What the hell has happened?

Carol

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This song has more relevance now than when I first heard it...over 25 years ago.

What the hell have we done?

Rush - Witch Hunt (1981)

"Those who know whats best for us - must rise and save us from ourselves"

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Carol

Carol

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Lyrics:

The night is black
Without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.

Features distorted in the flickering light,
The faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possesed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.

They say there are strangers who threaten us,
are immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves.
Those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand...
 

SFC JeffJ

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It really is a timeless song. There have always been people like that and I'm sure they'll be in the future as well.
 

sgtmac_46

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Hey, it's okay to do those things......so long as we claim it's in the name of 'tolerance and equality'.

It's all about love and unity....and just think how loving and unified we could be if we could find a way to get rid of all those people who disagree with us! ;)
 

elder999

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I'm a long-time Rush fan. A lot of their songs are very well thought-out!


Yeah, and the instrumentals kick ***! Too bad Getty Lee's vocals really, really, really, really suck out loud.

Sorry. I can barely play a few instruments well enough to keep people from running from the room screaming-I only wish I could play the bass as well as he does, never mind guitar or keyboards-, but I can really, really, really sing(at least that's what everyone tells me)-and I know singing-and his, well....:barf:
:lol:

In the meantime, sure-keep training. Keep your powder dry, and watch your six. Don't think for a moment that it's just any one man's or the sheeple's fault-there's someone behind all of it, and it was decided long ago.
 

jarrod

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you know, i've run into several people who claimed they hated neil young because of his singing, then cited rush as their favorite band. i'll take neil's thin warbley talking voice over geddy's shrill nasal voice any day.

jf
 

Tames D

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Yeah, and the instrumentals kick ***! Too bad Getty Lee's vocals really, really, really, really suck out loud.

Sorry. I can barely play a few instruments well enough to keep people from running from the room screaming-I only wish I could play the bass as well as he does, never mind guitar or keyboards-, but I can really, really, really sing(at least that's what everyone tells me)-and I know singing-and his, well....:barf:
:lol:

In the meantime, sure-keep training. Keep your powder dry, and watch your six. Don't think for a moment that it's just any one man's or the sheeple's fault-there's someone behind all of it, and it was decided long ago.

Blasphemy!
icon7.gif
 

Ramirez

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Yeah, and the instrumentals kick ***! Too bad Getty Lee's vocals really, really, really, really suck out loud.

Sorry. I can barely play a few instruments well enough to keep people from running from the room screaming-I only wish I could play the bass as well as he does, never mind guitar or keyboards-, but I can really, really, really sing(at least that's what everyone tells me)-and I know singing-and his, well....:barf:
:lol:

It's an acquired taste. I live in Toronto which is ground zero for Rush and my Dad used to tell me of seeing those guys play the local clubs, and everyone thought they sucked....mostly due to Geddy Lee's singing. As I recall he said Lee was an odd little guy wearing coke bottle glasses with a voice like a dentist's drill.
 

Sukerkin

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That's a little bit of rock history for your dad there, Ramirez. I didn't get to see Rush until five or six years ago when they played the Manchester Apollo.

As to the song, Rush lyrics have often been about much more than the standard rock fare of bikes/cars and hot babes {mmm, just had a "Cherry Pie" flashback then :lol:}. It's part of what makes them one of the best bands of the past thirty-odd years and the poetic nature of them allows for them to be interpreted in shades of meaning depending on the listener.

That in turn can make them excellent as 'focus songs' and Witchhunt is very relevant to how the world has been going for quite some time :tup:.
 

Ramirez

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That's a little bit of rock history for your dad there, Ramirez. I didn't get to see Rush until five or six years ago when they played the Manchester Apollo.

As to the song, Rush lyrics have often been about much more than the standard rock fare of bikes/cars and hot babes {mmm, just had a "Cherry Pie" flashback then :lol:}. It's part of what makes them one of the best bands of the past thirty-odd years and the poetic nature of them allows for them to be interpreted in shades of meaning depending on the listener.

That in turn can make them excellent as 'focus songs' and Witchhunt is very relevant to how the world has been going for quite some time :tup:.

I think he saw them before Neil Peart joined the band, Peart writes most of the lyrics. Actually if you ever hear their first album, they lyrics were pretty banal.

Funny thing about Rush, they ruled in my high school, adored by all the head banging, lumber jacket wearing metal heads, who spent most of their spare time smoking pot. I always wondered how many of them ever realized that Xanadu was based on Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan or ever listened to any of Peart's lyrics seriously.

Mind you given Sam's taste for opium, maybe he would have been a pot smoking metal head 250 years later too.
 

jarrod

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I think he saw them before Neil Peart joined the band, Peart writes most of the lyrics. Actually if you ever hear their first album, they lyrics were pretty banal.

Funny thing about Rush, they ruled in my high school, adored by all the head banging, lumber jacket wearing metal heads, who spent most of their spare time smoking pot. I always wondered how many of them ever realized that Xanadu was based on Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan or ever listened to any of Peart's lyrics seriously.

Mind you given Sam's taste for opium, maybe he would have been a pot smoking metal head 250 years later too.

a lot of metal heads are pretty smart people, whether they smoke pot or not. many didn't perform well in school but were actually very intellegent.

jf
 

Ramirez

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a lot of metal heads are pretty smart people, whether they smoke pot or not. many didn't perform well in school but were actually very intellegent.

jf

Okay, let me specify, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, circa 1980-1984, at Victoria Park Secondary School, the metal heads were not all that bright.
 

arnisador

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It's an acquired taste. I live in Toronto which is ground zero for Rush and my Dad used to tell me of seeing those guys play the local clubs, and everyone thought they sucked....mostly due to Geddy Lee's singing. As I recall he said Lee was an odd little guy wearing coke bottle glasses with a voice like a dentist's drill.

Plus, he looks like the whiny guy from The Warriors in addition to sounding like him. His voice is, shall we say, an acquired taste. But..great songs, and about more than wanting to rock-n-roll all night long.
 

Ramirez

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That's a little bit of rock history for your dad there, Ramirez. I didn't get to see Rush until five or six years ago when they played the Manchester Apollo.

That is nothing, you will even run into the occasional person who knew Lifeson and Lee in high school.

It may have been a BS story but I remember talking to one guy who said Lee tried to join his garage band every year, and they would tell him to take a hike, Lifeson was a bit of an outcast too.
 

Andy Moynihan

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".....Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row...."
 

Tames D

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Plus, he looks like the whiny guy from The Warriors in addition to sounding like him. His voice is, shall we say, an acquired taste. But..great songs, and about more than wanting to rock-n-roll all night long.

Now you did it... theres a line in that movie where the guy says "The Warriors did it". I can't get that line and that voice out of my head...
 

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