WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 Apple podcast title, the deep dive, decoding 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:05.900 rushes into the darkness and the necromancer. 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:08.699 Apple Podcast Description, Apple Podcast Description. 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.580 Join us on this comprehensive deep dive into 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:13.759 Into the Darkness, the haunting first movement 00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:16.899 of Russia's epic suite, The Necromancer. We unpack 00:00:16.899 --> 00:00:20.059 the 1975 progressive rock masterpiece from the 00:00:20.059 --> 00:00:22.780 album Corressive Steel, exploring Neil Peart's 00:00:22.780 --> 00:00:25.699 Lord of the Rings inspired lyrics, Geddy Lee's 00:00:25.699 --> 00:00:28.899 soulful vocals, and Alex Lifeson's proto -stoner 00:00:28.899 --> 00:00:31.379 metal guitar riffs. Whether you're a hardcore 00:00:31.379 --> 00:00:33.820 music theorist or just insanely curious about 00:00:33.820 --> 00:00:36.130 how a Toronto suburb inspired a dark fantasy 00:00:36.130 --> 00:00:38.710 quest, this deep dive extracts the fascinating 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.149 musical, literary, and historical secrets behind 00:00:41.149 --> 00:00:43.689 the song. Discover the truth behind the vinyl 00:00:43.689 --> 00:00:46.609 misprints, the Down the Tubes tour, and the polarizing 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:49.509 critical reception of this shadowy classic. Rush, 00:00:49.750 --> 00:00:51.909 Into the Darkness, Caressa Steele, The Necromancer, 00:00:52.090 --> 00:00:54.369 Progressive Rock, Proto Stoner Metal, Neil Peart, 00:00:54.509 --> 00:00:57.030 Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Lord of the Rings, Music 00:00:57.030 --> 00:00:59.219 Analysis, Will O'Dale. If you're looking at your 00:00:59.219 --> 00:01:01.359 app right now, you already know exactly what 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:04.280 we're getting into today. The title is The Deep 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:07.120 Dive, Decoding Russia's Into the Darkness and 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:09.900 the Necromancer. And if you read the description, 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:12.379 which I highly recommend, it's packed with all 00:01:12.379 --> 00:01:14.819 those great keywords like progressive rock, proto 00:01:14.819 --> 00:01:17.680 -stoner metal, Neil Peart, caress of steel. You 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:19.400 know exactly what our mission is. We're going 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:23.640 way back. Way back. We are unpacking a 1975 masterpiece 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:26.379 from their third studio album, Caress of Steel. 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.069 We're exploring Neil Peart. his really heavily 00:01:30.069 --> 00:01:32.450 Lord of the Rings inspired lyrics, Geddy Lee's 00:01:32.450 --> 00:01:35.510 incredibly soulful vocals, and Alex Lifeton's 00:01:35.510 --> 00:01:38.750 heavy, heavy guitar riffs. So whether you are 00:01:38.750 --> 00:01:41.349 a hardcore music theorist or you're just like 00:01:41.349 --> 00:01:43.790 insanely curious about how a completely normal 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:46.530 Toronto suburb somehow inspired this dark fantasy 00:01:46.530 --> 00:01:49.549 quest, this deep dive is going to extract the 00:01:49.549 --> 00:01:52.090 fascinating musical, literary, and historical 00:01:52.090 --> 00:01:53.870 secrets behind the song. And there are a lot 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:55.790 of them. Oh, there's so many. We're even getting 00:01:55.790 --> 00:01:58.430 into the truth behind the vinyl misprints, the 00:01:58.430 --> 00:02:01.290 infamous down the tubes tour, and the wildly 00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:04.469 polarizing critical reception of this whole shadowy 00:02:04.469 --> 00:02:06.670 classic. It's going to be a fun one. It is. So 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:08.610 welcome. I am thrilled to have you with us as 00:02:08.610 --> 00:02:12.069 we travel back to July 1975. We are stepping 00:02:12.069 --> 00:02:15.490 right into the heavily soundproofed kind of ozone 00:02:15.490 --> 00:02:17.870 scented tracking rooms of Toronto Sound Studios. 00:02:17.909 --> 00:02:20.349 That's a great visual. Thanks. Our goal here 00:02:20.349 --> 00:02:23.129 is to explore what is arguably the darkest, most 00:02:23.129 --> 00:02:26.340 shadowy corner of a legendary Canadian rock band's 00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:29.120 entire catalog. We're using a highly detailed 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.180 Wikipedia article chronicling Eye into the Darkness. 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:34.599 That's the opening movement of the musical suite, 00:02:34.699 --> 00:02:37.819 The Necromancer, as our map today. Exactly. But, 00:02:38.039 --> 00:02:39.639 and I think this is important note, we aren't 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:42.180 just reading facts here. Right. We really want 00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:46.159 to decode how three incredibly young, incredibly 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:48.879 exhausted musicians managed to turn the sheer 00:02:48.879 --> 00:02:52.560 dread of their everyday lives into this sprawling 00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:54.680 fantasy. epic. Okay, let's unpack this. Just 00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:56.539 to set our baseline into the darkness is just 00:02:56.539 --> 00:02:58.659 the first part of a three -part suite that closes 00:02:58.659 --> 00:03:01.139 out the A side of Caress of Steel. Yep. It's 00:03:01.139 --> 00:03:04.039 a track composed by bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:06.460 Alex Lifeson with drummer Neil Parrott taking 00:03:06.460 --> 00:03:08.780 over the lyrical duties and it's all co -produced 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:12.099 with Terry Brown. It is a phenomenal piece of 00:03:12.099 --> 00:03:15.199 audio architecture and I think for you, the listener, 00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:19.180 understanding the exact context of July 1975 00:03:19.180 --> 00:03:22.430 is it's totally crucial. It's everything. Right, 00:03:22.909 --> 00:03:24.710 because this wasn't a band at the peak of their 00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:27.490 stadium filling powers. This is a band essentially 00:03:27.490 --> 00:03:29.189 fighting for their lives. Yeah, they were in 00:03:29.189 --> 00:03:31.479 a tough spot. Very. They had just come off Fly 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.180 By Night, they were relentlessly touring, and 00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:37.000 they decided to take a massive, potentially career 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:40.319 -ending creative risk. They spent three weeks 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.360 in Toronto Sound Studios trying to build a completely 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:45.979 immersive audio world. Three weeks. Three weeks. 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:48.719 And the reason we are spending an hour dissecting 00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:50.439 a track that isn't even four minutes long is 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:52.400 because it represents a hinge point. A pivot. 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:54.620 Exactly. It's a master class in world building. 