moments of ineptitude and boundary-smashing that plague me in moments of quiet. The belief that my wants and desires are more important than others’ is a regret I carry. But that ability to regret shows my humanity is not lost. It shows that I eventually have the ability to differentiate between good and bad behavior. Sadly, the differentiation occurred later than I’d like, more often than I care to admit. And it still does. Again, though, I am able to acknowledge and attempt change. Perhaps that is a function of a good education. Perhaps that is due to a higher-than-average IQ, which allows for reflection and discernment between positive and negative behavior. Self-reflection is not a luxury simple-minded people can afford, so I believe I can say I have that going for me.
Neil wrote most of the band’s lyrics. Geddy and Alex wrote the music. They broke all record-label conventions and did what they wanted, how they wanted, without being pressured to create a hit or else. Rush is a unicorn in a herd of donkeys. Now, 50 years after coming together, they are touring again. On stage night after night, playing for their fans. Playing for the memory of their lost brother-in-arms, who died a while back from a glioblastoma. They are in their late 70s. Just slightly younger than my octogenarian parents, who can barely walk down stairs, much less play music in shifting time signatures. I assume they do it because they love it. They do it because it is their art, their life, their purpose, and because they cannot not do it. They do it because they can, and it makes the world a better place to be for the brief moment you get to experience their passion. Neil wrote, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Well, I’d say, they made their choices, and they chose wisely. Just as I feel when I listen to and am inspired by their music.
We live in a world that is not fair. At times, it is cruel and cold and depressing and does everything in its power to crush you. But then it tells you to get up, brush yourself off, and get on with your day. Tomorrow, it will most definitely pull the football before you can kick it, but that is tomorrow. Because we can acknowledge the reality of living on a hellbent hamster wheel of cyclical tortures and brilliance, we are lucky. And when I say we, I mean the majority of people who love their lives one step at a time, carving out a momentary blip in hopes of doing something good to be remembered for. But that is not all of us.
As I was driving my kids to school this morning, my eldest, being the preteen angst-filled payback for how I treated my parent when I was his age, demanded I change the music because he was “sick and tired of listening to the same damn music every morning.” So, I calmly changed from Chvrches to Rush. Why not, right? Probably not what he was expecting, or wanting, but he got the change he wanted, and I got inspired by the brilliance of their writing to write this. What I started thinking I was going to write about and what I ended up putting down are nowhere near each other; yet, oddly, the same. I’ve wended my way around the topic, got far more autobiographical than I expected, probably overwrote and used too much unnecessarily flowery language in order to sound smart. But, as I come to the end and the point I wanted to make, I realize this may not have been the piece I wanted to write, but rather the piece I needed to write.
As I was driving away from dropping them off, still shaking off the look of death my oldest gave me after I told him I loved him a little louder than he’d like, I heard the lyrics of the song A Farewell to Kings. Probably for the first time. I mean, really heard them.
“When they turn the pages of history
When these days have passed long ago
Will they read of us with sadness
For the seeds that we let grow?
We turned our gaze from the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down on the path of least resistance”
Well, that seems quite apropos to the current events, doesn’t it? We could be talking about this moment, this, as an old friend wrote me today, “dumpster fire” burning all around us.
“Cities full of hatred
Fear and lies
Withered hearts and cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude and scoffing at the wise
“The hypocrites are slandering the sacred halls of truth
Ancient nobles showering their bitterness on youth
Can’t we find the minds that made us strong?
Oh, can’t we learn to feel what’s right and what’s wrong?
What’s wrong”
When education is replaced with fairytales and science fiction concocted by a white-knuckled old guard that refuses to cede power and instead ignites a fire that will consume us all, you have to really wonder if hope somehow also escaped when Pandora opened the jar. Because the asylum is currently being run by an inmate with no conscience. This inmate lacks the capacity for discernment to distinguish right from wrong. The inmate only knows want and desire at all costs. And this particular inmate lacks the intelligence necessary to right his flame-engulfed ship as it careens into the fuel depot of society.
“Whoa, can’t we raise our eyes and make a start?
Can’t we find the minds to lead us closer to the heart?”
Why are so many keeping their eyes cast down and allowing self-interest to damn them to a fate of their own making? I get that intelligence is a rare commodity these days, but surely the minds that “lead” are not as blind as they seem?
Or, is this just another example of an unfair life kicking us down, and then extending a hand to help us back up to kick us again tomorrow?
There’s a feudal system at work here and a naked lunatic playing at king. I know we serfs lack individual power, I know the system has been rigged for decades, and it’s worse now than it’s ever been. But serfs overthrew the lords once or twice before. Surely we can do it again?
Those words were written and recorded in 1977. 49 years later, they resonate in a way Neil, Geddy, and Alex never could have imagined.
Today I heard them again for the first time.