The Rush song they were mocked for performing live
Rush has never been considered a cool band by the general public. While they may have had their moments as one of the premiere progressive acts of the late 1970s, their penchant for massive songs was matched only by in-jokes about their fanbase, often counted among nerds’ favourite acts. Although the band couldn’t care less about what demographic of kids loved their music, one of their first lengthy pieces ended up coming back to bite them.
Throughout their prog-rock incarnation in the ‘70s, drummer Neil Peart was determined to expand the palette of what the genre was supposed to be. Drafting lofty concepts for every one of the band’s works, songs would eventually become too long for their label’s liking, with Caress of Steel becoming a major point of contention with their label.
Although Mercury Records wanted to get the band to try out some radio-friendly material, Rush were persistent in carving out their own path, following up their massive experiment with songs about space federations on 2112. Having earned their freedom with their fanbase behind them, though, A Farewell to Kings was where the band decided to get a bit weird.
Cloaking every piece of their work in a quasi-Renaissance atmosphere, almost every song on the record feels like it could have been ripped from the 1600s, including the epic title track and the period piece ‘Madrigal’. If there was one song that defined the entire era, though, it would have to be ‘Xanadu’.
Running across 11 minutes, Rush explore every aspect of their creative capabilities at the time, making a lavish story centred around a man going a long, perilous journey, only to drive himself mad by the end. Although the band knew that their wild experiment would go over well with the public, they did start to get mocked for their sense of fashion during that period.
To fit in with the styles they were singing about, Rush decided to try out different kimonos, thinking that it would work well with their fanbase. While on tour with the hard rock outfit UFO, Geddy Lee would recall getting relentlessly teased for their choice of wardrobe, recalling in Beyond the Lighted Stage, “[UFO] would call me ‘Glee’. I would go out onstage, and there would be a pair of fuzzy white slippers nailed to the stage. And I’d hear, ‘That goes perfect with your robe, Glee’.”
While the fans were eager to listen to whatever wild experiment the band had next, they seemed to get the joke as well. Given the flowery language in the group’s new epic, fans would also take to holding up signs saying, “I have dined on honeydew” in reference to the song lyrics.
For all of the flak the band may have gotten, it was only the beginning of their experimentation. Going into the recording of their following album, Hemispheres, the band would dare to try even grander concepts than ever before on songs like ‘La Villa Strangiato’ and ‘Circumstances’. Even though the band may have earned their reputation as a more intellectual brand of prog-rock, it didn’t seem to matter as long as the kids kept showing up to gigs.