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:58.199 It is that exact moment where musicians decide 00:03:58.199 --> 00:04:00.800 to push past the comfortable boundaries of standard 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:03.460 blues rock and attempt to blend high concept 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:06.400 literary storytelling with deeply experimental 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.939 sound design. And that intersection of storytelling 00:04:09.939 --> 00:04:12.500 and sound design is exactly what makes this track 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:14.719 so weirdly unsettling. Let's look at the Sonic 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:17.500 Foundation first. When you comb through the sources 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:20.019 and see how music writers and critics have tried 00:04:20.019 --> 00:04:24.220 to categorize this single 3 minute and 47 second 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:27.839 track, it's all over the map. You've got people 00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:30.000 calling it standard progressive rock. Others 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.319 call it acid rock. The publication Ultimate Guitar 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:35.600 referred to it as having a whiskey blues style. 00:04:36.220 --> 00:04:38.459 Which is an interesting term. Yeah, and then 00:04:38.459 --> 00:04:40.899 writer Ryan Reid throws down the gauntlet and 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:44.220 categorizes it as Black Sabbath -style proto 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:46.759 -stoner metal. That was my favorite. It's so 00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:49.819 good. But you hear whiskey blues and proto -stoner 00:04:49.819 --> 00:04:51.939 metal, and you immediately assume those are two 00:04:51.939 --> 00:04:54.170 completely different bands playing in... two 00:04:54.170 --> 00:04:57.230 completely different decades. How did Rush actually 00:04:57.230 --> 00:04:59.670 glue those entirely different sonic textures 00:04:59.670 --> 00:05:01.490 together without it just sounding like a chaotic 00:05:01.490 --> 00:05:04.029 mess? Well, what's fascinating here is that they 00:05:04.029 --> 00:05:05.930 didn't just glue them together. They stretched 00:05:05.930 --> 00:05:08.149 them out. What do you mean? They took the DNA 00:05:08.149 --> 00:05:11.170 of their earlier work and subjected it to immense 00:05:11.170 --> 00:05:13.930 atmospheric pressure. If you look back at their 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:16.230 eponymous debut album from just a year prior 00:05:16.230 --> 00:05:20.089 in 1974, it was deeply rooted in that heavy, 00:05:20.329 --> 00:05:23.379 bluesy, zeppelin -esque hard rock. Yeah, lots 00:05:23.379 --> 00:05:26.199 of swagger. Tons of swagger. With Into the Darkness, 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:29.560 they retain the tonality of that blues rock, 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.939 but they slow the tempo down to a relentlessly 00:05:32.939 --> 00:05:35.939 agonizing crawl. It is so slow. It really is. 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:38.920 The song is in a standard 44 -time signature. 00:05:39.100 --> 00:05:41.399 but because of how much space they leave between 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:43.740 the beats, it feels like it's dragging a heavy 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:46.399 weight. Furthermore, they anchor the entire piece 00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:49.220 in the key of E minor. Okay, E minor. Now, E 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:51.800 minor on a guitar naturally utilizes the lowest 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:54.699 open string, providing this incredibly deep, 00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:57.100 resonant, booming foundation that naturally lends 00:05:57.100 --> 00:06:00.459 itself to a darker, more ominous emotional tone. 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:02.480 Right, but it's not just that they are playing 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:04.740 in E minor. A lot of bands play slow songs in 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:06.879 E minor and they just sound sad or maybe a little 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:09.120 bluesy. Sure. This track doesn't sound sad. It 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:11.199 sounds genuinely threatening. There's a specific 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:13.240 chord progression they are using here. E minor 00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:16.759 seven to D, back to E minor seven, then to C 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:20.160 to G, and finally a D over F sharp. Now, I don't 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.120 want to get totally lost in the weeds of music 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.319 theory here, but I need you to explain how that 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:27.120 specific sequence of chords actually generates 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:30.339 that feeling of dread. What is that D over F 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:32.360 sharp actually doing to the listener's brain? 00:06:32.620 --> 00:06:35.279 It's all about harmonic gravity and the denial 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:38.019 of resolution. Denial of resolution. I like that. 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:40.819 When you play that progression, you are moving 00:06:40.819 --> 00:06:45.139 through these somewhat standard, almost folk 00:06:45.139 --> 00:06:49.779 -like changes. The C to the G feels briefly expansive, 00:06:49.939 --> 00:06:51.579 almost like a breath of fresh air. Right. It 00:06:51.579 --> 00:06:54.459 opens up a bit. Exactly. But then they hit that 00:06:54.459 --> 00:06:57.379 D over F sharp. In music theory, that F sharp 00:06:57.379 --> 00:07:00.699 in the bass acts as a leading tone. Okay. It 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:03.300 possesses this intense, undeniable gravitational 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:06.319 pull back down to the root note of E, the passing 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:09.060 chord that offers zero stability. When your ear 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:11.339 hears that F sharp, your brain instinctively 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:13.459 knows it has to resolve down a half step to the 00:07:13.459 --> 00:07:15.560 E. So it's pulling you down. Pulling you right 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:17.860 down. So instead of finishing the musical phrase 00:07:17.860 --> 00:07:20.519 on a chord that feels final or triumphant, the 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:23.240 D over F sharp acts like a trapdoor. The trapdoor. 00:07:23.480 --> 00:07:26.079 Yeah, it forces the listener right back into 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:29.560 the gloomy suffocating loop of E minor. You are 00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:31.560 never allowed to escape the musical basement. 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:34.800 Man, I love that visual. A harmonic trapdoor. 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:37.399 Yeah. But let's elevate this a bit because the 00:07:37.399 --> 00:07:39.620 trapdoor isn't the only thing messing with the 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:42.319 listener's sense of safety here. Oh no, not at 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:44.459 all. We have to talk about the tritone. And for 00:07:44.459 --> 00:07:47.019 anyone listening who knows their theory, You 00:07:47.019 --> 00:07:49.899 know exactly what a tritone is, but let's look 00:07:49.899 --> 00:07:51.939 at it not just as a diminished fifth, but as 00:07:51.939 --> 00:07:54.060 a physical sensation. Okay, yeah. Think of it 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:56.740 like this. You are walking through your house 00:07:56.740 --> 00:07:59.639 in the pitch black. You are walking down a staircase 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:03.029 you've traversed a thousand times. You confidently 00:08:03.029 --> 00:08:05.069 take a step, assuming you are hitting the flat 00:08:05.069 --> 00:08:07.949 landing, but your foot finds nothing but empty 00:08:07.949 --> 00:08:10.470 air because there is one more stair left. That 00:08:10.470 --> 00:08:13.490 is terrifying. Right. That split -second, stomach 00:08:13.490 --> 00:08:15.870 -dropping feeling of the ground completely vanishing, 00:08:16.110 --> 00:08:18.310 your brain immediately recognizing that the physics 00:08:18.310 --> 00:08:20.850 of your reality are suddenly wrong. That is what 00:08:20.850 --> 00:08:23.730 a tritone does to you harmonically. It creates 00:08:23.730 --> 00:08:27.040 immediate, profound instability. That visceral 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:30.600 sensation of falling is precisely why the tritone 00:08:30.600 --> 00:08:32.600 has historically been referred to as the devil 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:35.500 in music. The devil in music. It is an auditory 00:08:35.500 --> 00:08:38.600 optical illusion. Structurally, the motif they 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:41.980 use in Into the Darkness is brilliant in its 00:08:41.980 --> 00:08:44.519 simplicity. It starts with the first two notes 00:08:44.519 --> 00:08:47.000 played an octave apart. Okay, an octave. Now 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.539 an octave is the most stable resonant interval 00:08:49.539 --> 00:08:53.009 in music. It establishes a sense of vast secure 00:08:53.009 --> 00:08:55.669 space. You feel like you are standing on solid 00:08:55.669 --> 00:08:58.090 ground. On that flat landing on the stairs. Exactly. 