The 1981 RUSH album MOVING PICTURES is my #11 all-time favorite album. Although I had already heard and enjoyed the opening track Tom Sawyer and Limelight, I didn't know of the rest until one Saturday night/Sunday morning in the 1990s at the post office when I worked the graveyard shift and a local alternative rock station (on 97.7 then) had a show called "Saturday Night Sixpack", on which they would play six albums in their entirety. Moving Pictures was featured one week, and after hearing it I quickly became a Rush fan. After listening to pretty much this trio's entire catalogue of albums I concluded that this album was far and away their best, although I also recommend their Greatest Hits CD that features timeless hits spanning the decades. Moving Pictures has only seven tracks...but what tracks they are! As already mentioned, it opens with Tom Sawyer, proclaiming a new kind of warrior, who thinks independently outside the box and acts likewise. For some unknown reason I automatically associate it with being outside the Reitz Student Union (on the west side) on the University of Florida campus...some songs have a strange way of bringing up seemingly random connections. It's followed by Red Barchetta, with a sweet tale of the singer recalling his youth and the time he got to drive his uncle's antique racing car on the open road, and the impromptu race that followed...it features one of the seriously most unforgettable guitar riffs I've ever heard. Then comes the "song" YYZ, an instrumental piece showcasing the extraordinary guitar talent of Alex Lifeson. Side One closes with Limelight, one of those many rock songs I've heard over the years mirroring a band's own experiences on tour. The flip side opens with The Camera Eye, nearly 11 minutes long, largely instrumental but also sung with obscure lyrics that seem to compare Manhattan with London. Then it's Witch Hunt...seems that much of the disfunction we see nowadays with mob/cult political extremist behavior on the part of ignorant, fearful rabble also existed back then in 1981...and probably always has and always will. The song spells it out bluntly, putting me squarely in Rush's corner on this somber issue. The album closes with Vital Signs, a personal favorite that extolls "deviation from the norm" as a sign of health, not something to be condemned and excised from society. Moving Pictures has a recurring theme to it: informed, independent individualism with a personal conscience. But if the lyrics were all it had, it still wouldn't be a favorite of mine. The outstanding instrumentation and the virtuosity of Lifeson, Lee and Peart on their guitars, keyboards and drums make it a true masterpiece. Alas, sadly Neil Peart passed on in 2020, and Rush is no more except in all their great past music, Moving Pictures being the best...
Next week I begin my "Top Ten" countdown of all-time favorite albums...
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