Obscure Rush Lyrics Trivia Quiz

Answer: Different Strings

Rush never really wrote traditional love songs, but they had plenty of songs about relationships like "Different Strings". The song was a track on the album "Permanent Waves", originally released in 1980. The first section of the song goes as follows:

"Who's come to slay the dragon?
Come to watch him fall?
Making arrows out of pointed words
Giant killers at the call
Too much fuss and bother
Too much contradiction and confusion
Peel away the mystery
Here's a clue to some real motivation"

Answer: Anagram (For Mongo)

Most of the lines do not contain true anagrams, but this is a very fun song still. "Anagram (For Mongo)" was a song on the album "Presto" (1989). Neil Peart is the drummer and primary lyricist for Rush. Usually the lyrics for Rush tend to deal with serious and deep topics. "Anagram (For Mongo)" is more of a whimsical play on words.

Answer: Vapor Trail

Neil Peart has great imagery in his lyrics. The song "Vapor Trail" comes from the album of the same name, released in 2002. It is pretty much a description of a vapor trail and different ways to look at it. The first verse and chorus is as follows:

"Stratospheric traces of our transitory flight
Trails of condensation held in narrow paths of white
The sun is turning black, the world is turning gray
All the stars fade from the night, the oceans drain away
Horizon to horizon
Memory written on the wind
Fading away like an hourglass, grain by grain
Swept away like voices in a hurricane"

Answer: Circumstances

This is a great song about Neil Peart when he was young and in London by himself, trying to make it as a musician. It is set up like a mini-biography. The song appeared on the 1978 album "Hemispheres".

Answer: High Water

This is a great poem about how mystical and world-changing water is. It really looks at the impact of water on a grand scale, going back to the dawn of life. The observant Rush fan might have noticed that I used all songs from "Hold Your Fire" in the above question.

Portion of the song:

"When something left the ocean, to crawl high above the foam
We still feel that elation, when the water takes us home
In a driving rain of redemption, the water takes me home"

Answer: Witch Hunt

A great take on hatred, here is the full verse:

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

The song appears on the album "Moving Pictures", released in 1981. It was produced by Rush and Terry Brown.

Answer: The Pass

Rush members have been quoted as saying that this was one of their favorite songs to play live. The song was a track off the 1989 "Presto" album.

The full verse is as follows:

"Proud swagger out of the schoolyard, waiting for the world's applause.
Rebel without a conscience, martyr without a cause".

This song also has one of my favorite quotes in it which I think is a great attitude to have. The quote is as follows:

"All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer by the stars.
All of us do time in the gutter, dreamers turn to look at the cars".

Answer: Roll the Bones

That's right, this was not taken from a Rolling Stones song. This was from the "rap" section of "Roll the Bones" from the album of the same name. The album came out in 1991. There were some rarities on this album for Rush including the rap section of this song and the rare Rush love song with "Ghost of a Chance".

Answer: Resist

Rush played their first-ever acoustic version of a song in concert with "Resist" on tour. This is also a great example of a common theme with Neil Peart's lyrics, which is a play on words.

"You can surrender, without a prayer.
But never really pray, pray without surrender".

Answer: Madrigal

This is a great example of the complexity that Rush uses in their lyrics. Instead of the standard love song, they sing that no matter how bad things get, with the right person, when you go home it makes it all OK. Of course, they do put some sort of Sci-Fi/Fantasy twist on it. The song was a track on the album "A Farewell to Kings", released in 1977.