08 March 2021

8 March 2021 - Rush - The Spirit Of Radio

Rush was, of course, a band made up of three of the greatest rock musicians on their respective instruments (yes, I know.  Neil Peart joined after the first album.  Don't @ me).  Sone might call them egotistical, with numerous bass, guitar, and especially drum solos featured on many of their songs. 

This song, the big single from their 1980 album Permanent Waves, is a great example of that, where you can hear all three members of the band taking a lead in the music at some point.  It remains the band's biggest UK hit, also hitting the charts in the US and their native Canada.

Lyrically, the song is a lament of the loss of radio formats of the 1970's, having been replaced with more commercial formats.  The band specifically have cited Toronto radio station CFNY - one of the first stations to play the band - as a catalyst for this song.  They also pay tribute to several of their favourite artists in the song - the tribute to Simon and Garfunkel is pretty obvious, but the reggae feeling that portion of the song takes on is a tribute to up-and-coming band The Police.  

It's where the song title came from.

The song was featured on the album Permanent Waves, which has a catalogue number of 1021 - in tribute to the CFNY FM frequency - 102.1.  This video was commissioned for the 40th anniversary of the song in 2020.  

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