Grace Under Pressure

Grace Under Pressure

Released: April 12, 1984
Certified Gold by RIAA: June 26, 1984
Certified Platinum by RIAA: June 26, 1984
Highest Billboard Chart Position: 10

Geddy Lee - Bass Guitars, Synthesizers, Vocals
Alex Lifeson - Guitars and Synthesizers
Neil Peart - Drums, Percussion, and Electronic Percussion

Produced by Rush and Peter Henderson
Engineered by Peter Henderson
Assisted by Frank Opolko and Robert Di Gioia
Recorded at Le Studio, Quebec, between November 1983 and March 1984
In memory of Robbie Whelan

Management by Ray Danniels, SRO Productions, Inc., Toronto

Executive Production by Moon Records

Art Direction and cover painting by Hugh Syme
Portrait by Yousuf Karsh

PPG Synthesizer programming assisted by Jim Burgess and Paul Northfield
Pre-production engineering by Jon Erickson
Mastered by Bob Ludwig and Brian Lee at
Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, Maine

Road Manager and Lighting Director: Howard Ungerleider
Stage Left Technician, Crew Chief, and President: Liam Birt
Stage Manager: Nick Kotos
Concert Sound Engineer: Jon Erickson
Stage Left Technican: Skip Gildersleeve
Centre Stage Technician: Larry Allen
Guitar and Synthesizer Maintenance: Tony Geranios
Monitor Engineer: Steve Byron
Concert Projectionist: Lee Tenner
Personal Assistant: Kevin Flewitt
Concert Sound by National Sound: Tom Linthicum, Fuzzy Frazer, Dave Fletcher
Concert Lighting by See Factor: The Johnson Brothers: Mike Weiss, Tom Higgins, Mark Cherry, Dave Berman, Jeffrey T. MacDonald, Frank Scilingo

Concert Rigging by Southfire Rigging: Billy Collins and Tom Wendt

Busheads and Truckfaces: Tom Whittaker, Pat Lynes, Bill Barlow, Mac and Candy MacLear, Harry Smith, Jack Stone, Red McBrine, Gordon Scott

Mille mercis à: les gens de Horseshoe Valley (Judy, Steve, Kevin, Kathy), Le Studio (André, Yaël, Paul Richard, Frank, Robert, Solange, Lina, Nancy, Yvon, Pierre, André et Michel et le Bouffe en Broche), the Mike Stone Happy Hour, the Franko Polko Singers, Trevor and the Commons, Frankie's Bar and Grill, Le Chasseur de Nuit, Bill Churchman, Barry Murphet, the International Scouting Organization of Cliff Burnstein, Peter Mensch, and Val Azzoli, the Griffin Family, NASA and the Johnson Space Centre, Roger Kneebend, Ann Uumellmahaye, Dr. Hfuhruhurr, Hentor the Barbarian, the Uglies, the Rory Gallagher Band and crew, Golden Earring and crew, Darrell and Werner en Allemagne, Yousuf and Estrellita Karsh (and Mary and Matthew), The B-Man, Tokyo Cro, Stuart Hall ("That's the weather, this is the time; now stay tuned for more news"), Jean Gallia et les autres proffesseurs de L'École Berlitz, et au bureau de SRO/Anthem: Ray, Val, Pegi, Sheila, Tom, and Marilyn, et toujours notre bon vielle ami--Broon.

We appreciate the technical assistance of: The Music Shoppe (Thornhill), Bill Ward, Marcus, the Percussion Centre (Fort Wayne), Tama Drums, Avedis Zildjian Cymbals, Direct Synthesis, Quantec, Fostex, Loft, Richard Ealey and Bruce Anthony.

© 1984 Mercury Records © 1984 Anthem Entertainment

Distant Early Warning

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

An ill wind comes arising
Across the cities of the plain
There's no swimming in the heavy water--
No singing in the acid rain
Red alert
Red alert

It's so hard to stay together
Passing through revolving doors
We need someone to talk to
And someone to sweep the floors--
Incomplete
Incomplete

The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy--
But I worry about you

I know it makes no difference
To what you're going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg--
And I worry about you...

