Free Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman Page A

indisputable. Aren’t pretty much all their songs about Jesus? It certainly seems like it. At the very least, Rush albums promote some sort of bass-heavy Christian value system. “He’s trying to save the day for the Old World man,” proclaim the soaring vocals of Canadian spiritualist Geddy Lee. “He’s trying to pave the way for the Third World man.” Isn’t that the entire New Testament encapsulated in two lines? Didn’t Jesus teach us to bid “A Farewell to Kings” and to watch the humble “Working Man” inherit the earth? And I’m sure God likes “Trees” and hates racism at least as much as Neil Peart does.
    Nobody ever believes me when I start talking about Rush’s hard-line Christian stance, but every time I hear their music itbecomes more and more clear. Listen to the song “Freewill”: I have a hard time understanding exactly what Lee is talking about here, but I can tell it has something to do with being a good person (or with being an honest person, or a stoic person, or holding some vague personality trait that God would probably support). “Freewill” also implies something about agnostics going to hell, but that’s just par for the course when it comes to Rush. I even have some suspicions about the metaphorical significance of “The Spirit of Radio,” and that goes double for the cover art on Grace Under Pressure, Fly by Night (a fucking owl?), and—most notably—the homoerotic purgatory imagery on the sleeve for Hemispheres. Who is in the Temple of Syrinx? Perhaps it’s Jesus.
    The reason I bring this up is because I think it says a lot about perception, which is the tool we all use to build the context for our lives. Even if my thinking is flawed (and I assume it is), it does indicate that—somehow—Rush has purposefully or accidentally put themselves in a position where virtually anybody can make an oblique argument about what they represent. This is a common problem for hard rock bands, and especially for Rush; everyone wants to categorize them, but no one wants to claim them. As bassist Lee once said, “It’s funny. When you talk to metal people about Rush, eight out of ten will tell you we’re not a metal band. But if you talk to anyone outside of metal, eight out of ten will tell you we are a metal band.” And Geddy’s totally right. In high school, I would never have classified Rush as a metal band. I barely thought they were a hard rock group; now I’m mentioning Rush in this book
    So what does that mean? Well, on one level it simply proves that attempts to categorize anything (rock groups and otherwise) have more to do with personal perception than with reality. Of course—as anyone who has spent too many hours studying communication theory will tell you—perception is reality. And it’s within that construct of perception-driven reality where we start to see the relationship between heavy metal and the people who listened to it (and maybe even the people who use metal as a soundtrack for suicide).
    Here again, I feel forced to use self-destructive drug abuse as the clearest metaphor for life. Regardless of how someone describes their drug use—as a “habit,” as a “problem,” as a “recreation,” whatever—they are really just trying to find a euphemism for their lifestyle. Even if the actual ingestion of narcotics consumes only a fraction of their free time, it’s never a minor personality quirk. For one thing, it’s illegal; for another, it freaks out a good chunk of the population. Drug use is really a lifestyle choice. Though drugs do not necessarily change your life, taking drugs will change the way people look at you (and the way you will look at yourself). Those who have no personal experience with drugs will assume that you’re throwing your life away; certain people will not date you. Employers will