# Second Nature (Rush song)

"Second Nature" is the fourth track of Canadian rock band Rush's twelfth studio album Hold Your Fire (1987), released on September 8, 1987 by Anthem Records. Its lyrics were penned by drummer Neil Peart and music composed by bassist and lead vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson. It was produced by Peter Collins, who took on the same task for the band's previous album Power Windows (1985).
"Second Nature" is a four-and-a-half-minute soft rock power ballad, featuring a new age world music sound and guitar-driven pop rock chorus. A spiritual continuation of songs from A Farewell to Kings (1977), such as "Closer to the Heart", it focuses on the need of habituation in man's moral virtue. It is primarily an "open letter" to the powerful to take action against environmental destruction as second nature, instead of viewing it as an afterthought. It was left out of the set list for Hold Your Fire's promotional tour, and retrospective critics called it middling, bland and unexceptional.

## Background

"Second Nature" was one of nine songs that came about in Hold Your Fire's (1987) first writing sessions at Elora Sound from September 27 to mid-December 1986.$^{:89}$ With drummer Neil Peart as lyricist per usual, he wanted to do another album on power, similar to Power Windows (1985), but specifically in relation to time; however, writing "Second Nature" and "High Water" influenced him to change the focus to the subconscious drive. The music was composed by guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist and lead vocalist Geddy Lee on a keyboard.
Under production of Power Windows (1985) producer Peter Collins, Hold Your Fire was recorded in January to April 1987 at various English studios. These include Oxford's The Manor Studio, Surrey's Ridge Farm Studio, and AIR Montserrat. Toronto's McClear Place was another recording location. As with "Mission" and "High Water", "Second Nature" features a backing orchestra recorded in March–April 1987 and arranged by Steve Margoshes from New York.$^{:92}$ Hold Your Fire was mixed at Paris's William Tell Studio starting May 1, and mastered in mid-July by Lee and Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk.$^{:93}$ Anthem Records released Hold Your Fire on September 8, 1987 with "Second Nature" as the fourth track. It was one of four not present on the set list of the promotional tour.$^{:136}$

## Music

"Second Nature" (4:35) is a soft rock song. It features a new age world music style a-la Mike Oldfield and Tangerine Dream's 1980s work, opening with a piano ballad section and arranged with strings, "evocative piano tones and wispy sonic orchestration" throughout.$^{:112}$$^{:174}$ The chorus consists of the guitar-driven pop rock later dominate on Presto (1989) and Roll the Bones (1991). Langdon Hickman compared the overall sound to demos of Casio keyboards in the 1980s and 1990s. Cultural musicologist Durrell Bowman interpreted both it and "Prime Mover" to be meta on Hold Your Fire's dependence on electronic music production techniques, emphasized by the absence of a guitar solo.$^{:91}$ Analyzed Alex Body, the production is fragile from its tonal contrasts. The track shifts from Lee softly singing in baritone over a piano to heavy drums and distorted guitars, all which accompany a "rapidly moving melody".

## Lyrics

"Second Nature" is another one of Peart's detached viewpoints on a topic related to a chaotic and problematic world. The lyrics are framed as an "open letter" to industry and political leaders to view destruction of the environment as something to be solved like second nature rather than an afterthought.$^{:9–10}$ Following the general album's theme of instinctual drive, "Second Nature" is also about man's requirement to habituate their moral virtue, a concept from Greek philosopher Aristotle's perspectives on the subject. Claims that "too many captains keep on steering us wrong" and we "fight the fire while we're feeding the flame" reflect concerns of the sociopolitical state of the world present throughout Hold Your Fire. While Greg Pratt perceived a critique of modern capitalism, Robert Freedman thought Peart did not discourage the profit motive while requesting leaders to take in the big picture.$^{:10}$
According to Peart, the line "I know perfect's not for real / I thought we might get closer/ But I'm ready to make a deal" communicates two messages: "if we can't get perfect, then let's get better" and "even if I could not accept compromise, I would have to accept limitations." Anand Agneshwar noticed the theme of Peart's reluctant downfall from "rock's bastion of human perfection" presented in the line in his review for the Press & Sun-Bulletin.
"Second Nature" was a successor to songs from A Farewell to Kings (1977), such as "Closer to the Heart" and the title track, in the headcanon of academics. A difference is that it is based on Ancient Greek philosophy and Henry David Thoreau instead of American classical liberalism expressed by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. For Carol Selby and Robert Price, it was a more sober version of the 1977 album's title song after maturation from Grace Under Pressure's (1984) "Distant Early Warning". As they explain, the men in high places are not living up to the declarations in "Closer to the Heart", forcing the powerless to make a compromise.
Contemporaneous reviewers such as Greg Quill interpreted a variety of messages and themes related to the human condition, such as an expression of impatience with the rate of social progress, and a "legal" and "plaintive" plea for the Golden Rule, connection, commonality, cooperation and communication of human beings in the "electronic age".

## Reception

Upon release, Circus recommended "Second Nature" along with "Force Ten" and "High Water" for songs on Hold Your Fire that sound like their "vintage" work. "Long-time Rush fans", Bob Darden gloated, "are probably still in shock over this one." In later decades, music writers have considered "Second Nature" a middling, bland and boring power ballad. Even Pratt and Ryan Reed, sympathizers towards Hold Your Fire, were underwhelmed, the latter calling it "one of the band's weakest ballads". Thrillist ranked "Second Nature" the 156th best Rush song out of 1987, where Jordan Hoffman compared it to Pete Townshend's 1980s solo albums, and Ultimate Classic Rock 146 out of 167.
Daniel Bukszpan called "Second Nature" an "unremarkable" and "half-formed" experience on an already "average" tracklist, only "briefly redeemed by the instrumental middle section".$^{:74}$ Hickman loved its chorus and hated the "mind-bogglingly cheesy" "garbage" around it. Jeff Wagner called it and "Open Secrets" the album's "clutch" and dismissed lyrics such as "Folks have got to make choices / and choices got to have voices" as "dippy".$^{:112}$ Reed also cringed at the line. Episcopal Church prelate Mark Hollingsworth quoted the chorus and second verse of "Second Nature" in his book Embracing the Gray: A Wing, a Prayer, and a Doubter's Resolve (2023).$^{:59–60}$
Opinions on the sound and instrumentation were divided. Body lauded the "impressive musical use of light and shade" that "successfully brings power to the song's most important moments". Pratt humorously wrote the song was set "to the backdrop of more tinkers and totters and keyboard plinks that just sound totally great, and serve as a convenient wakeup call to Lifeson who... nope, he doesn't wake up". Reed, on the other hand, thought it was "marred by gooey synths and a predictable arrangement". Hickman was turned off by its "on-the-nose" utilization of a sound and genre most associated with 1980s sitcoms and shopping malls.

## Personnel

Sources:$^{:92}$
Rush
* Geddy Lee – bass guitar, synthesizer, vocals
* Alex Lifeson – electric and acoustic guitar
* Neil Peart – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
* Andy Richards – additional keyboard, synthesizer programming
* Steven Margoshes – strings arranger and conductor
Production
* Peter Collins – producer, arrangements
* James "Jimbo" Barton – engineer
* Bob Ludwig – mastering