Rush - Moving Pictures Album Lyrics

A modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride

Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day's events
The river

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist, catch the myth
Catch the mystery, catch the drift

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you
And the space he invades, he gets by on you

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is

And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness, catch the wit
Catch the spirit, catch the spit

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide

Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm
Before the Motor Law
And now on Sundays, I elude the eyes
And hop the turbine freight
To far outside the wire where my
White-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground as the turbo slows
To cross the borderline
Run like the wind as excitement shivers
Up and down my spine
But down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me
An old machine
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new
Has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant Red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
We'll fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime

Wind
In my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge

Well-oiled leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air

Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly ahead of me
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me two lanes wide
Oh, I spin around with shrieking tires
To run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase

Ride like the wind
Straining the limits
Of machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope
I've got a desperate plan

At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside

[Instrumental]

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in a fish eye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend

All the world's indeed a stage
We are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
The real relation
The underlying theme

I.
Grim-faced and forbidding
Their faces closed tight
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city
They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky
The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride
I feel the sense of possibilities
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city

II.
Wide-angle watcher
On life's ancient tales
Steeped in the history of London
Green and grey washes
In a wispy white veil
Mist in the streets of Westminster
Wistful and weathered
The pride still prevails
Alive in the streets of the city
Are they oblivious
To this quality?
A quality
Of light unique to
Every city's streets
Pavements may teem
With intense energy
But the city is calm
In this violent sea

The night is black
Without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.
Features distorted in the flickering light,
The faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possesed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.
They say there are strangers who threaten us,
In our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves.
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.
Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand...

Unstable condition,
A symptom of life
In mental and environmental change.
Atmospheric disturbance,
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange.
The impulse is pure;
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference.
Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence.
A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a mood lifter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to deviate from the norm.
An ounce of perception,
A pound of obscure.
Process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay,
Warm memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need.
Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be worn by persistence.
Leave out conditions,
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence.
A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a soft filter,
Everybody need reverse polarity.
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm...