"But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth.."

Songwriters: Neil Peart (lyrics) Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee (music)
Performed by: Rush
Album: Signals (1982)
When I first heard it: 1990 autumn, as part of a Rush Greatest Hits compilation. Haven't heard much of the Signals album, except this song and "The Analog Kid".

Rush always reminded me of the age of the android, the kind of world suggested by works such as H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, for instance. Rush's entire output seems to hinge on what happens when there is a small defect in the wiring, in a completely circuited world.

"Subdivisions", however, strikes deeper and nearer home - it is about men, not androids. Its themes are the loneliness of isolation and obscurity, the unexpected frustrations of geekiness, directionless, purposeless and zombie-like suburbia where people seem to come off a mass-production line, all same, geometric, and totally inhuman.

Some of the imagery (see lyrics below) perfectly captures its concerns - "ticking traps" (referring to the cold, precise running according to clocks that suburbia depends on), "mass-production zone" (suburbia making identical zombie-copies out of people) "far unlit unknown" (the unseen edges of suburbia's horizons).

Striking deeper, "Subdivisions" is essentially about the loneliness of a geek, or someone who just doesn't fit. As young people, we all would identify with it at some stage - we took refuge in all kinds of things; almost anything would do to help us escape the fact that we longed to belong, to identify, to be accepted.

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Rush started off in 1972 as an ordinary, if somewhat supercharged heavy metal trio, essentially bass-guitar-drums interlock. Neil Peart's penchant for writing obscure, if pointless lyrics with adequate hooks might have been noticed early on, as the band moved through territory familiar to most heavy metal outfits - sword-and-sorcery, mythological epic-length ramblings. A Farewell to Kings (1977) was somewhat transitional -  moving decisively from guitar-and-drums sound wall traditional heavy metal, to a familiar keyboard-bass-drums interlock rhythm section which still supported essentially overdrive, metallic rock'n'roll guitar riffs and high-octane metal guitar, bass and keyboard solos. This sound had emerged especially by the time of Moving Pictures (1981), the eighth studio album.

Signals is one of the most loved albums, next to other favourite albums from the so-called "keyboard" period such as Moving Pictures, Grace Under Pressure (1984), Power Windows (1985) and Hold Your Fire (1987).

"Subdivisions" has a strong opening keyboard bass note which makes a powerful counterpoint to begin the song. The refrain contains the word "subdivisions" spoken over a powerful, driving (now trademark) Geddy Lee bass run of some complexity which is met note for note by Neil Peart's precise, chiseled drumming.

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Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...

All is fair in love (or All in love is fair)

Songwriter: Stevie Wonder
Performer: Stevie Wonder
Album: Innervisions (1973) - ALBUM OF THE YEAR
When I heard it: 2000.

Stevie is credited with having written some of the greatest songs in the 'rock' (post-60s) era or something like that. Two of these, supposedly, are "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" and "Isn't She Lovely".

"All In Love Is Fair" (or "All Is Fair In Love", whichever way you want to have it - it doesn't matter) appears on the Innervisions album, released in 1973. It won Stevie an Album of the Year Grammy Award, which he would win again in 1974 (for Fulfillingness' First Finale), and in 1976 (for Songs In The Key Of Life). The song itself was not a hit, being eclipsed by more important, influential and representative songs on the album such as "Living In The City", "Golden Lady" and "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing".

Just like most of the other songs on Innervisions, Stevie has played most of the instruments on "All In Love Is Fair", except the electric bass (played by Scott Edwards). It's a very controlled song, unlike some of Stevie's later efforts (especially on 1976's  Songs In The Key Of Life) where the fade to end became an extended jam session in itself.

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I have nothing to say about the lyrics - I cannot venture to say whether Stevie was just role-playing here or philosophising about love. It certainly sounds heartfelt and Stevie sounds in right earnest, if a bit too solemn.

At any rate, it's not so much the words, but the music and the songwriting that make the connect for me with this song. It's the fact that someone like Stevie could write a song that's in a traditional ballad form, redolent somewhat of Sinatra's or Nat's time, basically in the jazz-popular ballad idiom, but still using the instruments of today. It showed some ambition and a lot of respect for the era of the jazz-inflected popular song; but still sounding like today and not some bygone age.

Stevie's vocal is quite masterful, comfortably spanning the two-and-something octave range the song requires; and he consummately demonstrates as much effortless, inventive control as Nat at his best. He also brings a haunting intensity to the song that is hard to forget, nobly underlining its lyrics' solemn concerns.

