Rush ~ Between The Wheels ~ R30 Tour ~ [HD 1080p] ~ 9/24/2004 at the Festhalle Frankfurt, Germany
76,811
Published 2020-03-24
The album's title was inspired by a quotation from Nobel Prize winning American novelist Ernest Hemingway. Rush's drummer and lyricist Neil Peart was an avid reader and admirer of Hemingway, and liked the quotation "courage is grace under pressure," as he thought the quote reflected the ambient mood of the G.U.P. recording sessions. Peart presented the idea of this quote to the rest of the band, and they liked it enough to call the album "Grace Under Pressure."
News stories from the Toronto-based newspaper The Globe and Mail inspired the song's lyrics. Per Neil: "1983 was a tough year for many people, no question about it. It was a year of crisis and tragedy - both globally and on the home front. While we were at "Writing camp" the Toronto 'Globe & Mail' was delivered to our doors each morning. I found myself reading it over breakfast every day, before I would start working on lyrics. The topics of the day were necessarily on my mind, and this circumstance affected the lyrics to certain songs profoundly. This was the time that the Korean 747 murders, the ongoing cruise missile controversies, and acid rain was large in the Canadian news. Wars raged everywhere - and we, our families, and our friends were trying to cope with economics, death, illness, stress, romantic problems, unemployment, and depression. A song like 'Between the Wheels' was definitely interwoven with these thoughts and feelings."
The opening lines of this song bring to mind a person who has either become a TV junkie, living life through fiction, or so afraid of what is happening in the real would (on TV), they cut themselves off from society:
"To live between a rock and a hard place
In between time
Cruising in prime time
Soaking up the cathode rays"
Neil was looking at what happened to those who lived between the two World Wars (often called the "Lost Generation" - a phrase used by Hemingway (who was the inspiration of the album title) and was beginning to see parallels to our own modern culture in the early 80's and now the 21st century:
"To live between the wars in our time
Living in real time
Holding the good time
Holding on to yesterdays"
"There are three ways people interact with the wheels of time: they get picked up by them and, like the digital man, are carried along; they get crushed; or they roll through the middle of the wheels, neither hurt nor helped. “The idea of ‘Between the Wheels’ was really kind of the opposite of ‘Digital Man;’ where in this song life goes faster than a person does. They’re in the back water, watching the action go by, and watching the time go by. Another way to look at it is the wheels of time pick up some people and carry them forward; other people, without being too melodramatic about it, are crushed by these wheels. But in the middle, there are people who are untouched by the wheels, and that was what I was getting at: the fact that these people are neither hurt nor helped by them. They are in a very sedentary position.”
"You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down"
A lyric from the song puts across what they all must have felt at the time, & is just as timely now. Just look at what's happening in America right now, with the Covid-19 virus:
"We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust"
As is customary for Peart, he alludes to various dramatic works in his efforts to compare the Cold War's potential for tragedy to the past tragedies of past wars.
He does, indeed, allude to T.S. Eliot's epic poem, "The Wasteland." In that same section of lyrics, Peart also alludes to the classic Depression-era tune, Brother can you spare a dime," and the post WWI era of American writers known as "The Lost Generation," which included such authors as Eliot, Hemingway, etc. So, in a brief lyrical passage Peart is alluding to the same sense of disillusion caused by the multi-leveled tragedies of war expressed by his literary predecessors:
"We can fall from rockets' red glare
Down to brother can you spare
Another war
Another wasteland
And another lost generation"
Peart's lyrics reveal incredible difficulties of balance and pace in the life, particularly as shown through various visual media. Peart's wheels of time can advance and destroy, but they move at an unbearable pace.
"It slips between your hands like water
This living in real time
A dizzying lifetime
Reeling by on celluloid"
The lyrics practically describe what America has been living through in the last decades or so.
All Comments (21)
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Lyrics To live between a rock and a hard place In between time Cruising in prime time Soaking up the cathode rays To live between the wars in our time Living in real time Holding the good time Holding on to yesterdays [Chorus] You know how that rabbit feels Going under your speeding wheels Bright images flashing by Like windshields towards a fly Frozen in the fatal climb But the wheels of time Just pass you by Wheels can take you around Wheels can cut you down We can go from boom to bust From dreams to a bowl of dust We can fall from rockets' red glare Down to "Brother can you spare..." Another war Another wasteland And another lost generation It slips between your hands like water This living in real time A dizzying lifetime Reeling by on celluloid Struck between the eyes By the big-time world Walking uneasy streets Hiding beneath the sheets Got to try and fill the void [Chorus] You know how that rabbit feels Going under your speeding wheels Bright images flashing by Like windshields towards a fly Frozen in the fatal climb But the wheels of time Just pass you by Wheels can take you around Wheels can cut you down We can go from boom to bust From dreams to a bowl of dust We can fall from rockets' red glare Down to "Brother can you spare..." Another war Another wasteland And another lost generation
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I love how Alex's solo at the end seems to spin out of control and become more chaotic. This song was the perfect ending stroke for GUP, and this version is haunting and beautiful at the same time.
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I actually think this might be the most perfect song ever written
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I'm dying soon and going back and relistening to these songs of my past brings back so many emotions. This album got reviews it didn't deserve. I don't know what it was but in 1984 as a 14 year old it resonated with me. As a 54 year old ready to meet his maker I am blessed to have lived to say I experienced this music. I am truly blessed and grateful
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Little reminder here. As a guitar player for 40 years, I want to remind how exceedingly difficult it is to play complex bass lines and sing with such fluidity. This trio are all virtuosos!
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An underrated, deep cut. Dark and heavy.
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The more I appreciate how incredible this band is, the sadder I become knowing I will never be able to see them Live again. Long live RUSH!👍😎👍
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Between the wheels, Red Sector A, and Distant Early Warning ,.. Rush went to another level pf awesome weird , DARK SONGS,.. Grace is an awesome album ,..very futuristic and bleak
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The fluidity of Geddy singing and playing complex bass lines never fails.
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Such an underrated song for them
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Feel like it doesn't get talked about enough, but the balance of sound on this live version is amazing. So powerful, yet not too obnoxious and loud that it overpowers other things. Everything is so vibrant. The guitar, synths, the drums, the vocals.
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Grace Under Pressure is umm, under rated.
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Alex is a beast in this one!
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They’re just an unstoppable machine. Unbelievable. R.I.P NP.
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Nobody was ever as good as Rush...
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Rush synth era is still hard rock!
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I always loved Alex's guitar work in this song. In fact, here live, he plays his solo faithfully and it sounds amazing. My God, they all sounded so great here. What a performance on this song.
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This song has such a great vocal melody in the chorus. That aspect of so many 80's Rush songs - the nice vocal melodies - is what I love most about the material they wrote in that era. Analog Kid ("You move me / You move me"), Middletown Dreams ("Dreams blow across the heartland") and Mission are other examples. That seemed to disappear from their material in the mid-90's and never really returned. It's why their last few studio albums have no appeal for me.
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Oh My ! This brought me to tears. Such a beautiful song and the energy of the song and performance ,especially from Alex, was amazing. I miss the boys/Miss my band ..:(
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what asong my god best band ever
