‘Countdown’: The Rush song inspired by space travel
The music of Rush always toyed with the conventions of science fiction, but a song on their 1982 album Signal made that fictional hope a reality. ‘Countdown’ is a track that employs all the instrumentation expected of a tune that explores the limitless potential of space travel.
The song was inspired by the fortune that Rush had in being guests at the launch of the first reusable manned spacecraft, the Columbia Space Shuttle. It was launched on April 12th, 1981, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In the Signals tour book, Neil Peart explained what it was like watching the spacecraft take off. “We met our liaison man in the pre-dawn hours [but] they announced that the launch would be scrubbed for that day, he said. “The next night we had a show in San Antonio, after which we drove off immediately, clambered into a hired jet, and flew straight back to Florida. This time the launch took place on schedule, and it was SOMETHING!”
Peart added, explaining the process of wanting to write the song: “I remember thinking to myself as we flew back to Fort Worth after a couple days without sleep: ‘We’ve got to write a song about this!’ It was an incredible thing to witness, truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can only hope that the song comes even close to capturing the excitement and awe that we felt that morning.”
The song’s lyrics explore the feeling of anticipation when watching the preparation for takeoff, and wondering at the possibilities that might come from the mission’s success. Rush always had one eye on the human potential as aligned with technological innovation, and the ‘Countdown’ song proved no otherwise.
In 1984, Alex Lifeson told Guitar Magazine about the technical intricacies of the song. He said: “A song like ‘Countdown’ has a bar of 4/4 followed by a bar of 11/8. It’s more of a feel thing than a conscious effort. The way we write, we have the lyric or an idea of what the song is going to be. That idea sets a mood. By changing the time signature you can change the whole effect of the song. I guess in that respect we do go off into those changes without making a conscious effort. Yet it does make the song more complex.”
He added, noting the kind of bands that inspired Rush around that time: “That influence came from the British progressive movement and bands like Yes and Genesis. They had a big influence on us. I guess you’re always picking something that is around that has an effect on the way you hear music. As long as you can hear those things and apply them, you’re growing. A lot of times bands lock into something and stay there and that’s the end. They make two or three records of the same thing, which happen to be their most popular, and that’s it for them.”
Interestingly, their time at the Columbia Space Shuttle spawned another song, ‘Red Sector A’ from 1984’s Grace Under Pressure. The area they had watched the launch from was called Red Sector A, so Peart and Lifeson directly nicked the title for their own song.