00:08:58.289 --> 00:09:01.110 But then the third note of the motif hips and 00:09:01.110 --> 00:09:03.590 it is exactly a tritone higher than the second 00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:06.190 note. They take that perfectly stable foundation 00:09:06.190 --> 00:09:09.409 and instantly inject a massive harmonic gap. 00:09:09.549 --> 00:09:11.929 Your stomach drops. The human ear desperately 00:09:11.929 --> 00:09:14.070 wants that dissonance to result either to push 00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:16.330 up a half step to a perfect fifth or drop down. 00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:19.750 But Rush forces you to sit in that uncomfortable 00:09:19.750 --> 00:09:21.629 tension. They just leave you hanging there. They 00:09:21.629 --> 00:09:23.889 do. Yeah. And if we connect this to the bigger 00:09:23.889 --> 00:09:26.769 picture of their evolution as a band, this wasn't 00:09:26.769 --> 00:09:28.730 just a studio trick they used once and threw 00:09:28.730 --> 00:09:31.340 away. They learned something profound here. They 00:09:31.340 --> 00:09:33.659 learned how to weaponize tension. Precisely. 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:35.820 Right. They learned how to use dissonance not 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:38.759 just as a passing mistake, but as a structural 00:09:38.759 --> 00:09:41.120 pillar of their songwriting. Which is huge for 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:43.559 them. It's massive. Yeah. If you look ahead in 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.019 their catalog, this tritone utilization became 00:09:46.019 --> 00:09:48.720 a foundational tool. You hear them returning 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:52.220 to this exact technique to build tension in their 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:56.039 1978 instrumental epic, La Villa Strangiato, 00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:59.279 specifically in the chaotic monsters section. 00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:02.710 Oh, totally. deeply embedded in the DNA of their 00:10:02.710 --> 00:10:06.490 1981 album Moving Pictures on tracks like YYZ 00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:09.690 and the incredibly moody Witch Hunt. Witch Hunt 00:10:09.690 --> 00:10:13.269 is so good. It really is. In 1975 with Into the 00:10:13.269 --> 00:10:15.870 Darkness, they were essentially prototyping the 00:10:15.870 --> 00:10:18.509 sonic dread that would define some of their most 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:20.929 legendary later work. Okay, so they were weaponizing 00:10:20.929 --> 00:10:23.399 the music theory. but they are also literally 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:25.440 weaponizing the recording studio itself. Oh, 00:10:25.460 --> 00:10:27.759 the studio techniques are wild. The instrumentation 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:29.879 on this track is entirely built to disorient 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:32.120 you. Before Geddy Lee even starts singing, the 00:10:32.120 --> 00:10:35.039 listener is hit with these eerie, reversed guitars. 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:38.960 Then you get these very airy, spacious, almost 00:10:38.960 --> 00:10:42.340 hesitant, half -strummed acoustic arpeggios that 00:10:42.340 --> 00:10:45.419 drift through the mix. Neil Ponet brings in this 00:10:45.419 --> 00:10:49.159 relentlessly slow, dragging drum beat. And weaving 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:51.580 through all of that are Alex Lifeson's guitar 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:54.860 solos which the sources we have refer to as squally 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.559 squally it's great words sounds like a storm 00:10:57.559 --> 00:10:59.820 brewing in the background But I really want to 00:10:59.820 --> 00:11:01.559 drill down on those reverse guitars, because 00:11:01.559 --> 00:11:04.539 in 1975 you couldn't just open a laptop, click 00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:06.980 a button, and hit reverse audio? No, absolutely 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:10.500 not. Reversing audio in 1975 required physical 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.059 destructive manipulation of magnetic tape. Just 00:11:13.059 --> 00:11:15.779 chopping it up. Basically. You were talking about 00:11:15.779 --> 00:11:18.899 taking a massive reel of two -inch analog tape 00:11:18.899 --> 00:11:21.700 from a Studer multi -track machine, physically 00:11:21.700 --> 00:11:24.080 unthreading it, flipping it upside down and backwards, 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:25.960 and threading it back through the playback heads. 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:29.019 That sounds so tedious. It was incredibly tedious. 00:11:29.179 --> 00:11:31.039 To really grasp the impact of this, we should 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:33.779 look at how music writer Will Romano analyzed 00:11:33.779 --> 00:11:35.740 these specific guitar tracks. What did he say? 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:37.679 Romano noted that there is a forward playing 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:40.580 guitar track, one coded in chorus and reverb, 00:11:40.919 --> 00:11:43.860 that sits normally in the stereo image. But that 00:11:43.860 --> 00:11:46.700 forward track is immediately answered by a reverse 00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:50.179 audio squall. Romano perfectly describes this 00:11:50.179 --> 00:11:52.860 reverse effect as disintegrating into the ether, 00:11:53.179 --> 00:11:56.639 like sonic wraiths. Sonic Race is such a killer 00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:59.960 description. It really is. But what is it about 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:03.419 a reversed guitar that actually sounds like a 00:12:03.419 --> 00:12:06.379 ghost? Like, scientifically, why does our brain 00:12:06.379 --> 00:12:08.600 interpret a backward guitar string as something 00:12:08.600 --> 00:12:11.039 supernatural? It comes down to the natural physics 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:13.940 of sound envelopes, specifically attack and decay. 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:17.279 Okay, explain attack and decay. When you pluck 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:19.740 a guitar string in the real world, there is an 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.399 immediate sharp transient sound that's the attack. 00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.059 Then the sound slowly rings out and fades away. 00:12:25.299 --> 00:12:28.379 That's the decay. Right. Pluck, then ring. Exactly. 00:12:28.580 --> 00:12:30.399 Our brains have evolved over millions of years 00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:32.240 to understand that this is how physical objects 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:34.960 vibrate in reality. When you reverse a piece 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:37.460 of tape, you are completely inverting those physics. 00:12:37.659 --> 00:12:40.730 Because the decay becomes the attack. Yes. The 00:12:40.730 --> 00:12:43.850 sound begins with a long, unnatural swell that 00:12:43.850 --> 00:12:46.990 rises at nowhere, gets louder and louder, and 00:12:46.990 --> 00:12:50.269 then abruptly stops with a sharp, unnatural cutoff. 