This is the fourth post in a series of six, in which I’m lyricblogging the 1976 Rush album 2112. To start at the beginning, see the post that started it all here.
“Lessons” picks up the mood with an upbeat, rambling riff and largely optimistic lyrics to match. The impression I get is of a joyous homecoming, as might be experienced by the guitar-discovering protagonist of 2112 in encountering the world he had only dreamt of, or perhaps by members of the Elder Race, as they returned to reclaim their home planet. The choruses in between the upbeat bits evoke the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx, protesting that their demands of conformity to The Plan have gone unheeded. Their reprimands appear to be in vain, as the song ends on an upswing, fading off merrily over the horizon.
Lessons
Sweet memories
Flashing very quickly by
Reminding me
And giving me a reason why
I know that
My goal is more than a thought
I’ll be there
When I teach
What I’ve been taught
And I’ve been taught…
You know we’ve told you before
But you didn’t hear us then
So you still question why
No! You didn’t listen again!
You didn’t listen again!
Sweet memories
I never thought it would be like this
Reminding me
Just how close I came to missing
I know that
This is the way for me to go
You’ll be there
When you know what I know
And I know…
You know we’ve told you before
But you didn’t hear us then
So you still question why
No! You didn’t listen again!
You didn’t listen again!
Previous: The Twilight Zone | Next: Tears
2112 — The Complete Album
- 2112
- A Passage to Bangkok
- The Twilight Zone
- Lessons
- Tears
- Something for Nothing
This is the third post in a series of six, in which I’m lyricblogging the 1976 Rush album 2112. To start at the beginning, see the post that started it all here.
As with “A Passage to Bangkok” I’m letting the lyrics to this moody intermediate track stand on their own. The most interesting stuff to analyze will be coming up shortly, as we get to the last few tracks on the album.
The Twilight Zone
A pleasant faced man steps up to greet you
He smiles and says he’s pleased to meet you
Beneath his hat the strangeness lies
Take it off, he’s got three eyes
Truth is false and logic lost
Now the fourth dimension is crossed
You have entered the twilight zone
Beyond this world strange things are known
Use the key, unlock the door
See what your fate might have in store
Come explore your dreams’ creation
Enter this world of imagination
You wake up lost in an empty town
Wondering why no one else is around
Look up to see a giant boy
You’ve just become his brand new toy
No escape, no place to hide
Here where time and space collide
You have entered the twilight zone
Beyond this world strange things are known
Use the key, unlock the door
See what your fate might have in store
Come explore your dreams’ creation
Enter this world of imagination
Previous: A Passage to Bangkok | Next: Lessons
2112 — The Complete Album
- 2112
- A Passage to Bangkok
- The Twilight Zone
- Lessons
- Tears
- Something for Nothing
When telling unpleasant truths is “inciting hatred”: Dutch politician Geert Wilders is set to be prosecuted for comments made in speeches and in his anti-Islam film “Fitna”
The charges stem partly from a 15-minute film Wilders released online last March, “Fitna,” which features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from the Quran to paint Islam as a threat to Western society.
The movie drew complaints from the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as concern from the United States, which warned it could spark riots.
The film opens with a controversial caricature of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, followed by translated portions of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. The passages are interspersed with graphic images of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States juxtaposed with audio from 9-1-1 calls made by the victims trapped inside the World Trade Center in New York.
The video includes images of other terror attacks; bloodied victims; beheadings of hostages; executions of women in hijab, the traditional full-body covering; and footage, with subtitles, of Islamic leaders preaching inflammatory sermons against Jews and Christians.
The film concludes with scrolling messages reading in part: “The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you” and “In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989, communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.”
Wilders has been outspoken in his criticism of Islam and called the religion a threat to the world.
“It’s not a provocation, but the harsh reality and a political conclusion,” Wilders said of the film when it was released last year.
Wilders’ 16-minute film “Fitna” can be viewed on Google Video, and is also posted on Hot Air. Have a look and see for yourself. And think about it in the context of the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh over “Submission”, a film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women. Van Gogh’s associate Ayaan Hirsi Ali has had to take refuge in the United States following threats on her own life.
Should the kind of speech contained in “Fitna”, which largely presents the West’s Jihadist enemies in their own words and actions, really be repressed because it might upset some people? If so, why the apparent double standard when it comes to insistence on expressive freedom in the Western art world, which has been unrelenting in its criticism of Western and particularly U.S. actions, yet from which we’ve heard nary a peep regarding radical Islam’s deeply anti-liberal, anti-feminist, anti-semitic, anti-civilizational bent? (As Glenn Reynolds aptly put it: “They do this because they know we won’t behead them. Such is the bravery of artists.”)
