‘Anagram’: The Rush song Geddy Lee said was intended to be “nonsensical”
Anyone who has pored over Rush lyrics usually has their brain go through a few backflips. While the band may have started out playing the kind of meatheaded blues rock songs reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, the arrival of Neil Peart saw them crafting bold new experiments, complete with lyrics about mythical lands and how human beings relate to each other. Even though they had a few cerebral tracks in their catalogue, they also had their humorous side.
Then again, the band always knew they were in danger of becoming too heady for the common man. In the wake of their disastrous tour for their third album, Caress of Steel, the group knew they were in danger of alienating the fanbase they had already started to cultivate, having written songs over ten minutes long and dealing with vast storylines that often went nowhere.
On the band’s next album, 2112, though, they would have a nice mix of both lighthearted and serious songs. While many remember the massive tale about a space federation outlawing musical expression, other tracks like ‘A Passage to Bangkok’ reflected their funny side, singing about the wonders of the various tourist destinations in which they would get high.
As the band started to move in a synthesised direction in the 1980s, though, they started to put even more heavy concepts into their music. Outside of songs about the human condition, Peart would continue writing tracks having to do with pitch-black topics, including the trials and tribulations of those suffering in concentration camps on ‘Red Sector A’ from Grace Under Pressure.
When putting together material for the album Presto, though, Geddy Lee remembered the band wanting to stretch a little bit on tracks like ‘Anagram’. Even though the song does feature a decent melody, much of the charm of the piece comes from its strange use of wordplay, including Peart using different letter combinations multiple times in the same line.
While it may have been an excellent idea in practice, Lee admitted that they weren’t focused on making a clear narrative through it all, saying, “It doesn’t really say one thing; it says a bunch of little things, and I think that’s OK as long as it sounds good. You know, as long as it rolls off the tongue kind of thing? So I think different songs are different exercises, to a degree, and I think that if they feel like exercises, then there’s something wrong with the song. Sometimes, you want it to be jarring and disjointed and nonsensical.”
Even though the song may have been a healthy way for the group to experiment, the accompanying album wouldn’t be given the warmest reception by fans. Thinking that the project felt uninspired, the next phase of Rush’s career would see them embracing modern sounds with ease, including the massive sonic landscapes they created with the track ‘Animate’ off the album Counterparts.
Despite its reception at the time, ‘Anagram’ remains a decent experiment from a band that was always about experimenting with different approaches to writing songs. Rush could have easily made another epic track if they wanted to, but if there’s one thing they’ve learned over their years of playing together, it’s that no kind of musical doesn’t suit them.
