Rush’s “Bastille” Day – which opens their third studio album, 1975’s Caress of Metal – begins with restraint, every musician previewing the forthcoming assault. Shortly, the music builds right into a flurry of bass and Neil Peart’s rhythmic drumming, setting the stage for an impassioned, offended Geddy Lee vocal. As a document, Caress of Metal is notable for its comparatively pared-back instrumental strategy from the maximalist prog outfit. “Bastille Day,” due to this fact, is a becoming introduction to Rush’s extra blunt and direct strategy, a music that units the tone for the remainder of the document.
Rush likes to dive into subtext lyrically – whether or not the topic is historical past or Center Earth – and “Bastille Day” is certainly one of their most pointed allegories within the catalog. Impressed by Lee’s latest re-reading of A Story of Two Cities, “Bastille Day” marches from a quiet starting right into a propulsive metallic music, seemingly rushing up after each refrain, as if the music’s topic – a mob revolting on its guidelines – is storming the fort gates. It’s the prog metallic equal of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” a music that races to its climax as chaos escalates, and the band matches that vitality each step of the way in which.
Peart, who wrote the lyrics after Lee briefed him on his obsession, designed “Bastille Day” to imitate a serious occasion of the French Revolution, the place peasants stormed the Bastille fortress in Paris. The music’s first line, ending with “let them eat cake,” spells out the inspiration clearly. Whereas the quote is usually attributed to Marie Antoinette, the goal of the French peasants’ ire on Bastille Day, it truly predates her. Nevertheless, the quote has come to symbolize the French royalty’s dismissive angle towards the ravenous inhabitants, and Rush makes use of that mythology to create a dense and potent narrative that weaves the music collectively because it escalates.
The lyrics make different direct references, reminiscent of “the guillotine claim[ing] her bloody prize,” probably referring to the beheading of King Louis XVI and Antoinette, who have been each convicted of treason. Impressed by the resentment of A Story of Two Cities‘ primary character, the Bastille-imprisoned Physician Manette, Lee channels this rage in his vocals, telling the story from his perspective.
Within the chronology of Rush, “Bastille Day” is a vital reference level, musically. Whereas the music of Rush would typically enterprise into prog territory, with its irregular patterns and time signatures, “Bastille Day” is certainly one of Rush’s extra direct musical assaults, proof that the band may stroll in several genres with ease. Typically deployed as an opener to their dwell reveals within the late 70s – it’s the opening monitor to their 1976 dwell album All of the World’s a Stage – ”Bastille Day” represents the dynamic Rush at their most direct, propelled by a resonant narrative ripped from historical past.
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