Rush's "Vapor Trails" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Six years

"Different Stages" was a live album recorded after the tragedies in drummer Neil Peart's life that caused him to leave the band for six years.

Answer: 14 months

This is considerably longer than the 6 or so months usually taken on a single album. Most of the production was spliced together from recordings of jam sessions that Geddy and Alex had done. Most of the work was done on computers, and Geddy said that when he came out of it he was just a wreck.

Answer: Neil Peart's travels across the U.S.

After his daughter and wife died, Neil told the band that he was leaving at his wife's funeral and went and biked around the U.S. for the better part of six years. By the way, the song isn't an instrumental.

Answer: The Stars Look Down

He also mentioned that, as a vocalist, the song was very fun to do. He liked the rich vocal harmonies in the choruses, which had around 16 different vocal parts. This is why they never performed the song live.

Answer: 3

I'm not sure at the time of this writing when they started doing this. It's no earlier than "Signals"; it wasn't on "Moving Pictures", the vinyl anyway. They might have started on the remasters; I've got the remasters from "Presto" on, and they've all got it. Most likely a reference to "Sesame Street".

UPDATE: Special thanks to AESfan for informing me of the following:

"Saying that the album was brought by a letter began on "Power Windows." It was because the album had so many songs that began with "m". (It was brought by the letter 'm')"

Answer: The 9/11 Terrorist attacks

This song was originally slated to be an instrumental, but Paul Northfield, who co-produced the album, begged Rush to put lyrics to the song. Neil wrote out some lyrics, and Geddy recorded the vocal track to finish out the last song they wrote before releasing the album.

Answer: Standing on a reef

I really don't know any interesting information about this song. It's one of my favorites, (Ha! You can tell I'm American!) and is the shortest song on the album. This is due probably to the fact that it doesn't "go off the deep end in the middle" like Geddy said "Secret Touch" did. Most of the songs do, and have a lengthy instrumental passage in the middle.

Answer: "One Little Victory" and "Earthshine"

These songs were remixed for "Retrospective 3", and Alex Lifeson liked the new versions so much, he said there was talk of remixing the whole album.

Answer: Telescope Peak

This was a reference to Telescope Peak, the highest point in Death Valley. On his travels, Neil Peart had hiked to the top, and the next day, he met his future wife in Los Angeles. In his book, "Ghost Rider", Telescope Peak is an important symbol. Some of the best lyrics made it into "Ghost Rider" and "How it Is". One line in "Ghost Rider" reads "From the lowest low to the highest high", symbolizing the climb from the bottom of Death Valley to the summit of Telescope Peak.

Answer: Geddy Lee's

Neil's idea was to close the song with it, but Geddy thought it would sound good at the beginning of the song. To quote, "That's a great part. You ought to open the song with it. That would just kill."