From: jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger)
Newsgroups: alt.music.rush
Subject: Neil's depth (was Re: neil's cross?)
Date: 1 Oct 92 04:44:01 GMT
Organization: Boston University Physics Department

In article <1992Oct1.025330.28504@cc.umontreal.ca> 
tsirbasc@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Tsirbas Christos) writes:

>Gregg,

>Lighten, up, after all, to quote the Stones: "It's only Rock and Roll, but I
>like it".

Have you ever read what Neil has to say about the Stones?! :)
(I'll give you a hint -- he said their sold-out zero-integrity
`superconductors').

Hee hee, this is very amusing considering what you posted:

>Being that I have been a Canadian resident all my life, Rush has always been
>an integral part of the music I have listened to.  As the band has
>evolved, so have I, but it just seems to me, as I get older, 
>that Neil's lyrics are starting to sound more and more like the 
>pretentious drivel of first year philosophy students.  If I want 
>philosophy, I'll read Aristole and Heidegger.  If I want poetry
>I'll read Robert Bly and Robert Frost.  Neil is good at neither 
>of these, in my opinion.  He is a good Rock Lyricist, and Rush is
> a great Rock Band.  I enjoy their music, but it's hard for me to 
>take it as seriously as I did when I was 16, when "Tom Sawyer" was 
>the deepest thing I had ever encountered.  


I'm glad to see that you've evolved. A couple of points: i) Neil
never claimed to be a philosopher, nor have I said he was one, ii)
Neil is not a poet, nor have I said he was one. These two points
fairly well address the substance of the remainder of your post,
which BTW seems to more about how you personally feel about Neil
and his lyrics than about those things themselves, but they're 
amusing anyway so let's take a look:

>[Neil was] interviewed on a Radio special.  IMHO he came off sounding 
>like a pompous self-absorbed ass.  (I know I'll get flamed for it, 
>but hey, it's an opinion).

That's right, it's your opinion.

>His bit about not liking the term hero and its connotation, preferring rather,
>exemplar, showed his pompousness at its worst.  I mean what is an exemplar, if
>not a hero. 

An exemplar is someone one takes as an example to model one's life by.
One need not take one's heroes as exemplars, and in fact the results
might be tragic. Heroism is obviously not something everyone is capable
of imitating succesfully. It's hard to say more as you've not given
a text of the interview.

>Secondly, he was whining about how much time people demand from him,
>be they on the road crew or some kid asking for an autograph.  Well, 
>Mr. Peart, those kids asking for autographs have spent the money 
>that has made you a millionaire, two minutes won't kill you. 
> That, for me was the last straw as far as Peart is concerned.

Gee, I guess you just didn't get much of what he's been saying
throughout the years. I suppose because one gets paid for doing
one's job, whoever it is who pays for the product of one's work
can feel free to invade one's privacy? 

Look what you're criticizing Neil for is not conforming to the
traditional role of musician-as-media-personality. Boy, are you
sure you've _read_ any Rush lyrics? You know, ``Limelight'' and
``Superconductor'', ...

>  It's bad enough that I have to put up with bad philosophy
>from pretentious first year students who know everything.
>I don't need to flood my leisure hours with it!

Why is that? Are you teaching one of those _really valuable_ :)
introduction-to-philosophy courses or what? Otherwise this comment 
seems to be out of context. Are you suggesting that Neil's view
of life is sophomoric? (seems you think he's worse: `freshmanic'?)
As I've said Neil has never said that he's doing philosophy when
he's writing lyrics. That of course does not mean that there
is no view of life to be found in them, or that they may not be
meaningful. 

If when you were sixteen you thought you were having really deep
thoughts thinking about the lyrics to ``Tom Sawyer'' when you
were actually having shallow ones then don't blame that on Neil.

>For me, Rush is just a band, albeit, a band for whom I still hold 
>great respect, musically, but I think that it's a waste of time
>trying to analyse Neil's lyrics for their deepness.  Hey, the guy 
>is good, I'll admit that, but there are infinitely better sources 
>out there for philosophical inspiration and thought.  

Again, you're misunderstanding the point of Rush lyrics and blaming
Neil for it. The works of Aristotle and Heidegger are not really
very useful in thinking about the problems of contemporary life.
I'm not very interested in looking for the `deepness' in Rush lyrics,
but I am interested in figuring out all the subtleties that Neil has
taken the time to put into them. And because _I_ enjoy analyzing 
lyrics in my spare time (most of the time I'm dealing with equations,
so it's nice to think about words now and again).


>As for Peart himself.  He sounds like the kind of person that I 
>would have an extremely low tolerance for (please excuse the poor 
>grammar of this last sentence). 

This is _completely_ irrelevant, so far as I can see.

> Just because I am a fan of the band, 
>it does not mean that I have to like everything they do, nor does 
>it mean spending my time analysing liner-notes and lyric sheets.

Of course -- is anyone _asking you_ to do so? If you're not interested
in a thread, there is always the space bar.

> As for my opinions about Mr. Peart, I can respect his lyrical 
>abilities and his prowess as a drummer, but that does
>not have to mean that I unconditionally have to accept everything he says as 
>being binding or deep. 

See the above.

> I think that this is the one good point he made between
>heroes and exemplars (although I do believe that he was using 
>the word hero in its negative, uncritical aspect, rather than 
>in the way in which it corresponds to the notion of exemplar):  
>One should not blindly worship another (be it a human being or 
>a divinity) without application of one's critical faculties, nor
>to the point where one is completely in awe of the other and 
>completely absorbedin the accomplishments of the other.


Sure, what's your point? Do you get the impression I or someone
else here is doing blindly worshipping Neil or something? Strange.



Gregg


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregg Jaeger    (jaeger@buphy.bu.edu)     | Tristero?   ______/|/|  Treestero?
Dept(s). of Physics (and Philosophy)      ------------    (_) \|\|  Trystero?
Boston University, 590 Commonwealth Ave.,Boston MA 02215 ---------------------