00:12:50.289 --> 00:12:54.230 Oh, wow. It is the exact opposite of how acoustic 00:12:54.230 --> 00:12:56.610 energy behaves on Earth. Yeah. Because the attack 00:12:56.610 --> 00:12:58.950 is missing at the beginning, the listener's brain 00:12:58.950 --> 00:13:01.710 can't identify the origin of the sound. So it 00:13:01.710 --> 00:13:04.809 feels wrong on a biological level. Exactly. It 00:13:04.809 --> 00:13:07.210 induces a subconscious anxiety because you are 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:10.350 hearing an event happen backward in time. When 00:13:10.350 --> 00:13:13.350 Romano calls them sonic wraiths, he's highlighting 00:13:13.350 --> 00:13:16.049 that the music literally sounds haunted because 00:13:16.049 --> 00:13:18.110 the physical laws of nature are being violated 00:13:18.110 --> 00:13:20.529 right there in the stereo field. That is just 00:13:20.529 --> 00:13:23.669 pure audio horror, and it sets the stage flawlessly 00:13:23.669 --> 00:13:25.750 for the actual narrative of the song. It really 00:13:25.750 --> 00:13:27.669 does. Which brings us out of the music theory 00:13:27.669 --> 00:13:30.250 and into the literary deconstruction. Let's look 00:13:30.250 --> 00:13:32.370 at the lyrics, which begin with a spoken word 00:13:32.370 --> 00:13:35.389 narration penned by Neil Peart. The famous narration. 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.440 The scene setting is just dripping with mid -70s 00:13:38.440 --> 00:13:40.460 fantasy atmosphere. I'll read the exact text 00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:59.200 from the sources. The influences here are worn 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:01.639 proudly, almost defiantly, on their sleeves. 00:14:02.259 --> 00:14:04.259 100%. For anyone familiar with the progressive 00:14:04.259 --> 00:14:07.740 rock landscape of the 1970s, the deep, abiding 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:10.759 obsession with high fantasy and specifically 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:13.720 J .R .R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is well 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.240 documented. Led Zeppelin was singing about Gollum 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.059 and Mortar. It was just in the water at the time. 00:14:18.100 --> 00:14:20.679 He was everywhere. In Tolkien's expansive lore, 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:23.500 the main villain, Sauron, is referred to by the 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:25.759 alias the Necromancer during the events of The 00:14:25.759 --> 00:14:27.360 Hobbit and early Lord of the Rings. rings history 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:29.379 right so the forbidding lands they're journeying 00:14:29.379 --> 00:14:32.120 into are quite clearly a stand -in for Mordor 00:14:32.120 --> 00:14:34.600 and the three travelers are an obvious archetype 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.879 reflecting Frodo Sam and Gollum Pert is directly 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:40.700 grafting a classic high fantasy quest onto the 00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:42.980 skeletal framework of this proto stoner metal 00:14:42.980 --> 00:14:45.379 crawl but wait this is where I have to push back 00:14:45.379 --> 00:14:48.370 a little on the sheer audacity of this lyrical 00:14:48.370 --> 00:14:51.690 choice. Oh, the narration explicitly identifies 00:14:51.690 --> 00:14:55.649 these characters as the men of Willowdale. Now, 00:14:55.750 --> 00:14:58.090 Willowdale is not a region in Middle Earth. Definitely 00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:01.330 not. Willowdale is a real perfectly normal middle 00:15:01.330 --> 00:15:05.110 class suburb of Toronto, Ontario. It is the exact 00:15:05.110 --> 00:15:08.590 suburb where Neil Getty and Alex grew up. The 00:15:08.590 --> 00:15:10.830 three travelers are literally just the band members. 00:15:10.929 --> 00:15:13.809 Yes, they are. Doesn't injecting a random Canadian 00:15:13.809 --> 00:15:16.649 subvert into the middle of a grim Tolkien -esque 00:15:16.649 --> 00:15:19.309 epic risk making the whole thing sound incredibly 00:15:19.309 --> 00:15:21.110 pretentious, or at least breaking the immersion 00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:23.389 for a listener who isn't in on the joke, it's 00:15:23.389 --> 00:15:26.330 like saying Frodo, Sam, and a guy from Cleveland 00:15:26.330 --> 00:15:29.429 marched into Mordor. It's a very fair critique. 00:15:29.610 --> 00:15:32.389 And on the surface, it does seem deeply incongruous. 00:15:32.389 --> 00:15:34.669 Right. But if you look at the underlying psychology 00:15:34.669 --> 00:15:36.690 of what they were doing, it's actually a brilliant 00:15:36.690 --> 00:15:40.129 piece of reality blending. Writer Robert Telloria 00:15:40.129 --> 00:15:43.149 put forth a fascinating theory about this specific 00:15:43.149 --> 00:15:45.669 lyrical choice. What's his theory? He suggests 00:15:45.669 --> 00:15:48.269 that this journey into dark and forbidding lands 00:15:48.269 --> 00:15:50.950 isn't just a playful, nerdy homage to Hobbits. 00:15:51.509 --> 00:15:54.700 It is a direct albeit heavily veiled, analogy 00:15:54.700 --> 00:15:58.039 for the band's own lived experience at that exact 00:15:58.039 --> 00:16:01.379 moment in 1975. Oh, interesting. It's an analogy 00:16:01.379 --> 00:16:04.120 for their constant, grueling, soul -crushing 00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:07.059 touring schedule. Ah, okay. So the dark and forbidding 00:16:07.059 --> 00:16:09.639 land isn't actually a magical realm. It's the 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:13.000 American Midwest in a broken -down van. Precisely. 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:15.799 Think about the life of a rock musician on the 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.240 road trying to break through in the mid -70s. 00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:21.639 You are crammed into a tiny vehicle, exhausted, 00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:24.919 chronically sleep deprived, eating terrible food, 00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:27.519 traveling toward a destination you absolutely 00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:30.000 have to conquer the stage night after night. 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:32.500 It's a grind. Toleria points out that in classic 00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.899 fantasy quest tales, the travelers are characterized 00:16:34.899 --> 00:16:37.860 by a deep restlessness and a singular, almost 00:16:37.860 --> 00:16:40.980 oppressive focus on their destination. That perfectly 00:16:40.980 --> 00:16:43.179 mirrors the psychological state of a touring 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:45.440 rock band. The pressure just weighing on them. 00:16:45.779 --> 00:16:47.940 Right. The pressure from the record label, the 00:16:47.940 --> 00:16:50.259 fear of failing and having to go back to regular 00:16:50.259 --> 00:16:53.139 jobs in Willowdale, the endless expanse of the 00:16:53.139 --> 00:16:55.879 highway that is their mordor. The Necromancer 00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:58.519 wasn't a dark wizard. The Necromancer was the 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.440 music industry. or the threat of failure looming 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.879 over them and draining their life force. When 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:06.299 you frame it like that, it actually makes the 00:17:06.299 --> 00:17:08.759 fantasy elements feel incredibly grounded. It's 00:17:08.759 --> 00:17:11.599 not just escapism, it's a coping mechanism. Exactly. 00:17:11.619 --> 00:17:14.180 I mean, think about what a 1970s down the tubes 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:17.160 tour diet actually looked like. They were probably 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:20.160 living on stale beer, cheap diner food, and nicotine. 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:22.819 So when Pirate writes these majestic lines about 00:17:22.819 --> 00:17:25.779 them fording the River Don, it's creating this 00:17:25.779 --> 00:17:29.329 massive humorous but also desperate contrast 00:17:29.329 --> 00:17:31.950 to their actual reality. And that phrase, fording 00:17:31.950 --> 00:17:34.690 the river Don, is a highly deliberate literary 00:17:34.690 --> 00:17:37.509 choice by Peart. He was an incredibly voracious 00:17:37.509 --> 00:17:39.990 reader. Fording a river is one of the oldest 00:17:39.990 --> 00:17:42.490 recurring tropes in ancient literature and mythology. 