Posted on 04/02/2021 3:47:14 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Subheading: ‘2112’ can be considered many things – a band manifesto, a conceptual landmark, maybe even the birth of prog metal – but above all, it was the band’s play for creative independence.
The year 1976 was a make-or-break time for Rush. It found them with ambition to spare, a growing cult audience, and a label that wasn’t sure what to do with them. It was time to pull together all of their disparate ideas into one major statement and they accomplish just that with their fourth studio album, 2112.
This was the crucial turning point for the band, the album that changed Rush from just another three-piece hard rock band, and set them on the path to greater glories. 2112 can be considered many lofty things – a band manifesto, a conceptual landmark, maybe even the birth of prog metal – but above all, it was the band’s play for creative independence. Let’s take a classic off the shelf and take another look at 2112 how it came to be.
A prime influence of 2112 was three years of constant touring, which made the band sharp enough to carry out its grandest ideas. Every Rush album had been a departure: The first was solid hard rock, minus the intellectual streak, but with a couple of numbers (“Working Man,” “In the Mood”) that would stay in the setlist for keeps. With Fly by Night, drummer Neil Peart came in and broadened their musical reach by adding his own lyrical ambitions, informed at the time by a love of sci-fi.
Ambition went through the roof on the third album, Caress of Steel, which was apparently inspired by seeing Yes on their Topographic Oceans tour and sported two epics, one of which covered Side Two. A fan favorite in retrospect, it was a career-threatening flop at the time. So it left Rush with two choices: streamline everything and get more straightforward, or do another epic and make sure they got it right. Characteristically, they chose to do both on separate album sides, but it was the epic that really got noticed.
Recorded at Toronto Sound Studios, 2112 proved as accessible as it was ambitious. The side-long Caress track “Fountain of Lamneth” was brilliant but dense, requiring a few listens to get your head around. But the “2112 Overture” charges right out of the gate with an Alex Lifeson fanfare riff. It remains Rush’s longest studio track, clocking in at 20:34, but each section stands out on its own.
Musically Rush was still enamored with prog rock – the band had discovered Genesis and King Crimson as well as Yes – but didn’t put themselves in that category. In their minds, they were still a hard-rock band, with Jimi Hendrix and Cream roots. So it’s no wonder they were also big fans of The Who, since Tommy and Quadrophenia both proved that a hard rock band could write epic pieces. Lifeson told Rolling Stone in 2016 that the Who-like moments in 2112, especially the Pete Townshend-style strumming in the “Discovery” section, were no accident.
Also notable is the Tchaikovsky quote in the closing “Overture” solo that leads to a cannon blast (as it did in Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”) which makes the opening lyrics, “And the meek shall inherit the earth,” all the more ironic. The album’s main lyrical influence proved more controversial. Drummer/lyricist Peart was a great admirer of the novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (specifically her championing of the individual, not so much her right-leaning politics) and the lyric sheet carries a dedication to “the genius of Ayn Rand.”
The title suite of Rush’s 2112 album is set in a totalitarian society where the evil priests of the Temples of Syrinx keep everyone in line. Stability is threatened when a young man finds a guitar, learns to make music on it, and believes the world needs to hear of his great discovery. After the priests of the temple destroy the guitar and send him packing, he envisions a world where music and creativity flourish. Knowing he’ll never see that world, he gives in to despair. The ending is left ambiguous: the singer may have committed suicide, but his struggle may have led to a toppling of the empire. After an instrumental finale with a vicious Lifeson solo, the listener is left with an ominous announcement, “We have assumed control.” A new beginning or a totalitarian clampdown? You decide.
The theme of the individual against totalitarianism was right out of the Ayn Rand playbook, but Rush personalized the story by giving it a young, idealistic hero – the same sort of misfit they’d salute in the later hit single “Subdivisions.”
As the band explained in the accompanying booklet to the 50th anniversary reissue, there was personal relevance as well. The idea of being rebuffed for playing music was especially relevant to them since they were at risk of losing their record deal. Finally, the idea that a government would regulate artistic expression proved to be prophetic, since the days of stickered albums and the PMRC were only a few years away.
The concept of Side Two of 2112 was…its lack of a concept. With its lighter mood and shorter songs (all under four minutes, if just barely) it almost sounds like a different band. Indeed, the first two songs were about the most down-to-earth topics Rush ever addressed: namely, smoking pot and watching TV. “A Passage to Bangkok” is something of a weed travelogue while “Twilight Zone” is about their love for that show.
Lifeson and Geddy Lee each take a rare turn writing lyrics, respectively on “Lessons” and “Tears,” both unusually gentle and reflective songs. With a Mellotron (played by Rush cover artist Hugh Syme) and a warm vocal, the latter sounds more like a Black Sabbath ballad (see ‘Solitude” or “Changes”) than anything else by Rush. More characteristically, the closing “Something for Nothing” hints at a near future when Rush would cram an epic’s worth of changes into a concise piece. Of these five songs, only “Bangkok” would get played live after the 70s, while “Lessons” and “Tears” were never done at all. As a whole, Side Two is a lost gem in the Rush catalog.
