One of the highlights of Rush's 2012 Clockwork Angels tour (set to resume this Spring) was the return of "The Analog Kid" to the band's set, lifted from 1982's Signals. After orbiting around the futuristic/fantasy worlds and side-long excursions of albums like 2112 and Hemispheres, by the eighties the starship Rush had landed back on earth and would release throughout the decade what is for me their best, most enduring material. "The Analog Kid" stands tall on an album I personally rate at the top of the band's extensive discography. As on many tracks from this era, lyricist/drummer Neil Peart explores real world ideas that would resonate with the band's core fan base of middletown dreamers, while the trio's instrumental work was at it's most dexterous and dynamic, with new colors and shades being explored via an increased use of synthesizers.
"The Analog Kid" explodes out of the gate with a rolling major key guitar and bass riff that establishes a hurried sense of momentum - and if you're like me, you're instantly transported back to pedaling the wheels of your Huffy BMX through the streets of Signals' mid-eighties suburban landscape. "The Analog Kid" stirs up memories of the energy of youth, the particular type of freedom it offers, and the unknowable future that lies beyond. Come chorus time a luminous vista born of synthesized voices emerges, the wide-eyed Kid reflecting on his natural surroundings while longing for the lights of the city. The track's extended finale takes on a more urgent tone, reflected in it's ringing minor chords and uncertainty in the lyrics - "when I leave I don't know what I'm hoping to find, and when I leave I don't know what I'm leaving behind." An abrupt break leaves only the sound of a rapid sequencer humming in the foreground - Signals' electronic heartbeat at work - before Alex Lifeson's guitar solo swoops in on a whammy dive and unleashes a whirlwind of thorny, squealing shreddage.
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