One humanoid escapee
One android on the run
Seeking freedom beneath a lonely desert sun
Trying to change its program
Trying to change the mode… crack the code
Images conflicting into data overload
SOS
In distress
Memory banks unloading
Bytes break into bits
Unit One’s in trouble and it’s scared out of its wits
Guidance systems break down
A struggle to exist
To resist
A pulse of dying power in a clenching plastic fist
It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines
Bows its head and prays
To the mother of all machines
Alex's guitar work in the 80s will always be underrated- He plays a killer rhythm guitar to fit the song.And Neil's drums from 3:57 to the end drive me nuts.
I remember when this piece came out, nobody liked it. I kept listening and soon was brainwashed into loving the hell of it. Rush music grows on you. You hear and recognize things unnoticed previously, the more you study it.
The video is what you'd expect from a band that puts all of its potential to music making: just there! Cheesy, is right. The underlying message, though, is all-permeating: humanity (humanness) is paramount, something not to be lost, exchanged or compromised. Try exchanging machinery-significant words in the lyrics for the respective human ones ("escapee" - "refugee", "a thousand years of routines" - "childhood memories" etc) and what you get is an ode to Man. Of course, we couldn't expect anything less from Neil Peart...
RUSH, is, and will always been the one band that I would choose to listen to only their music for the rest of my life, if I was ever forced to pick just one. I'm a new fan, only been following them since '77.
The stars lined up together that one day in 1974 when Neil joined Rush
One star has faded away, but never forgotten. RIP Neil Peart The Professor of the drumkit
The number 73 is actually pretty special. "73 is the 21st prime number," Sheldon explains. "Its mirror, 37, is the 12th and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying 7 and 3 ... and in binary 73 is a palindrome, 1001001, which backwards is 1001001."
Neil Peart is unquestionably the GOAT of percussionists. He also happens to have a genius IQ and is a libertarian. Look up Dr. Tom Woods and Neil Peart if you question this. Neil Peart The GOAT! one of the best concerts I've ever witnessed!