I guess the musical form of the song is indeed a throwback to Sinatra and Nat, and their age. Whether this was unexpected in the context of Innervisions and Stevie at that point in his career (1973), I don't know; but the wonder of the song to me (and I do not hesitate to re-state it) is that if it is indeed mere nostalgia, it is nostalgia of the highest possible order, and it is also nostalgia that's firmly rooted in the relevance of TODAY, not in the time it attempts to remind us of. It certainly does remind us of how much jazz-inflection went into song-writing in that age - much more naturally and not as self-consciously as Stevie's song makes it appear - and how this added to the general quality of popular song in those days (unlike the arid 70s). The throwback, however, is done with charm, subtlety and with today's feel - an 'update', if you like, of that era.

The difference in the quality of songwriting (not to mention the intensity of interpretation) between that era and this one, however justifiably we may contrive to deny it - clearly shows :)

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POSTSCRIPT

Predictably, many have striven to 'update' Stevie's song for this age. A lot of Stevie's music routinely turns up on American Idol and similar shows- not surprising, because many certainly seek to attain the class of his singing and songwriting by association at least, if not by talent. Among the better versions on these shows are those of David Brown and J.D. Adams. There is also Renee Goldsberry's quite decent version; and one of the best versions is Michael Empeno's.

Even earlier than the 'Idol' updates, there were covers by Barbra Streisand, Cher, Michael McDonald, and recently, Marc Anthony. Streisand's version, apparently, was used in the film The Way We Were; Cher's version reveals the undeniably good timbre of her voice, and Marc Anthony's version is also a noble attempt.

I found quite a few interesting covers on the tube, surprisingly good, and not without a degree of charm or talent - and quite close to the original in some cases. Here they are - you judge how representative they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsSG7vsDTos (sounds a lot like Stevie himself, down to the piano chords! The most correct of the versions, closest to the original chords)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k466sMpouw ( a guitar version - interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e5vz-PgaoI ( a good version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGe1CwzwPZo (ambitious attempt - see him strain to touch the note on the chorus - gives you some idea of how effortlessly easy Stevie makes this difficult part seem)

In my opinion, no one's managed yet to match Stevie's enduring, haunting intensity :)

"Then I'll come on back to Boulder Skies"

Songwriter: Craig Fuller
Performers: Pure Prairie League
Album: Bustin' Out (1972)
When I heard it for the first time: 2007, along with the rest of the Bustin' Out album.

Craig Fuller must either have been stoned out of his mind when he wrote "Boulder Skies"; or totally sober and totally smitten with SOMEONE - so smitten that the song seems to have just materialised, fully formed, into his consciousness. His voice sounds curiously tripsied, chilled, and stoned, floating dream-like in some parallel world, where only he and SHE are fixed points; other people, though they do exist, are just backdrop - they merely float in and out.

When I first heard "Boulder Skies", I was impatient and wanted the song to pick up pace, DO SOMETHING, find some focal point. I was wrong to expect. The song has absolutely no pace, no edge, and no high point. It is an ethereal dream. To like the song, either you inhabit its dreamland, and see HER; or you don't understand the song at all.

It is about someone, for sure, but specific or not, mythic or real, we would hardly benefit by knowing.

For a long time, I searched for videos of this beautiful, forlorn, lovesick song on the tube, and did not find any. The video I've posted here became available very recently and is the only one - you will not be able to find another.

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Bustin' Out is a curious album. Long ago, I heard that it was Pure Prairie League's best-ever album. After listening to songs from each of the Pure Prairie League albums, perhaps, this does not seem quite true; the material is strong enough on each of them. Bustin' Out is, however, Pure Prairie League's 'Craig Fuller' album - of the 10 tracks, he wrote about 8 of them; and then left the band before the next album Two Lane Highway (1975). Fuller's songs on Bustin' Out seem curiously misplaced, dreamy and mysterious, tinged with emotion.

Taken along with "Amie (Falling in and out of Love)", "Boulder Skies" is the high point of Bustin' Out. It's a simple lyric, though, strike where you will, it gives way to deeper worlds, loaded with colours, nuances and flower-power era 'oddness'. The country-rock feel of the instrumentation is also tinged with a Haight-Ashbury sunny, dewy-eyed, golden-hair feel. It's amazing that the guitars and piano actually manage to brilliantly capture the aching emotions of Fuller's lyric here:

Sew your skirt lace out of time
While I write the words to rhyme
Just what I am thinkin'... just what I should say
If I have to go I'd rather stay

Colorado canyon girl could set me free
Brown eyes in the mornin' lookin' back at me
And just for that one moment... you're all that I see
Searchin' for some other place to be

More than anyone can try I hope you'll see that I belong
Standin' right before your eyes
If you can take the time to find where I went wrong
Then I think you just might realize

So sew your skirt lace and I'll go home
But not quite where I started from
And take it so you'll feel it... and take it so you'll know
Take one long last look before I go

More than anyone can try I hope you'll see that I belong
Standin' right before your eyes
And when you've had the time to see it's been too long
Then I'll come on back to Boulder Skies