In their native Canada, the album cemented Rush’s icon status. They launched a triumphant arena tour that was captured on the next album, All the World’s A Stage, but in America they were now just a bigger cult band, still opening for the likes of KISS and Blue Oyster Cult. 2112 hit the Billboard Top 200 albums chart and saved their career, but the days of platinum albums and US arena sellouts were yet to come. Even in its looser days, American FM radio wasn’t sure what to do with Rush, so it usually did nothing. Not until the next studio album, A Farewell to Kings, was there a track, “Closer to the Heart,” that it could get behind.
For many fans, 2112 is the one where they got on board. And while future albums, especially Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures, sold better and got more airplay, 2112 was the one that made three decades of further experiments possible. Rush never played a show without including some of it, usually the “Overture/Temples of Syrinx” section during the show-closing medley. Fans also rejoiced when the entire suite was played live in the 1996 Test for Echo tour – the only time the band played it through without omitting one of the quieter sections.
Famous fans also took the album to heart. The 2112 anniversary box set boasted cover versions by modern heroes of prog (Steven Wilson), post-grunge (Alice in Chains), and stadium rock (Foo Fighters) that showed just how far their influence went. Just as notably, Syme’s cover art established a key piece of Rush iconography: the “Starman” logo. Featuring a naked figure staring down the symbol of power, it represented the individual taking control. It’s their main Ayn Rand takeaway and a key part of what Rush was all about.
Musically, the band was just getting started. The next two studio albums, A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, were even more ambitious, with Geddy Lee now adding keyboards. The next big piece, “Cygnus XI,” was so epic that it spilled over onto both albums. That’s when Rush decided that long concept pieces were a dead end, and claimed the right to absorb whatever new music struck their interest. The next three decades would be a wild ride, but the Red Barchetta was revved up and ready to go.
2112 can be bought here.
An amazing band. I was fortunate enough to see them twice.
L
I remember hearing this album for the first time in 76 when I was in high school. Blew everybody away. Still listen to it today.
I’m not an audiophile, but 2112 and Moving Pictures are two of my all time favorite albums. The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon are at the top of my list.
Thanks for posting. Always glad to meet another Rush fan
They are the soundtrack of my life.
Genius and gentlemen and humble and funny.
Bookends of the worst year in decades - losing Rush and then losing Rush.
Still in mourning for Neil.
Looks like a few things were left out of the summary; the vision the guitar man saw involved seeing the “elder race” going out to the stars and “learn(ing) and grow(ing)” rather than self-destructing as the priests claimed, and then returning to their home planet and overthrowing the priests.
Also, “syrinx” is the name for a bird’s vocal cords, although in the album’s context it might be the name of the Greek nymph and the reeds that Pan made his pipes out of.
Waiting for the winds of change to sweep the clouds away
Waiting for the rainbow’s end to cast its gold your way
Countless ways you pass the days
Waiting for someone to call and turn your world around
Looking for an answer to the question you have found
Looking for an open door
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
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
I’m more of a Moving Pictures guy.
What you said.
I can explain it in four letters...
Suck.
2112 is basically a retelling of Ayn Rand’s Anthem, with the hero rediscovering a guitar/music rather than electricity. Great message, great song.
Had a brain spasm reading the title of this thread.
Thought it was about Rush Limbaugh....
What I like Rush for is its melding of rock music and sci fi. Sort of like ELO’s melding of rock and classical. It started for me with 2112.
Yeah...really not a good analysis IMO. Neil explained that the record company told them what to do, (make short, radio worthy hit songs) and he philosophically refused as that was not the band they were, esp. after Caress of Steel. They were realistic and were prepared to quit and return to working straight jobs, as 2112 didn’t get much airplay (go figure). I remember that by ‘81, I saw them open their concert with Overture in Philly and 20,000 plus people (me, esp.) were blown away, and Hemispheres and Farewell to Kings fell into place after that time they got exposure into major U.S. markets. It is the perfect parable for fads that come and go quickly but the best withstand the test of time, but I bear witness the Rush was one of the best and “ticks all the boxes” in each category of musicianship, particularly originality and ground breaking artistry. To me, King Crimson, even in all of its forms is the only band to come close as Fripp is the godfather of prog rock!
Thank you so much for posting this! Rush has been part of the soundtrack of my life; until the interwebz I’d heard’em on the radio but never knew who they were until probably the early 90’s. Grateful for the music.
Happy Friday to all the awesome Freeper Rush fans!
Me too. Both fantastic shows.
That was me. I played my first copy of 2112 over and over so many times I wore it out in a month and had to buy another.
Yeah, I saw that interview. Make 3 1/2 minute songs or you’re done, so they made an album with 12 minute songs. LOL
A few years back, Rush made an animated movie to go along with 2112 side A.
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