00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:45.630 Like crossing the Rubicon. Exactly. Julius Caesar 00:17:45.630 --> 00:17:48.690 crossing the Rubicon. Or souls crossing the river 00:17:48.690 --> 00:17:53.329 Styx. When a hero fords a river, it signals a 00:17:53.329 --> 00:17:55.789 definitive point of no return in their quest. 00:17:55.930 --> 00:17:57.990 It is the crossing of a threshold. You're going 00:17:57.990 --> 00:18:00.490 back. Once you step into that water, you are 00:18:00.490 --> 00:18:02.549 fully committed to the danger on the other side. 00:18:02.970 --> 00:18:05.589 You cannot retreat to the safety of your origins. 00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:09.009 By utilizing this ancient literary device, Peart 00:18:09.009 --> 00:18:12.170 elevates their mundane reality. Wow. Three guys 00:18:12.170 --> 00:18:14.769 from a Toronto suburb deciding to fully commit 00:18:14.769 --> 00:18:16.930 to the terrifying uncertainty of a career in 00:18:16.930 --> 00:18:19.809 progressive rock becomes a mythic journey. They 00:18:19.809 --> 00:18:21.950 cross their Rubicon, and they knew they couldn't 00:18:21.950 --> 00:18:24.279 go back to Willowdale. And once they cross that 00:18:24.279 --> 00:18:27.180 river, the psychological toll is immense. The 00:18:27.180 --> 00:18:30.099 lyrics go into this deep, visceral detail about 00:18:30.099 --> 00:18:32.240 their physical and mental deterioration. They 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.740 get very dark. Very dark. The story foreshadows 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:36.799 that the travelers are destined to become empty, 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:39.059 mindless specters stripped of will and soul, 00:18:39.500 --> 00:18:41.400 purely as a result of the necromancer's dread 00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:44.299 power. And then Geddy Lee's sung vocals come 00:18:44.299 --> 00:18:47.220 in to reinforce that. He sings about a shadow 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:50.440 that weighs like iron tears. He describes the 00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:53.289 road as being lined with peril. and says the 00:18:53.289 --> 00:18:57.029 air itself is charged with fear. I have to pause 00:18:57.029 --> 00:18:59.690 on Iron Tears. That is just such a staggeringly 00:18:59.690 --> 00:19:02.250 heavy image. It is a phenomenal turn of phrase. 00:19:02.670 --> 00:19:05.970 Iron Tears perfectly encapsulates two distinct 00:19:05.970 --> 00:19:10.210 ideas simultaneously. The deep emotional weight 00:19:10.210 --> 00:19:14.150 of profound sorrow and the cold unyielding physical 00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:17.119 weight of an oppressor or a weapon. It's suffocating. 00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:19.539 It is a suffocating image, and it ties flawlessly 00:19:19.539 --> 00:19:21.680 back into that Black Sabbath -style heaviness 00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:24.180 we discussed in the musical architecture. The 00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:26.480 lyrical heaviness is directly mirroring the musical 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:28.539 density. I compliment each other perfectly. Which 00:19:28.539 --> 00:19:30.740 brings us perfectly to the next critical layer 00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:33.779 of this deep dive, how those heavy words were 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:36.079 actually delivered to the listener, the voice 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:38.099 of the storyteller. Oh, boy. Because the vocal 00:19:38.099 --> 00:19:40.200 performances on this track, both the spoken word 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:42.400 and the sung melodies, created a massive division 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:44.599 among critics. Let's look at the narration debate 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:48.299 first. Yes, the great narration debate. So Neil 00:19:48.299 --> 00:19:50.900 Peart delivers the spoken word intro, and his 00:19:50.900 --> 00:19:54.200 voice is heavily modulated, pitched down, and 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:56.920 coded in studio effects. Very helly process. 00:19:57.099 --> 00:19:59.700 And the critical reception was wildly polarized. 00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:03.059 On one side, you have critics who fully bought 00:20:03.059 --> 00:20:06.420 into the cheesy B -movie atmosphere of it. Richard 00:20:06.420 --> 00:20:08.779 James reviewed it and called the voiceover a 00:20:08.779 --> 00:20:13.700 convincing, dramatic, thriller film trailer narration. 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:16.420 Jordan Hoffman similarly described the effect 00:20:16.420 --> 00:20:19.819 as an eerie horror movie filter. For that camp 00:20:19.819 --> 00:20:22.039 of listeners, the heavy -handed drama of a pitched 00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:24.140 -down voice totally worked to establish the creepy 00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:27.400 campy vibe of the song. But... If we're analyzing 00:20:27.400 --> 00:20:29.460 the complete picture, there was a very strong, 00:20:29.500 --> 00:20:32.160 very vocal counter perspective. There always 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:34.700 is. Adrian Begrande was merciless in his critique, 00:20:34.779 --> 00:20:37.400 calling the intro an overly extended, mellow 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:40.539 piece featuring a drowsy and lifeless narration. 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:42.839 Ouch. He felt that instead of building tension, 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:45.779 Pert's slow, monotone delivery actively killed 00:20:45.779 --> 00:20:48.480 the momentum of the track. Furthermore, Richard 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:50.259 James, even though he liked the sound of the 00:20:50.259 --> 00:20:52.539 effect, critiqued the actual structural writing 00:20:52.539 --> 00:20:54.630 of the song. What was his issue with the writing? 00:20:55.069 --> 00:20:57.670 He pointed out a massive redundancy. The spoken 00:20:57.670 --> 00:21:00.049 word tells you the setup, and then Giddy Lee's 00:21:00.049 --> 00:21:02.450 sung lyrics immediately repeat the exact same 00:21:02.450 --> 00:21:04.390 thematic information. It's essentially telling 00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:07.809 the listener the story twice. Oh, I see. James 00:21:07.809 --> 00:21:10.670 also leveled a heavier critique regarding the 00:21:10.670 --> 00:21:14.720 plot itself. There is a complete absence of character 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:18.019 motivation. We never find out why these men from 00:21:18.019 --> 00:21:20.299 Willowdale decided to march into the Forbidding 00:21:20.299 --> 00:21:21.960 Lands in the first place. OK, let's talk about 00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:23.940 that lack of motivation, because I actually strongly 00:21:23.940 --> 00:21:26.140 disagree with that critique. Oh, really? Yeah. 00:21:26.619 --> 00:21:29.440 I think demanding a clear origin story fundamentally 00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:32.019 misunderstands how horror and dread operate. 00:21:32.539 --> 00:21:35.299 Think about classic horror films, John Carpenter's 00:21:35.299 --> 00:21:37.859 Halloween or Ridley Scott's Alien. Right. The 00:21:37.859 --> 00:21:39.680 less you know about the monster or exactly how 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:41.660 the characters ended up in the terrifying situation. 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:45.700 the scarier it is. You don't need a 10 page prologue 00:21:45.700 --> 00:21:47.599 explaining why they are in the forest. You just 00:21:47.599 --> 00:21:49.819 need to know they are in the forest and the forest 00:21:49.819 --> 00:21:53.480 is hostile. The mystery of the unknown is infinitely 00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:56.160 more terrifying than a fully explained backstory. 