That opening couplet is, of course, a shoutout to Hamlet, as well as their live album. It ain’t gonna happen, but I’d be thrilled if the audiences for either Certain Songs or Sedan Delivery expanded beyond stranger friends and friendly strangers. And yet, the problem is that some of us introverts are still driven to put our art - however we define it - out into the world. I experienced the tiniest bit of fame when I was a DJ on KFSR, and it was weird, and I sometimes didn’t handle it all that well. And we dine out on those meetings for the rest of our lives, but as an introvert myself, I totally understand what they mean here. In other words, “sorry if I was a dick to you, if I am a dick to you, if I will be a dick to you in the future.” But, of course, it’s unreasonable for us fans to assume that every single famous person we meet wants to meet us. I know that his voice is the #1 gating factor for Rush, but the way he wraps his vocal around “a-lee-en-a-shun” and “fa-cee-nay-shun” is absolutely fantastic. I love how it starts slow and down - Lifeson jingling and jangling - and then takes a turn between “those who wish to seem” and “those who wish to be” the whole band coming together to push the song forward around what is absolutely their most gorgeous melody. And that’s the push and pull, isn’t it? You want people to hear your music, enjoy your music, be enthusiastic about your music, but there’s a price, as Geddy Lee sings in the chorus. Though in the song, those barriers are clearly psychological, a way to keep himself sane and able to focus on the most important thing, the music. Or as Michael Stipe would sing over a decade later, “ alone in a crowd.” In fact, one might surmise that the insanely gynormous drum kit that Peart eventually surrounded himself with was a physical manifestation of those barriers, at least on a subconscious level. Anyways, after Permanent Waves made Rush huge stars once and for all, Peart penned a set of lyrics that perfectly described his ambivalence about the whole situation, kind of a precursor to the things future reluctant rock stars like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan might say in interviews.ĭriven by Lifeson’s big Who-like riff, “Limelight” stops and starts, steps and stutters throughout its verses - dramatizing that very ambivalence - though it picks up a bit in between the verses.

Which left Geddy in the middle like Derek Smalls, I guess.

I did a fair amount of reading about Rush in prep for all of this, and of my takeaways was that Alex Lifeson was the always-joking extrovert, and Neal Peart was the bookish introvert. All things considered, “Limelight” is probably my favorite Rush song, and is definitely on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Prog Divsion.

Rush limelight