‘Double Agent’: The Rush song Geddy Lee thought was too “self-indulgent”
Every artist who has ever played progressive rock has always fought the idea of being a bit self-indulgent. For all the great music a band can make together, there comes a moment in every prog-rock act where they have to decide if the song is more enjoyable for the rest of the band onstage than it is for the audience who paid money to see them play. Although Rush has had many songs that have gone well beyond the standard accessible single, Geddy Lee believed that one of the tracks featured them disappearing up their own ass just a little bit.
Then again, Rush was never afraid to test their audience’s limitations. Even though they started out playing the same kind of blues-soaked rock and roll that their peers were doing in 1974, it didn’t take them long to branch out with Neil Peart, putting together massive exercises that often eclipsed ten minutes.
Even though most casual rock fans didn’t have time to listen to such a long-winded piece, the Canadian power trio developed a hardcore fanbase that related to what they were saying, sending their album 2112 into the stratosphere and giving them a creative golden ticket when turning the record into their label. With that much wiggle room in the studio, the band were about to turn in the weirdest albums they had ever made.
Across projects like Hemispheres, the band created tracks that were almost too difficult to play in full, with the instrumental ‘La Villa Strangiato’ having to be split into different parts instead of being played from top to bottom. It’s not like they didn’t know what they were doing, either, with Peart going so far as to subtitle the instrumental ‘An Exercise in Self-Indulgence’.
While most fans went along for the ride, their hardcore audience was perplexed when the band adopted synthesisers in the 1980s. While recording albums like Hold Your Fire and Grace Under Pressure, most of the band’s sonic palette shifted towards the keyboards, leading to a creative strain between Alex Lifeson and the rest of the group.
Although Lee remained defiantly proud of most of the band’s work, Counterparts was the moment when the band started to get back on the same page. While songs like ‘Animate’ would become staples of the band’s catalogue and remain a part of their live setlist throughout their final tours, Lee thought that they had crossed a line when working on the track ‘Double Agent’.
Talking about the song after the record was finished, Lee recalled that they may have gone a bit too far when recording the track, saying, “’Double Agent’ was a complete exercise in self-indulgence, and really, it was one of the last things we wrote on the record. We’d written all these songs that were heavily structured and were crafted and meticulously worked on: this note and that note. And really, it’s one of the goofiest songs I think we’ve ever written, but I’m quite happy with the result”.
Even though the band may have worked meticulously on getting the song right, it would be the start of them starting to change their sound yet again, becoming more feral with age on later albums like Test For Echo and Vapor Trails. ‘Double Agent’ may not have been one of the classics of Rush’s discography, but they were never afraid of backing down from a challenge when they entered the studio.