00:21:56.859 --> 00:21:59.160 This raises an important question for any creator 00:21:59.160 --> 00:22:02.660 to consider. At what point does over explaining 00:22:02.660 --> 00:22:05.579 kill the atmosphere? Exactly. You make a compelling 00:22:05.579 --> 00:22:09.440 point. The ambiguity forces the listener's imagination 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.960 to fill in the blanks, which is often much darker 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:14.119 than whatever the artist could explicitly write. 00:22:14.779 --> 00:22:17.819 Now, while Peart's spoken word was heavily debated. 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:21.339 The actual sung vocals by Geddy Lee received 00:22:21.339 --> 00:22:24.259 almost universal praise. Oh, yeah, they're fantastic. 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:26.619 Specifically because it was such a stark departure 00:22:26.619 --> 00:22:29.019 from his established style. Right, because when 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:32.160 you think of early 1970s Geddy Lee, you think 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:34.640 of that stratospheric, banshee whale, you think 00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:37.380 of him shredding his vocal chords on Working 00:22:37.380 --> 00:22:40.480 Man or Anthem, but that is not what he does here. 00:22:40.539 --> 00:22:42.960 Not at all. Music writers like Alex Body and 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:45.480 Will Romano zeroed in on this distinct shift. 00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:47.660 Body highlighted that this vocal performance 00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:49.940 is one of the rare moments in their early material 00:22:49.940 --> 00:22:53.099 where Lee things with profound delicacy and sensitivity. 00:22:53.460 --> 00:22:56.559 He dials it way back. It's very restrained. Romano 00:22:56.559 --> 00:22:58.960 called the vocal delivery soulful, observing 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:01.480 that it perfectly reflects the earthiness and 00:23:01.480 --> 00:23:03.359 the fundamental innocence of the three travelers 00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:05.900 before they are corrupted by the forbidding lands. 00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:09.109 What Lee is doing here is essentially theatrical 00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:11.890 voice acting within the context of a progressive 00:23:11.890 --> 00:23:14.170 rock suite. Voice acting, that's exactly it, 00:23:14.170 --> 00:23:16.450 because he is setting a baseline of innocence 00:23:16.450 --> 00:23:19.289 that he knows he is going to destroy later. Exactly. 00:23:19.789 --> 00:23:23.670 This delicate, soulful delivery is a highly intentional 00:23:23.670 --> 00:23:26.269 character choice, because in the very next movement 00:23:26.269 --> 00:23:28.589 of the suite, a track called Under the Shadow, 00:23:29.329 --> 00:23:32.009 Lee completely abandons that delicate tone and 00:23:32.009 --> 00:23:35.269 unleashes what Romano describes as a raspy scream. 00:23:35.390 --> 00:23:37.950 Yeah, he really lets loose. That aggressive high 00:23:37.950 --> 00:23:40.619 - scream represents the voice of the vampiric 00:23:40.619 --> 00:23:43.440 necromancer himself. So Lee is using his vocal 00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:45.660 timbre to delineate the character's sweet and 00:23:45.660 --> 00:23:47.480 soulful for the innocent men of Willowdale in 00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:50.619 part one and a raspy terrifying wail for the 00:23:50.619 --> 00:23:53.440 villain in part two. It shows an incredible level 00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:55.980 of narrative control. It really does. It's cinematic, 00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:58.680 and the instrumentation mirrors that cinematic 00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:01.680 approach beautifully. We talked about those reversed 00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:04.240 Sonic Wraith guitars earlier, but I want to look 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:06.660 at how they actually sit in the final mix. The 00:24:06.660 --> 00:24:09.480 mix is fascinating. Jim Mathaels, the incredibly 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:11.400 talented guitarist for the progressive metal 00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:14.759 band Fate's Warning, specifically cited The Necromancer 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:17.380 as one of his favorite songs of all time. I praise. 00:24:17.500 --> 00:24:19.940 He was completely captivated by those reverse 00:24:19.940 --> 00:24:23.180 tracks, but he noted how they act as a nice foil 00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:25.700 for the other clean guitar lines. They aren't 00:24:25.700 --> 00:24:28.680 just a flashy studio gimmick thrown on top. They 00:24:28.680 --> 00:24:31.960 are woven into the fabric of the song as an essential 00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:35.400 contrasting textural layer. The texture of this 00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:37.440 track is paramount, and it ultimately comes down 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:40.480 to the philosophy of the studio mix. Will Romano 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:42.920 had a really insightful analysis of this. He 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:45.420 referred to the mix as being inherently filmic. 00:24:45.619 --> 00:24:47.940 Filmic. But he elaborated on that, saying it's 00:24:47.940 --> 00:24:50.099 filmic in the sense that we're also aware we're 00:24:50.099 --> 00:24:53.299 watching a film. Think about the mechanics of 00:24:53.299 --> 00:24:57.140 recording in 1975. You have incredibly warm analog 00:24:57.140 --> 00:25:00.059 mixing desks, tape saturation, physical plate 00:25:00.059 --> 00:25:02.819 reverbs, even though the individual elements. 00:25:03.150 --> 00:25:06.329 The acoustic arpeggios, the slow drum beat, the 00:25:06.329 --> 00:25:08.630 bass lines are recorded with absolute clarity. 00:25:09.049 --> 00:25:11.430 The way Terry Brown and the band mix them together 00:25:11.430 --> 00:25:14.750 creates what Romano calls a patina. A patina, 00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:17.170 like the oxidation you see on an old bronze statue 00:25:17.170 --> 00:25:19.789 that turns it green or the sepia tone on an old 00:25:19.789 --> 00:25:23.390 photograph. Precisely. A patina is a layer of 00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:26.470 age or weathering. In audio terms, Romano is 00:25:26.470 --> 00:25:29.009 suggesting that the mix applies an artificial 00:25:29.009 --> 00:25:32.309 layer of atmospheric distance. It actively separates 00:25:32.309 --> 00:25:35.289 the listener from the raw, sweaty reality of 00:25:35.289 --> 00:25:37.230 the performance. Oh, that makes so much sense. 00:25:37.650 --> 00:25:39.369 When you listen to a blues rock track from their 00:25:39.369 --> 00:25:41.609 first album, it sounds like you're standing in 00:25:41.609 --> 00:25:44.430 a small, smoky garage listening to three guys 00:25:44.430 --> 00:25:47.299 sweat over their instruments. But the patina 00:25:47.299 --> 00:25:49.880 on Into the Darkness removes you from the garage. 00:25:50.220 --> 00:25:52.619 It places you in a dark, cavernous theater. You're 00:25:52.619 --> 00:25:54.559 watching it on a screen. You feel separated from 00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.039 the sound source, watching a shadowy fantasy 00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:00.119 movie unfold on a massive screen. The mix itself 00:26:00.119 --> 00:26:02.539 is functioning as a storytelling device. That 00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:05.339 concept of an audio patina completely changes 00:26:05.339 --> 00:26:07.900 how you engage with the song. You aren't just 00:26:07.900 --> 00:26:09.740 listening to notes, you are listening to the 00:26:09.740 --> 00:26:11.839 physical space constructed around the notes. 00:26:11.980 --> 00:26:14.740 It's architectural. Now, speaking of the physical 00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:16.920 reality of the music versus the story it tells, 00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:19.079 we have to pivot to something that has nothing 00:26:19.079 --> 00:26:23.180 to do with Tolkien or reverse tape or vocal acting. 