Music Appreciation: Rush "Moving Pictures" (sort of)

There is not much more that can really be said about this album that hasn't been said. It has been analyzed, scrutinized and talked about for 30 years or more by this point. Well, side one has at least. It seems that side two has been almost overlooked due mostly to the strength and power of side one.
In all fairness, the slight of never hearing anyone extol the virtues of side two is completely understandable when you factor in what a musical earthquake the first side was when the album was released.
It yielded three singles that all but set the music world on fire and when you add to it the realization that they were three astounding singles from a band that had never really had a successful single in their entire career until the previous album, "Permanent Waves".
Rush was a band on a mission as they wrote and recorded what they wanted regardless of the rules that had been put in their path. They had been dismissed for years as a prog rock band with limited appeal except to the geeks and nerds who loved them. 
When "Moving Pictures" was released all that changed in an instant. Even Rolling Stone, who had denigrated, marginalized and outright ignored them for years, was finally forced to sit up and take notice.
The album exploded into the music scene with the force of an atom bomb. Suddenly, people who had never even heard of Rush, were blown away by the songs, the technical expertise of the band and how amazing the music was. The first three singles released were Tom Sawyer, Limelight and Vital signs but the latter got lost in the immediate appeal of the other two. Within weeks, you could hear the entire first side being played on radio including the brilliantly executed instrumental, 'YYZ', a song that ultimately netted them a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental.
Rush was finally an overnight success and it only took eight albums to achieve it.
My intent with this missive is not to talk about side one though. I'd really like to take a few minutes and talk about what I think was more of the best prog rock ever recorded.
Side two opened with the beautiful and nearly orchestral, 'The Camera Eye', what would prove to be the last piece they would record longer than 10 minutes. It was a virtual clinic on how to write prog rock music containing so many elements from hypnotic keyboard textures and soaring guitar to Peart's always athletic drumming.
The song is about the unique qualities of two cities and is based on Peart's experiences in both cities, New York and London.
The next song is 'Witch Hunt' a dark and malevolent ode to the dangers of mob rule and features some of Peart's best lyrics to date. Peart made a change to how he recorded his drum parts by multi-tracking the verse to give the impression of a full percussion section. The song starts with a simple but broodingly dark melody filled with dissonance and the shouts of a mob in the background.The lyrics are so descriptive and the chord progression matches them so perfectly that it evokes a sense of foreboding. The best lyric on the entire album for me is during the last verse, "Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand. Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand."
The song climaxes with Geddy playing a hauntingly beautiful keyboard part while Alex and Neil flesh out the rest.
The final song, Vital Signs, is perhaps the quirkiest one on the album. Using an Oberheim OBX, Geddy sequences a keyboard melody that seems simple at first but then doubles the melody on bass making it even more interesting. The influence of reggae and The Police is evident with the way both Alex and Neil approach their parts. Neil plays a standard 4 pattern backwards, with the bass drum on 2 & 4 and the snare on 1 & 3, a common device in reggae music, and Alex accentuates the chords on the upbeat instead of the down giving the music a distinct reggae feel. The ride out builds slowly with Neil once again playing the drums more musically than most drummers do, accentuating the end of each time through with fills that once again defy reality for their speed and accuracy.
While everyone in the country was talking about how totally awesome side one was, I was a lone voice talking about side two being the better of the two. It featured one of their patented "mini-epics" and showcased how versatile the band truly was by allowing us to see hints of the music they were influenced by during writing and recording.
The reggae/Police influence was heard on the previous album on 'The Spirit Of Radio" but only briefly in the seconds before the guitar solo.
*Side note - I actually recorded myself playing along to every song on the album and even recorded videos of myself doing it, for the 30th anniversary of the album's release, and I can say with absolutely no hesitation that the hardest one to do was 'The Camera Eye' for it's many parts and mood shifts and the always demanding soloing of Lifeson. I will also say that the three songs on side two were my favorites to play simply because I hadn't been asked to play them at all when the subject of what Rush songs I knew came up occasionally. Invariably, everyone would ask me to play YYZ or Limelight but never once did anyone ask me to play The Camera Eye or Vital Signs.
Perhaps my continued love of side two is based on the fact that those songs were never popular on radio so they remain fresh to me. Whatever the reason, I am still completely enamored with the songs that no one seems to love but me and my fellow Rush fanatics.