Eugene Volokh posted a brief review of “Fitna” when the film first appeared last March (hat tip: Instapundit):
This is of course a rhetorical work, not an academic inquiry, and it’s trying to stir people emotionally. But I didn’t see much of hyperbole or gratuitious insults. Wilders is arguing against an important and dangerous ideological movement; my sense is that his approach is well within bounds of legitimate criticism.
So I think this is a significant contribution to the ideological debate, and it seems to me that we — and especially Wilders’ fellow Dutch, to whom he is speaking most specifically — should take it seriously, naturally together with whatever responses might come out.
Fore more background on Wilders, see this fine WSJ article.
More posts about “Fitna” from last March:
Update: Robert Spencer has a post about Wilders’ prosecution at JihadWatch.
Another excellent article at Big Hollywood. Good and timely advice.
This is the second post in a series of six, in which I’m lyricblogging the 1976 Rush album 2112. To start at the beginning, see the post that started it all yesterday here.
I had a lot to write about the album’s title track, “2112”, which is quite long and dense with interesting material, and seemed in need of detailed description/explanation. For this second track, “A Passage to Bangkok” (which, it may relieve you to learn, is only three and a half minutes long) and some others, I’ll largely just post the lyrics — in no small part because the song’s role in the overall story is still a bit of an enigma to me.
My best guess so far is that it describes the return to Earth of the “Elder Race of Man” mentioned in the title track — which, interestingly, would seem to imply that the ominous chant of “We have assumed control” that’s repeated at the end of the previous track is not a malevolent declaration by the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx, but a proclamation by the Elder Race that they’ve arrived “to (re)claim the home where they belong”. Having returned home after a long exile, they travel the planet to survey all the old familiar places.
That’s just a guess though. This stuff is pretty out there. Rarely can Rush be accused of unimaginative lyrics…
A Passage to Bangkok
Our first stop is in Bogota
To check Columbian fields
The natives smile and pass along
A sample of their yield
Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams
Golden Acapulco nights
Then Morocco, and the East,
Fly by morning light
We’re on the train to Bangkok
Aboard the Thailand Express
We’ll hit the stops along the way
We only stop for the best
Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon
We burn the midnight oil
The fragrance of Afghanistan
Rewards a long day’s toil
Pulling into Katmandu
Smoke rings fill the air
Perfumed by a Nepal night
The Express gets you there
We’re on the train to Bangkok
Aboard the Thailand Express
We’ll hit the stops along the way
We only stop for the best
More to come…
Previous: 2112 | Next: The Twilight Zone
2112 — The Complete Album
- 2112
- A Passage to Bangkok
- The Twilight Zone
- Lessons
- Tears
- Something for Nothing
At Big Hollywood: Andrew Breitbart pledges to ridicule celebrities who refuse to recognize we are at war with people who want to kill them, too:
Many of the celebrities that were central to demonizing and making life impossible for President Bush for eight loathsome years NOW want to help with the heavy lifting of bringing America back together under President Barack Obama.
Witness Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s cavalcade of shiny, happy situational patriots appearing in a derivative public servitude video campaign: A “Presidential Pledge” to President Barack Obama.
…
Missing are pledges not to kiss the ring of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other pledged enemies of America. Nor are there pledges not to make movies that glorify these tyrants. Nor are there pledges to take seriously that we are at war, will continue to be at war under President Obama and that our precious and under-appreciated military is fighting an avowed and evil enemy — so that, among other things, Hollywood can continue to make decadent crap that actually motivates our enemy to fight us harder!
…
God bless, President Obama. Even though I didn’t vote for him, and disagree with much of his agenda, he has my best wishes and all of my best efforts.
But that doesn’t mean I will forgive and forget an era of narcissism, petty complaining and conspiracy theory peddling from the majority celebrity class that began well before Iraq. [See “Hollywood, Interrupted” — my book co-written with Mark Ebner — which was written before and during the build-up to the Iraq war and before the WMDs weren’t found. The public behavior from Hollywood even then was almost uniformly deplorable.]
Conspiracy theories of America’s complicity in 9/11 dominated cocktail party discussions for eight tedious years. They couldn’t simply disagree with Bush. They had to ascribe evil to his motivations and make sure the whole world agreed on that flawed premise.
Yet, hating the president doesn’t mean one can’t still help out the country in a great time of need. But many went to foreign countries and demeaned it instead. Called those that disagreed with them rubes and hicks. The elitism of the celebrities against flyover country America could not have been more pronounced. They made a boat-load of movies that affirmed this narrow and patronizing world view.
And now they want us back.
We’re all Americans — NOW.
Indeed. Read the whole thing.
And, while you’re visiting Big Hollywood, don’t miss this phenomenal article by TV writer and journalist Charles Winecoff, in which he recounts the trials of coming out of the Hollywood closet twice: first as a gay man in 1977, then again as a 9/11 Republican. It’s truly one of the best pieces I have read in a while, not to be missed. (Big thanks to Erick Brockway for pointing it out!)
