Hanging out with Geddy, Alex and Neil.

For those curious about the previous post check out the Aug. 3 post on http://homeschoolinitaly.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I'm sitting at my computer and listening to Rush's "Hemispheres" an 18-minute epic from the album of the same name. This song is a sequel to "Cygnus X-1" an 10 minute song from "A Farewell To Kings". I'd have to say that Rush's epic songs rank near the top of my list of favorites. There are quite a lot of them, too. The full "2112" (from, obviously, the album "2112" weighs in at 20 minutes. "Xanadu" and "The Camera Eye" are both 11 minutes long. "Natural Science" is nine minutes, as is the exquisite instrumental "La Villa Strangiato". There's over ninety minutes of music in just seven songs!

Speaking of instrumentals, how about we go over those. Neil writes some pretty deep lyrics which say a lot to me, but the guys in Rush are award winning musicians for a reason and sometimes it's nice to just sit back and enjoy the music. Although they don't write epics anymore they do still crank out those mighty instrumentals. Their latest disc "Snakes and Arrows" boasts two, "The Main Monkey Business" and my personal favorite of the two "Malignant Narcissism" (Geddy's bass really kicks ass in this one). Two from the '90s with whimsical titles are "Where's My Thing?" and "Leave That Thing Alone". And who can forget the classic "YYZ" from their classic album "Moving Pictures". You do know that's the airport code for Pearson International Airport in Toronto, don't you? And Neil plays those letters in Morse code at the beginning of the song! When the Foo Fighters played in Toronto on March 22, 2008 drummer Taylor Hawkins ended his drum solo by having Geddy and Alex join him for a suprise performance of "YYZ". I saw the YouTube video of it and must say it was a damn good performance!

Aw, well, I'll leave you with some meaningful lyrics from one of my all-time favorite Rush songs, "Entre Nous":

"...the spaces in between
leave room
for you and I to grow."