312 Hello Rush - Closer To The Heart

First  charted : 11  February  1978

Chart peak : 36

Number  of  hits : 12

This  lot  were  so  popular  amongst  my  peers in  the  late  seventies / early  eighties  that  I'd   have expected  them  to  have  made  a  bigger  mark  on  the  singles  chart  than  a  solitary  Top  20  hit  thirty-five  years  ago. But  as  with  Floyd, singles  tell  you  only  a  small  part  of  their  story; the  fact  that  their  albums  still  chart  here  in  respectable  positions  tells  you  that  they  are  a  cult  that  endures.

This  is  another  little  milestone  for  the  blog, the  first  group  who  are  still  going  with  exactly  the  same  line  up.

The  band can  trace  their  roots  back  to  1963; guitarist  Alex  Lifeson   , the  son  of  Serbian  immigrants , was  barely  10  when  he  formed  a  band  with  original  drummer  John  Rutsey  in  Toronto. The  name  Rush  was  first  used  in  1968  and  shortly  afterwards  his  schoolfriend    Gary  Weinrib  better  known  as  Geddy  Lee ,  the  son  of  Holocaust  survivors  from  Poland ,  joined  the  band. He  was  actually  asked  to  leave  a  year  later  and  the  band  broke  into  two  factions  with  new  names  but  they  reconvened  as  Rush  in  1971. At  this  point  they  were  mainly  a  weekend  band  playing  covers  of  British  rock  songs  but  they  did  begin  writing  their  own  material. As  their  popularity  in  Canada  grew  they  got  some  prestigious  support  slots  when  bands  came  to  Toronto  but  still  found  it  difficult  to  interest  record  companies.

In 1973  they  formed  their  own  Moon  records  to  release  their  first  single, a  cover  of  Buddy  Holly's  "Not  Fade  Away".  It  would  sound  like  Mungo  Jerry  were  it  not  for  those  instantly  recognizable  vocals. Geddy  Lee  perpetually  sounds  like  he's  been  recorded  at  the  wrong  speed   or  he's  just  taken  a  swig  of  helium  and  I  suspect  that's  always  been  a  barrier  to  their  gaining  wider  acceptance. There's  a  similarity  to  Jon  Anderson  but  somehow  the  Yes  man  doesn't  have  the  same  irritant  quality.

They  persevered  and  recorded  a  full  eponymous  album  with  no  covers  released  in  March  1974.  Though  they're  now  regarded  as  a  prog-rock  outfit  they  were  actually  quite  late  to  that  party  and  at  this  point  they  were   a  solid  hard  rock  outfit  in  thrall  to  British  bands  like  Led  Zeppelin , Humble  Pie  and  Black  Sabbath. The  album  failed  to  sell  in  an  quantity  until  it  was  picked  up  by    Donna  Halper  a  DJ  across  the  border  in  Cleveland.  The  Sabbath-like  grind  of  "Working  Man", by  far  the  best  track,   struck  a  chord  with  the  station's  blue  collar  audience  and  suddenly  record  companies  were  interested. Mercury  bought  the  rights  to  the  album  and  it  made  105  in  the  US  charts. Unwilling  to  trim  the  lengthy  instrumental  passage  in  "Working  Man"  to  single  length  they  instead  released  the  Zeppelin- esque  "Finding  My  Way"  where  Geddy  tries  to  imitate  Robert  Plant  to  amusing  effect  and    the  more  concise  "In  The  Mood"  which  has  more  of  a Faces / Stones  groove. Neither  of  them  are  particularly  melodic  and  neither  were  hits.

By  this  point  Rutsey  had   pulled  out  as  his  diabetic  condition  made  touring  difficult   and  the  band  auditioned  for  replacements  eventually  choosing  the  Hamilton-born  Neil  Peart  in  July  1974.  The  line  up  that  endures  to  this  day  was  complete. In  addition  to  his  drumming  duties  Neil , an  avid  reader, volunteered  to  become  the  band's  primary  lyricist. At  the  end  of  the  year  they  were  ready  to  record  their  second  album, "Fly  By  Night".