00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:25.339 We have to talk about the physical artifacts 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:28.019 themselves. The vinyl records. Because there 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:31.660 is a massive, incredibly nerdy layer of mystery 00:26:31.660 --> 00:26:34.440 surrounding this track that revolves entirely 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:36.579 around the physical vinyl records printed in 00:26:36.579 --> 00:26:40.890 1975. I am talking about the mystery of the misprinted 00:26:40.890 --> 00:26:43.390 time stamps. This is one of those fantastic pieces 00:26:43.390 --> 00:26:45.829 of physical media history that you only find 00:26:45.829 --> 00:26:48.170 if you are obsessively reading the wider notes. 00:26:48.369 --> 00:26:51.089 Guilty as charged. When Caress of Steel was officially 00:26:51.089 --> 00:26:53.950 released to the public on September 24th, 1975 00:26:53.950 --> 00:26:57.250 by Anthem Records in Canada, the physical vinyl 00:26:57.250 --> 00:26:59.690 sleeves and the record labels themselves had 00:26:59.690 --> 00:27:02.630 some very specific and fundamentally incorrect 00:27:02.630 --> 00:27:05.160 track lengths printed on them. Right. If you 00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:07.400 look at an original pressing, Into the Darkness 00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:10.640 is listed with a very specific one time of exactly 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:14.039 4 minutes and 20 seconds. And the second movement, 00:27:14.220 --> 00:27:16.539 Under the Shadow, is listed at 4 minutes and 00:27:16.539 --> 00:27:19.890 25 seconds. But... If you sit down with a stopwatch 00:27:19.890 --> 00:27:23.890 and actually time the music, the slow, brooding 00:27:23.890 --> 00:27:27.109 main body of Into the Darkness completely ends 00:27:27.109 --> 00:27:29.609 at three minutes and 47 seconds. There's a gap 00:27:29.609 --> 00:27:33.650 there. The audio from 3 .47 to 4 .3 consists 00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:36.329 of a secondary spoken word narration and then 00:27:36.329 --> 00:27:39.630 this massive explosive drum roll. Musically, 00:27:39.789 --> 00:27:42.930 functionally, that drum roll is the chaotic introduction 00:27:42.930 --> 00:27:45.329 to the battle scene in this second movement under 00:27:45.329 --> 00:27:47.289 the shadow. Right, it's a transitional piece. 00:27:47.630 --> 00:27:50.109 Because of how the vinyl was mathematically cataloged 00:27:50.109 --> 00:27:52.410 by the record label, that entire transitional 00:27:52.410 --> 00:27:54.630 sequence was credited to the end of Movement 00:27:54.630 --> 00:27:58.069 1. So on the original vinyl artifact, that transitional 00:27:58.069 --> 00:28:00.130 drumroll belongs entirely to Into the Darkness. 00:28:00.289 --> 00:28:03.670 But then the 1980s arrive, and the album is remastered 00:28:03.670 --> 00:28:06.210 and re -released on compact disc. The CD era. 00:28:06.430 --> 00:28:09.410 The engineers creating the CD metadata decided 00:28:09.410 --> 00:28:12.049 to correct the timestamps. They kept Under the 00:28:12.049 --> 00:28:15.230 Shadow at 4 .25, but they shortened the official 00:28:15.230 --> 00:28:18.170 digital runtime of Into the Darkness to 4 .12. 00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:20.700 Wait, if you do the math on that, if movement 00:28:20.700 --> 00:28:24.519 1 now ends at 4 .1 instead of 4 .2, that leaves 00:28:24.519 --> 00:28:27.660 exactly 8 seconds of audio completely unaccounted 00:28:27.660 --> 00:28:31.140 for. Correct. Specifically, that massive transitional 00:28:31.140 --> 00:28:33.519 drum roll. They orphaned the drum roll. They 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:36.460 absolutely did. It mathematically ceased to exist 00:28:36.460 --> 00:28:39.140 on the track list. It's not in track 1, and it's 00:28:39.140 --> 00:28:41.140 not accounted for in the runtime of track 2. 00:28:41.589 --> 00:28:44.029 I know it sounds incredibly pedantic, but I just 00:28:44.029 --> 00:28:46.470 geek out over physical media quirks like this 00:28:46.470 --> 00:28:48.529 because it demonstrates how the actual medium 00:28:48.529 --> 00:28:51.029 you use to listen to the song vinyl versus a 00:28:51.029 --> 00:28:54.109 digital laser reading a CD literally alters the 00:28:54.109 --> 00:28:56.750 boundaries of the art. It's a brilliant philosophical 00:28:56.750 --> 00:28:59.029 observation about how formatting dictates our 00:28:59.029 --> 00:29:01.349 understanding of a piece of work. And speaking 00:29:01.349 --> 00:29:03.549 of the harsh reality of how art is consumed, 00:29:04.049 --> 00:29:06.089 we have to look at the live legacy of this track. 00:29:06.210 --> 00:29:08.660 How it survived on stage. because the story of 00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:10.799 Into the Darkness doesn't end in the recording 00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:14.740 studio. It lived on the stage and its life on 00:29:14.740 --> 00:29:17.799 stage is tied to a profoundly dark period in 00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:19.819 the band's history. You're talking about the 00:29:19.819 --> 00:29:23.240 Down the Tubes tour. Yes, the promotional tour 00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:26.440 for Caress of Steel. which ran for several grueling 00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:29.619 months and finally ended on January 10th, 1976, 00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:33.059 was not a glorious victory lap for a band that 00:29:33.059 --> 00:29:35.880 had just recorded a masterpiece. No, it was rough. 00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:38.779 It was a slow -motion disaster. The album was 00:29:38.779 --> 00:29:41.380 entirely confusing to radio programmers and casual 00:29:41.380 --> 00:29:44.559 fans. It was not selling well. The venues they 00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:46.720 are booked into were actively getting smaller 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:49.079 as the tour progressed. That's heartbreaking. 00:29:49.299 --> 00:29:51.940 The band members themselves with a deeply grim 00:29:51.940 --> 00:29:54.480 sense of humor, self -deprecatingly named it 00:29:54.480 --> 00:29:57.200 the Down the Tubes Tour, because they genuinely, 00:29:57.440 --> 00:29:59.180 legitimately fear that their career was over 00:29:59.180 --> 00:30:00.640 and they were going to be dropped by their label. 00:30:00.819 --> 00:30:03.039 That is just wild to think about. We're talking 00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:05.259 about Rush. We know they go on to become one 00:30:05.259 --> 00:30:07.359 of the biggest, most influential progressive 00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:09.799 rock bands on the planet, selling millions of 00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:13.619 records. Legend. But in the winter of 1975, they're 00:30:13.619 --> 00:30:16.480 playing half empty rooms, thinking they're absolute 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:20.059 failures. But during that specific Down the Tubes 00:30:20.059 --> 00:30:22.779 tour, they were actually stubbornly playing the 00:30:22.779 --> 00:30:25.619 entirety of the Necromancer suite live, right? 00:30:25.700 --> 00:30:27.539 They were subjecting these confused audiences 00:30:27.539 --> 00:30:30.359 to the whole thing. They were. They played all 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:32.619 three parts of the suite on that specific tour. 