Rush – The Spirit of Radio

A very radio-friendly song by Rush. When I was a teen many local bands covered Rush…usually terrible, but they gave it a try. When I first heard this song…right away I made a connection to another older song written by Paul Simon. Sound of Silence has the lyrics:

And the sign said, “The words of the prophetsAre written on the subway wallsAnd tenement halls

Spirit of the Radio has:

For the words of the profits
Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall

Other than that…the songs have no other connection but I can’t help but think that Peart made that connection with Sound of Silence. That’s one of the reasons I liked it…plus the musical break during that time of the song. It gave the song a huge dynamic.

I always liked the intro by Alex Lifeson, who doesn’t get the credit he deserves compared to Lee and Peart. He is not doing a Van Halen finger tapping or hammer on… during that intro…he is actually picking those notes.

With the lyric “Sound of Salesmen” Peart would listen to bands they were opening for every night saying THIS was the city they loved the most… wherever they were… every night it was the same disingenuous spiel. One of the bands Peart was talking about was KISS who would market anything. Rush did open for KISS many times in the 1970s.

The song was on the Permanent Waves album released on January 18, 1980. The album peaked at #3 in Canada, #4 on the Billboard Album Charts, and #3 in the UK.

The song peaked at #22 in Canada, #51 on the Billboard 100, and #13 in the UK in 1980.

The song is Rush’s only entry on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Rush wasn’t inducted into the Hall until 2013; they were first eligible in 1999.

Neil Peart: “‘The Spirit Of Radio’ was actually written as a tribute to all that was good about radio, celebrating my appreciation of magical moments I’d had since childhood, of hearing ‘the right song at the right time.’ However, [the song’s] celebration of the ideals of radio necessarily seemed like an attack on the reality – on the formulaic, mercenary programming of most radio stations, with music the last of anyone’s concerns. And yes, it was really ironic that such a song became popular on radio, though it was a kind of litmus test. Some radio guys who ‘got it’ could hear the song and think, ‘That’s the way it ought to be,’ while others – the shallow, swaggering salesmen-of-the-air – could be oblivious to the song’s meaning and proudly applaud themselves, ‘That’s about me!’

From Songfacts: Rush released a new animated video for the song on June 12, 2020 in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Permanent Waves. The conceptual clip references milestones and influential broadcasters in FM rock radio history, including an homage to the pioneering Italian radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi. It closes with a personal tribute to the late Rush drummer Neil Peart, who died in January 2020. Fantoons.tv created the visual along with producer Linda Otero and directors David Calcano and Alberto Hadyar.

The Spirit of Radio

Begin the day with a friendly voice
A companion, unobtrusive
Plays that song that’s so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood

Off on your way hit the open road
There is magic at your fingers
For the spirit ever lingers
Undemanding contact in your happy solitude

Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price almost free

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted it’s really just a question
Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty

One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah

Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price almost free

For the words of the profits
Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall

And echoes with the sound of salesmen
Of salesmen, of salesmen

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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.

36 thoughts on “Rush – The Spirit of Radio”

    1. This song came out and was when I found out about them more. I knew of Working Man from friends albums and a few more…but they got a lot of radio play around this time.

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  4. Nice way to start the week! A great song, probably the first song I heard by them that I really liked a lot. Of course, they were THE ‘it’ band when I was in junior high and high school but I wasn’t all that into them back then, particularly their early more-prog stuff. I like that material a bit more these days but still love the early-’80s era of theirs best, which this kind of kicked off. Very talented guys, all three of them.
    Trivia for the Ontario people – Neal wrote the song about CFNY, which he would listen to on his car radio. there’s even a picture of David Marsden, that station’s boss and top DJ in that era in the animated video. they had the slogan ‘CFNY- the Spirit of Radio.’ Oddly, they were a station which didn’t play Rush much… Q107 was the rock channel that usually spun them endlessly!

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    2. Geez…the station they wrote it about didn’t play them much…thats a fine thank you lol.
      Yea I always liked the song…when I heard it I thought of Sound of Silence.

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      1. you’re right about the lyrical tie-in, he probably did that knowingly. To CFNY’s credit, I guess, they commissioned Catherine Wheel to record a cover version in the … gonna say ’90s? … that they put on a compilation album (yeah, a radio station issuing their own CDS! not your everyday I-heart type station), so Rush would have gotten some royalties off it.

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  5. I have never heard that lyric connection but now that you point it out it’s obvious. “good writers borrow, great writers steal.” And Peart was a great writer! As Dave pointed out this was the first accessible song for many and a reminder of how brilliant this band was.

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    1. Oh yea… some one said…amateurs borrow…professionals steal lol…
      That line is what connected me to the song so it was a good thing…I tihnk it was more of a nice parody than anything.

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  6. And the words of the song
    Were written by Paul Simon!
    Most interesting writeup Max.
    Max sorry I haven’t been about much in the comments area – trying to get the garden ready for spring, and I’m half blind – can’t see the weeds! Eye Op hopefully scheduled in Nov. I shall be listening!

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  8. Great pick to start the week Max. These guys chops are something else. Interesting about The Sound of Silence and the lyrics to Spirit…. Never knew that though than again Simon screwed Los Lobos back on the Graceland albums so that gets zero respect from me!

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    1. LOL.,,I even going to list your name in this… I’m glad he did because for me…I made that connection right away and it made me like the song even more.
      I agree with you about the Simon and Los Lobos…

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