Tag: 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.

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