Cruising under your radar
Watching from satellites
Take a page from the red book--
Keep them in your sights
Red alert
Red alert

Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
That the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete
Absolute

Absalom
Absalom

Afterimage

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

Suddenly--
You were gone
From all the lives
You left your mark upon

I remember--
How we talked and drank
Into the misty dawn
--I hear the voices

We ran by the water
On the wet summer lawn
--I see the foot prints
I remember--

--I feel the way you would
--I feel the way you would

Tried to believe
But you know it's no good
This is something
That just can't be understood

I remember--
The shouts of joy
Skiing fast through the woods
--I hear the echoes

I learned your love for life
I feel the way that you would
--I feel your presence
I remember--

I feel the way you would
This just can't be understood...

Red Sector A

Lyric by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves
Is stay alive...

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shouting guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence
Until my fingers bleed
A wound that will not heal--
A heart that can not feel--
Hoping that the horror will recede
Hoping that tomorrow--
We'll all be freed

Sickness to insanity
Prayer to profanity
Days and weeks and months go by
Don't feel the hunger--too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire
At the prison gate
Are the liberators here--
Do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother, it's too late
But I must help my mother
Stand up straight...

Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings
To survive?...

The Enemy Within

(Part I of 'Fear')

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

Things crawl in the darkness
That imagination spins
Needles at your nerve ends
Crawl like spiders on your skin

Pounding in your temples
And a surge of adrenaline
Every muscle tense--
To fence
The enemy within

I'm not giving in
To security under pressure
I'm not missing out
On the promise of adventure
I'm not giving up
On implausible dreams--
Experience to extremes--
Experience to extremes--

Suspicious-looking stranger
Flashes you a dangerous grin
Shadows across your window--
Was it only trees in the wind?

Every breath a static charge--
A tongue that tastes like tin
Steely-eyed outside--
To hide
The enemy within...

To you--is it movement or is it action?
It is contact or just reaction?
And you--revolution or just resistance?
Is it living, or just existence?
Yeah, you--it takes a little more persistence
To get up and go the distance...

The Body Electric

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

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

1-0-0-1-0-0-1
S.O.S
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0

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...

Kid Gloves

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

A world of difference
A world so out of touch
Overwhelmed by everything
But wanting more so much--

Call it blind frustration
Call it blind man's bluff
Call each other names--
Your voices rude--your voices rough
Then you learn the lesson
That it's cool to be so tough

Handle with kid gloves
Handle with kid gloves
Then you learn the lessons
Taught in school won't be enough
Put on your kid gloves
Put on your kid gloves
Then you learn the lesson
That it's cool to be so tough

A world of indifference
Heads and hearts too full
Careless of the consequence
Of constant push and pull

Anger got bare knuckles
Anger play the fool
Anger wear a crown of thorns
Reverse the golden rule
Then you learn the lesson
That it's tough to be so cool

Handle with kid gloves
Handle with kid gloves
Then you learn the weapons
And the ways of hard-knock school
Put on your kid gloves
Put on your kid gloves
Then you learn the lesson
That it's tough to be so cool

Red Lenses

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

i see red
it hurts my head
guess it must be something
that i read

it's the colour of your heartbeat
a rising summer sun
the battle lost--or won
the flash to fashion
and the pulse to passion--
feels red
inside my head
and truth is often bitter--
left unsaid
said red red
thinking about the overhead--
the underfed
--couldn't we talk about
something else instead?

we've got mars on the horizon
says the national midnight star
(it's true)
what you believe is what you are
a pair of dancing shoes--
the soviets are the blues--
the reds
under your bed
lying--
in the darkness
dead ahead

and the mercury is rising
barometer starts to fall
you know it gets to us all
the pain that is learning
and the rain that is burning--
feel red
still--go ahead
you see black and white--
and I see red
(not blue)

Between The Wheels

Lyrics by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

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...

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 waste land--
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...