Rush – Limelight

I’m not the biggest fan of Rush but there are songs that were masterpieces…and this was one of them. When I heard that guitar riff at the beginning…BOOM…automatically loved the song.

As I listen to interviews and watched their documentary… that I will plug to everyone that would listen. I’ve grown to like them more and more. As a musician myself…yes I respect them as masters of their craft.

They had an unusual songwriting setup in that band. For the most part Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will come up with the music and drummer Neil Peart will supply the often complex lyrics. The drummers I’ve worked with…uh… that would not happen. This song hit me a like a great rock song which it is and is completely understandable.

The Story Behind 'Limelight' by Rush | Articles @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com

While Alex and Geddy are outgoing guys…Neil Peart was not. He never hated the fans or anything but he was shy and didn’t feel comfortable with meet and greets etc. As Geddy Lee said (full quote below): “Limelight was probably more of Neil’s song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time… he was having a very difficult time dealing with.

Neil said that while he was a huge fan of The Who and Keith Moon…he would have never dreamed of following them back to their hotel or meeting them. He just didn’t understand that concept and why. The song is about his feelings toward the fame that hit Rush and changed everything.

Neil Peart was a heavy reader and you could see the influence in many things. William Shakespeare’s 1599 play As You Like It contains the line “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” – a similar phase appears in the lyrics – “All the worlds indeed a stage, and we are merely players.” Rush named one of their albums All The Worlds A Stage. 

The song peaked at #18 in Canada, #55 on the Billboard 100, and #4 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks. It was on the album Moving Pictures (My favorite by them) and that one peaked at #1 in Canada, #3 on the Billboard Album Charts, and #3 in the UK. This was the album in my area that had young musicians going out and learning these songs…not an easy task.

While researching this song I saw a headline that best sums it up. “Neil Peart explains his introverted nature through Rush song ‘Limelight.”

Geddy Lee: “Limelight was probably more of Neil’s song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time… he was having a very difficult time dealing with. I mean we all were, but I think he was having the most difficulty of the three of us adjusting; in the sense that I think he’s more sensitive to more things than Alex and I are, it’s harder for him to deal with those interruptions on his personal space and his desire to be alone. Being very much a person who needs that solitude, to have someone coming up to you constantly and asking for your autograph is a major interruption in your own little world. I guess in the one sense that we’re a little bit like misfits in the fact that we’ve chosen this profession that has all this extreme hype and this sort of self-hyping world that we’ve chosen to live in, and we don’t feel comfortable really in that kind of role.”

Alex Lifeson:  “I’ve always enjoyed the elasticity of that solo, particularly the way it sounds on the record. It has a certain tonality I just love. I do like playing the solo live, but I think I prefer listening to it on the album. On record, it has a magical quality to it – it really conveys the pathos of the song and the lyrics. I’ve never been able to re-create that live. I get pretty close, but it’s never exactly the way it is on record. I’ll keep trying, though.”

Neil Peart: “Success puts a strain on the friendship and it puts the strains on your day-to-day relationship, and it’s something that we did go through, you know, we’re not immune to it. But we were able to overcome it just through our closeness and we were able to help each other with difficulties like that and then we could deal with the pressures and things and that.”

Limelight

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in a fish eye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend

All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience
Outside the gilded cage

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
The real relation
The underlying theme

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

34 thoughts on “Rush – Limelight”

  1. Excellent song choice and it’s great to read some context behind the song. They were a complex band in so many ways. Very uncanadian of me to saw but I’m the same as you I’m not a huge fan. This would be one of their more recognizable songs getting plenty of airplay in Canada.

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  3. I’m with you Max, on picking ‘Moving Pictures’ as their best album. A great song , always thought the lyrics were quite good but I didn’t know there was a Shakespearean reference thrown in. Peart was a fine lyricist as well as drummer. Certainly one of their more approachable hits and I like it a lot.
    What you said about Peart was kind of echoed by Dave Grohl – in his book, he tells of meeting him (one of his drumming heroes) and basically, I think it was Geddy was there and just full of energy and chatty and Peart came in, hardly said anything but asked Grohl if he’d like a coffee, and seeing as how Grohl drinks even more coffee than most Canadians, he did, so Neil just went over, put on a pot of coffee and served him one. Nice quiet Canadian greeting.

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    2. Thanks for the story Dave… seems like Neil just wasn’t into meeting really anyone. When he said he was a massive Who fan but never thought of hunting them down and meeting Keith Moon said a lot. It is hard to believe that Moon was a huge influence on him…totally opposite drummers but he did incorporate some unusual fills in there.

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  4. I enjoy reading other bloggers’ reviews a lot, seeing if their opinions tally with my own. Here I have found that we both have a feeling towards Rush that while we are not proper fans of them or (particularly in my case) their sub-genre (long hair long after it was fashionable, squealing vocals, extended proggy workouts, pretentious fantasy-inspired lyrics) we have a respect for their obvious skill as musicians and the undeniable, unadulterated power of their music. I think their debut album, for example, is a totally kick-ass rock record. Those guys could play a mean guitar, and drums for that matter.

    Anyway, back to this one. Is it just me or does the riff have hints of Blue Öyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper in it?

    Either way, Limelight is a stonker of a record.

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    1. With prog rock I have to be in a mood to listen. Same goes with Pink Floyd and others… This is one of their more straight ahead songs. They were excellent musicians…there is no doubt about that.

      Have you seen their documentary? My wife is not a huge music fan but she watched it because Geddy and Alex are so damn likeable. Really good guys all the way around. If you haven’t watched it…it’s worth it.

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      2. When I hear prog at times…it seems like they are showing off or trying to make it difficult instead of following the feel of the song… but hey…I’m a simple guy.

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  5. In the 80s I had a high school student employee who was a big fan of Mahogany Rush. I’ll admit I first thought Rush was the same band and had shortened their name (like Tyrannosaurus Rex to T. Rex, Small Faces to Faces, Dixie Chicks to Chicks… )

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    1. That makes complete sense…I never thought of it in that way. I do know something about Frank Marino the guitar player but that is about it from them.

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  6. While overall I’ve not quite warmed to Rush, “Limelight” is a tune I can fully get behind. There’s also no question each of their members were true masters of their craft!

    To me, “Limelight” is how I would wish more prog rock would be like: Great music, reasonably melodic and all of it under less than 5 minutes and without 10 solos! Even Lee’s vocals, which could be very high on their earlier tunes, work for me here!

    “Limelight” proves you can make sophisticated music while staying within the above parameters!

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  7. Such a great song and album. This was my introduction in to the band. I don’t have all their stuff, but working on it. And I’ve saw them in concert once and will rank as one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen as the musicianship was second to none.

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    1. I do regret not seeing them. I’m more about their radio hits but…seeing that level of playing live would have been cool.

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  9. Yeah, Rush isn’t much my taste but I am being educated, even now. I love that ‘fish eye lens’ line, it works on a real level of barely contained loathing of his (Pearts) situation.

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    1. Thank you for reading as always! I’m not a huge Rush fan but I do like their radio songs and few more…plus I respect the hell out of them.

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  11. I dig these guys and have always bought there stuff esp. the deluxe version of Moving Pictures which like many was my introduction to their music. I think the fact that they split money 3 ways was a huge factor as that would not be a bickering point between them. Plus they were cool guys.

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    1. Yea they were cool guys. Moving Pictures has always been my favorite album by them. They made that album easier to understand than some of their others.

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  12. I’m sort of a Rush fan, although I don’t own any of their albums. The background on Peart was unknown to me…that he has a big role in the band’s lyrics, and that he’s intensely private off stage. It changes how I hear this song.

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