Now  they  started  to  become  a  prog  act  particularly  on  the  eight-and-a-half  minute  epic  "By-Tor  and  the  Snow  Dog" . The  opening "Anthem"  was  inspired  by  a  novella  by  libertarian  philosopher  and  novelist  Ayn  Rand  and  "Rivendell"  by  the  Elven  sanctuary  in  Lord  of  the  Rings.  I  don't  know  if  this  comparison  has  been  made  before  but  the  combination  of  verbose  lyrics  , hard  rock  attack   and  yelping  vocals  reminds  me  of   early  Manic  Street  Preachers . In  small  doses  it  can  be  quite  impressive  but   there  isn't  a  memorable  tune  on  the  album  and  the  gentler  stuff  on  side  two  is  seriously  dreary  and  boring.  The  only  single  was  "Fly  By  Night"  about  Neil's  brief  sojourn  in  London, which  packs  in  a  number  of  time  signature  changes  into  little  more  than  three  minutes. There  was  a  video  with  it  so  you  can  marvel  at  Neil's  ferocious  hand  speed  and  how  much  Geddy  looks  like  Katrin  Cartlidge.

The  third  album  "Caress  of  Steel"  in  September  1975  is  more  of  the  same  with  added  pretension; the  whole  of  the  second  side  is  one  track  "The  Fountain  of  Lamneth" . There  are  however  signs  of  a  groping  towards  melody  on  some  parts  of  the  long  tracks  and  the  mellow, touching   single  about  Neil's  youth    "Lakeside  Park"  , lyrically  a  companion  to  Echo  Beach.  

The  album  sold  less  than  its  predecessors  and   Mercury  pressed  them  to  come  up  with  more  commercial  material. They  compromised  slightly  with  five  shorter  songs  on  Side  Two   of  "2112"  although  Side  One  is  the  seven  part  title  track , again  inspired  by  Rand's  Anthem  for  which  she  is  credited  on  the  sleeve. That  dystopian  fantasy  about  a  rebel  finding  a  forbidden  guitar  is  one  for  the  converted  but  some  of  the  snappier  stuff  on  Side  Two,  like  the  single  "The  Twilight  Zone" and  the  drug  tale  "A  Passage  To  Bangkok"  is  quite  palatable. The  final  track  "Something  For  Nothing"  is  brilliantly  bonkers  as  if  some  deranged  chipmunk  had  attended  one  of  Sir  Keith  Joseph's  I.E.A.  lectures  and  joined  a  rock  band  to  spread  the  message.  It  was  their  first  album  to  crack  the  US  Top  100  and  a  respectable  placing  in  Sweden  indicated  they  were  making  inroads  into  Europe  as  well.

Despite being  crticised  for  their self-absorption  and  lack  of  stage  prsence, their  next  move  was  a  double  live  LP  "All  The  World's  A  Stage" released  just  a  few  months  later.  It  reached  number  40  in  the  US  and  the  double  A-side  "Fly  By  Night/In  The  Mood"  became  their  first  hit  outside  Canada  when  it  peaked  at  88  in  the  US.

The  band  came  to  Rockfield  in  Wales  to  record  their  next  studio  album  "A  Farewell  To  Kings"  released  in  September  1977. They  restricted  themselves  to  two  epics  at  just  over  10  minutes  each - the  closing  "Cygnus  X-1 Book 1 : the  Voyage"  doesn't  exactly  leave  me  breathless  for  Book  2 - and  added  synthesisers  to  the  sound  for  texture  but  otherwise  it's  business  as  usual. However  on  the  back  of  their  UK  tour  in  June  it  reached  number  22  here.

"Closer  To  The  Heart", the  third  track  was  released  as  a  single  in  the  US  in  October 1977  reaching  number  76. Mercury  decided  to  release  it  as  their  first   single  here   just  ahead  of  the  first  UK  dates  on   the  tour.  It  does  sound  like  they  were  trying  to  write  something  with  a  wider  commercial  appeal  as  it  comes  in  under  three  minutes  and  is  softened  with  bells  and  glockenspiels  but  repetition  of  the  title  alone  doesn't  constitute  a  memorable  hook  and  the  portentous  lyrics  about  destiny  shapers  and  abrasive  guitar  solo  in  the  middle  kill  its  crossover  potential. I  certainly  don't  recall  hearing  it  on  the  radio.