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:36.039 They stood their ground. But the psychological 00:30:36.039 --> 00:30:39.180 toll and the reality of crowd dynamics eventually 00:30:39.180 --> 00:30:41.259 won out. What happened? Well, by the time they 00:30:41.259 --> 00:30:43.819 hit the road for their very next tour, the tour 00:30:43.819 --> 00:30:46.380 that would be recorded for their iconic 1976 00:30:46.380 --> 00:30:50.299 live album, All the World's a Stage. The set 00:30:50.299 --> 00:30:53.599 list had been drastically altered. Into the Darkness 00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:55.940 was entirely excised from the performance. Just 00:30:55.940 --> 00:30:58.519 cut out entirely. The band only played the second 00:30:58.519 --> 00:31:01.079 and third movements, Under the Shadow and Return 00:31:01.079 --> 00:31:03.059 of the Prince. But wait, think about what that 00:31:03.059 --> 00:31:05.500 means from a pure storytelling perspective. If 00:31:05.500 --> 00:31:07.599 you drop the first movement, you are essentially 00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:09.759 choosing to rip the opening chapter out of the 00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.200 book. You are. You skip the introduction of the 00:31:12.200 --> 00:31:14.920 innocent characters, you completely skip the 00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:16.960 establishing dread of the Willowdale travelers 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:19.519 entering the forest, and you jump straight into 00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:22.299 the explosive screaming battle scene of part 00:31:22.299 --> 00:31:26.019 two. Why would a band so obsessed with narrative 00:31:26.019 --> 00:31:28.059 continuity just butcher their own story like 00:31:28.059 --> 00:31:30.440 that? Because of the primal demands of a live 00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:33.190 rock concert environment. When you are a band 00:31:33.190 --> 00:31:35.910 fighting for your life on a stage, trying to 00:31:35.910 --> 00:31:39.650 keep a restless, potentially intoxicated 1970s 00:31:39.650 --> 00:31:42.369 rock audience engaged, pacing is everything. 00:31:42.470 --> 00:31:44.470 That's true. They had to keep a move in. The 00:31:44.470 --> 00:31:48.750 slow, brooding, 44E minor crawl of Into the Darkness, 00:31:49.230 --> 00:31:51.490 that deliberate agonizing tempo we discussed 00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:53.970 earlier, simply might not have translated the 00:31:53.970 --> 00:31:55.789 kinetic energy they needed to keep the crowd 00:31:55.789 --> 00:31:57.529 from walking out. It's not exactly a headbanger 00:31:57.529 --> 00:32:00.630 to start with. Right. The studio magic? The reverse 00:32:00.630 --> 00:32:03.150 tape wraiths, the delicate vocal patina, was 00:32:03.150 --> 00:32:05.670 impossible to perfectly replicate in a hockey 00:32:05.670 --> 00:32:08.529 arena. So, they made a pragmatic survivalist 00:32:08.529 --> 00:32:11.289 choice. They favored the aggressive, high -octane 00:32:11.289 --> 00:32:13.509 progressive metal of the later movements over 00:32:13.509 --> 00:32:15.769 the slow, literary world -building of the opening. 00:32:16.529 --> 00:32:18.369 They sacrificed the narrative to save the show. 00:32:18.539 --> 00:32:20.579 That makes total sense when you frame it as a 00:32:20.579 --> 00:32:22.859 survival tactic. When you are bleeding out on 00:32:22.859 --> 00:32:25.960 stage, you don't want to play the slow, shadowy 00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:27.839 scene setter. You want to get straight to the 00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:31.000 pyrotechnic. Okay, let's unpack this. So what 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:33.289 does this all mean? We've covered a massive, 00:32:33.549 --> 00:32:35.990 sprawling amount of ground today. Into the Darkness 00:32:35.990 --> 00:32:38.769 isn't just some forgotten deep cut on a weird 00:32:38.769 --> 00:32:42.470 mid -70s rock album. It is a unique, perfectly 00:32:42.470 --> 00:32:45.009 preserved time capsule. Beautifully said. It 00:32:45.009 --> 00:32:49.130 is the exact, messy collision point where Russia's 00:32:49.130 --> 00:32:52.529 bluesy, hard rock swagger crashed head on into 00:32:52.529 --> 00:32:54.930 expansive, high -concept progressive fantasy. 00:32:55.329 --> 00:32:57.789 It's the surreal space where a quiet Toronto 00:32:57.789 --> 00:32:59.990 suburb merged seamlessly with the terrifying 00:32:59.990 --> 00:33:02.529 landscapes of Middle Earth. And most importantly, 00:33:02.730 --> 00:33:05.230 it's a masterclass in how studio experimentation 00:33:05.230 --> 00:33:08.230 using pritones to induce harmonic anxiety and 00:33:08.230 --> 00:33:10.170 physically reversing magnetic tape to create 00:33:10.170 --> 00:33:13.470 sonic wraiths can generate genuine palpable audio 00:33:13.470 --> 00:33:16.230 dread. And for you listening to us right now, 00:33:16.549 --> 00:33:19.250 I want to remind you that knowledge is most valuable 00:33:19.250 --> 00:33:22.259 when it's actively applied to your life. Then 00:33:22.259 --> 00:33:24.180 next time you put on your headphones and listen 00:33:24.180 --> 00:33:27.039 to a complex piece of music, I challenge you 00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:29.880 to listen actively for the physical space the 00:33:29.880 --> 00:33:32.859 mix is trying to create. Find the patina. Exactly. 00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:35.839 Are you standing in the room with the band? Or 00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:38.779 is there an audio patina distancing you, treating 00:33:38.779 --> 00:33:41.650 you like an audience member in a theater? Listen 00:33:41.650 --> 00:33:44.430 for how harmonic dissonance, like a tritone, 00:33:44.829 --> 00:33:47.170 actually makes your body feel. And when you hear 00:33:47.170 --> 00:33:50.309 escapist fantasy lyrics about dragons or forbidding 00:33:50.309 --> 00:33:52.930 forests, look a little closer at the context. 00:33:53.349 --> 00:33:55.569 Ask yourself if there is a real -world exhaustion, 00:33:56.190 --> 00:33:59.150 a desperate daily grind, or profound fear of 00:33:59.150 --> 00:34:00.990 failure hiding just beneath the surface of the 00:34:00.990 --> 00:34:03.230 magic. Applying what we learn makes the act of 00:34:03.230 --> 00:34:05.529 listening so much richer. It stops being background 00:34:05.529 --> 00:34:07.829 noise and becomes a conversation with the artist. 00:34:08.130 --> 00:34:10.630 It absolutely does. And before we close out this 00:34:10.630 --> 00:34:12.530 deep dive, I want to leave you with a final slightly 00:34:12.530 --> 00:34:15.030 more philosophical concept to mull over. One 00:34:15.030 --> 00:34:16.949 that builds on what we've explored today. Lay 00:34:16.949 --> 00:34:19.710 it on us. Consider the nature of those misprinted 00:34:19.710 --> 00:34:22.150 timestamps we discussed. The transition from 00:34:22.150 --> 00:34:25.989 the analog vinyl era to the precise digital CD 00:34:25.989 --> 00:34:29.260 era. The physical vinyl credited a chaotic drum 00:34:29.260 --> 00:34:31.780 roll to the first track while the digital CD 00:34:31.780 --> 00:34:34.699 mathematically orphaned that same drum roll into 00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:37.099 an eighth second void of non -existence. The 00:34:37.099 --> 00:34:40.099 lost drum roll. If the physical medium The plastic, 00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:43.079 the grooves, the lasers dictates how a piece 00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:46.079 of music is cataloged, timed, and consumed. Does 00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:48.800 the technology we use to consume art ultimately 00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:51.320 rewrite the artist's original boundaries? Wow. 00:34:51.800 --> 00:34:54.039 Does the true essence, the objective truth of 00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:56.699 a song, live in the raw acoustic performance 00:34:56.699 --> 00:34:59.599 recorded in that room in Toronto in 1975, or 00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:01.760 does it live in the digital metadata printed 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:03.900 on the back of the jewel case 50 years later? 00:35:04.340 --> 00:35:06.780 who gets to decide where the song actually ends? 00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:09.860 Oh man, that is an incredibly heavy thought to 00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:12.239 leave off on. The physical performance versus 00:35:12.239 --> 00:35:15.239 the digital metadata, does the catalog dictate 00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:17.219 the art or does the art dictate the catalog? 00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:18.739 I'm gonna be thinking about that every single 00:35:18.739 --> 00:35:20.360 time I look at a track link on my phone from 00:35:20.360 --> 00:35:22.730 now on. It changes everything. Thank you so much 00:35:22.730 --> 00:35:25.010 for joining us on this massive, obsessive journey 00:35:25.010 --> 00:35:27.090 through the shadowy forests of Willowdale and 00:35:27.090 --> 00:35:30.349 the analog tape reels of 1975. Keep questioning 00:35:30.349 --> 00:35:32.130 what you hear, keep reading the liner notes, 00:35:32.409 --> 00:35:34.730 and most importantly, stay insanely curious until 00:35:34.730 --> 00:35:36.750 our next deep dive. Take care, everyone.