The one Rush song Geddy Lee didn’t enjoy playing live: “Never thought it was particularly worthy”
For a brief moment in the early 1980s, there seemed to be a dangerous possibility that Rush might become cool. And, for a large part of their audience, that felt very uncomfortable.
Being a favourite amongst nerds for most of the 1970s, the Canadian power trio was known for their ultra-progressive approach to rock and roll, with flowery lyrics about literature and science fiction and various time signature changes that were an antithesis to pop music. Once they started to get too ambitious, the band decided to make music that was far more streamlined than before.
With Permanent Waves, Rush started to create bold new strides into pop music, crafting ‘The Spirit of Radio’ as their progressive answer to the radio-friendly single. After a string of decent singles off that album, the band felt comfortable going even further into the pop world with the release of Moving Pictures.
Featuring the most celebrated material in Rush’s catalogue, the band finally shied away from their progressive habits, making more palatable songs without sacrificing their creative ingenuity on songs like ‘Limelight’. Although nearly every track on the record became a staple of their catalogue, Geddy Lee never felt completely satisfied with the record’s most ambitious cut.
Being the last Rush song to eclipse ten minutes, ‘The Camera Eye’ was centred around travel, chronicling drummer Neil Peart’s experiences in New York and England. Playing out over two main riffs, the song is home to the greatest playing on the entire record, with Lee laying down tasteful keyboard work along with one of Alex Lifeson’s most playful guitar solos.
When it came time to play the songs live, though, Lee never thought ‘Eye’ stood out as a live cut, recalling, “It’s really all about your sense of perspective. A few years ago, we brought back ‘The Camera Eye.’ I never wanted to play that song. I never thought it was particularly worthy. And yet it was one of the most requested Rush songs. I couldn’t understand it. How could people be so wrong?”
Standing alongside the other Rush epics, though, it’s easy to see where Lee is coming from. From a musician’s perspective, the track feels more like a journey than a proper song, sounding like it could easily soundtrack the travel section of both respective cities rather than something fans would go nuts for.
As part of Rush, one of the most gifted prog-rock bands ever, Lee challenged himself and his audience to accept the bass guitar as a primary instrument in any band. It’s something you’re average listener may not be akin to, but after listening to him live, things would always get jumped up a notch or two. So, having to have a big synthesiser-heavy track, he got taken off the boil.
Then again, the heavily synthesised approach to the song would become a trademark of Rush’s style from this record onward. Throughout the 1980s, the band would start incorporating electronic effects into their albums one song at a time, peaking with albums like Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows.
The massive distance between Rush’s new sound and their older material didn’t come without its sore spots, either, with Alex Lifeson getting frustrated that the band weren’t evolving as he thought they should be. Regardless of whether or not the synths were a good move for the band, ‘The Camera Eye’ captures the moment right before they committed to the electronic side of their sound. The keyboards might be a nice colour at this stage, but nothing was getting away from the grit of the guitars.
