Rush - Chemistry

Permanent Waves

Released Mercury, 1 January, 1980

• The Spirit of Radio (4:57)
• Freewill (5:23)
• Jacob’s Ladder (7:28)
• Entre Nous (4:37)
• Different Strings (3:49)
• Natural Science (9:16)
• • Tide Pools (2:21)
• • Hyperspace (2:47)
• • Permanent Waves (4:08)

Geddy Lee - Bass/Mini Moog/Oberheim Polyphonic/Taurus Pedals/Vocals. Alex Lifeson - Acoustic & Electric Guitars/Taurus Pedals. Neil Peart - Drums/Percussion. Additional Musician: Hugh Syme - Piano (Track 5).

Produced by Rush and Terry Brown Engineered by Paul Northfield.

Lyrics by Peart, except: ‘Different Strings’ by Lee.

For many bands each album is a reaction to the one before. Where ‘Hemispheres’ built songs around concepts, ‘Permanent Waves’ collated the concepts into shorter, more humm-able songs, turning their musical attention to the post-punk New Wave, while retaining the band’s hard rock edge. Punk was dead, and the New Wave sounds that now dominated the popular scene, created by altogether more competent musicians such as Talking Heads and The Police, were a powerful source of inspiration. The album kicks off with ‘The Spirit of Radio’, inspired by its radio station namesake and recounting a nostalgic rant at the ever-shrinking number of stations that were prepared to do their own thing. Ironic in the extreme that it has become one of the band’s most played songs on the radio! The album is most of all about relationships, with only one song – the lyrically short ode to stormy weather that is ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ – an uneasy fit with the rest of the album.

Interpersonal relationships are covered, appropriately enough, by a pairing of songs. ‘Entre Nous’, originally simply called the same in English, ‘Between Us’ is a love song that only Neil could write from his individualistic, observational standpoint, setting out the boundaries of any lasting relationship. Its message is reinforced by ‘Different Strings’ – ‘We are islands to each other’, perhaps, ‘but there are times for you and me when all such things agree.’ The connection is all the more poignant given that one song was written by Neil, and the other by Geddy, the final time he wrote a complete Rush song by himself. “I got really lazy, because Neil is so prolific,” he said at the time, but he never needed to worry whether he would be able to interpret the lyrics.

Self-awareness is a necessary element of any relationship. Continuing the staple theme of self-determination, ‘Free Will’ bemoans the lives of those who believe they can’t change their destiny. As if to prove the point, from a musical perspective it is a song that does not bow to the pressures of simplicity. “I don’t think that you have to play in 4/4 to feel comfortable,” said Neil at the time. “We work in nearly every [time signature] that I know of that’s legitimate. All of the 5’s, 7’s, 9’s, 11’s, 13’s and combinations thereof.”

The band’s last ever concept piece concludes the album. ‘Natural Science’ picks up where ‘Different Strings’ leaves off, suggesting that relationships between humanity and nature are subject to similar pressures to their interpersonal counterparts. Shorter, less complex and indulgent the three movements see the band inside its comfort zone, stringing together musical sequences to support the central theme. There is a sense of continuity about it all, a suggestion that there is a right way to do things, which strongly coincides with the band’s own position at the time. There is no angst here, only understanding.