Episode 290: Rush a passage to Bangkok year 1976. English Version

classics songs all time classics songs all time classics songs all time welcome to another history of rock greetings from Argentina South America follow us on Spotify and pocketcast or directly on the pod nation page which you enter for free www.podnation.co. We also have a YouTube channel, where you will find previews of stories and other things. Today we are going by train to Bangkok.

classic rocks all-time the most incredible stories and anecdotes musicians Bruce Dickinson want to see us and you know I mean first of all we love you know we love doing it it's it's really a kind of a privilege to be you know 51 years old I'm being able to go out, just still to have a vo-

00:01:21 - Let me.

00:01:22 - Well, it's felt differently, everything is called orgasmatron.

00:01:25 - Rob Halford.

00:01:26 - I think are useful, just because of the fact that with what I try and do, it's important to try and-

00:01:37 - Eric Clapton and Paul Stanley.

00:01:39 - But piano is inconceivable, I mean, you can't, you can't just go out and buy a piano or his guitar is much more accessible.

00:01:47 - I think I was very driven period.

00:01:49 - It was to compensate to make myself feel more worthy.

00:01:55 - Subscribe on to Spotify.

00:02:06 - Rush was a Canadian progressive rock band formed in August 1968 in the Willowdale neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario.

00:02:16 - What can we say about the 2,112 album, from 1976, an iconic album in the band's career?

00:02:26 - Until that moment, the group did not have the success or the identification of the public with the band.

00:02:33 - Under pressure from the record label, 2,112 was born.

00:02:38 - Musically and lyrically extraordinary.

00:02:46 - This song is about the trials and tribulations of marijuana and opium use grown in Bangkok.

00:02:53 - The lyrics talk about a train trip, with different stations, supposedly to smoke some weed.

00:02:59 - First they stop in Bogota, Colombia, then follow this imaginary train to Thailand.

00:03:07 - Bangkok is a city where most of the world's opium is produced, 2,500 tons that are formed, purified into that poison, a weapon of pleasure and death, called heroin.

00:03:21 - In a 2012 interview, Alex Lifeson told High Times, a magazine, that a passage to Bangkok is about a fun little trip to all the good places you could go for a smoke.

00:03:34 - He added that they thought it would be fun to write the song and that he felt drummer, lyricist Neil Pert handled it in a very eloquent way.

00:03:45 - He also said that the song was probably written and performed on an acoustic guitar, in front of a cassette player on the farm.

00:03:52 - Rush liked to do the initial recordings that way before going to the basement to rehearse.

00:04:01 - Guitarist Alex Lifeson said in 2009 that the Led Zeppelin song, Cashmere, inspired a passage to Bangkok.

00:04:10 - The British band was the great inspiration for Rush, and as a curiosity, Geddy Lee, especially on his first two albums, had a tone of voice very similar to Robert Plant.

00:04:21 - The history of rock and roll and classic rock's all-time podcasts.

00:04:25 - We got angry and thought, OK, if this is our last shot, we're going to give it everything and we're going to do it our way.

00:04:31 - So we went into the studio to try to perfect that whole side-long thing one more time, and that's when the 2112 idea came up.

00:04:40 - I had read certainly a lot of science fiction at that time, and Samuel Ardillani was a big influence on me.

00:04:46 - And then around the same time I found a copy of The Fountainhead and said, oh, all the smart kids at school used to carry that around.

00:05:00 - We all like the book Anthem, which is the thing that kind of inspired 2112.

00:05:05 - So Anthem is basically the story of a society taken over by a priesthood of totalitarian dictators who use mysticism to try and subdue all the people as a society, which is so collectivistic and so totalitarian that the concept I has been eliminated from people's minds.

don't even have the concept I, which means they can't conceive of themselves as individuals.

00:05:35 - That whole idea of the individual and that sort of libertarian values played a big role in the way that album shaped up.

00:05:44 - I dreamed up the story of music being invented against a dystopian totalitarian society.

00:05:59 - I felt this great sense of injustice that this mass was coming down on us and telling us to compromise.

00:06:06 - And compromise was the word that I couldn't deal with.

00:06:08 - I grew up with a child of the 60s and I was a strong individualist and believed in the sanctity of you should be able to do what you want to do without hurting anyone.

00:06:18 - When I realized that the story was paralleling Anthem, I thought I had to say something about Iron Man and the association with 2112.

00:06:25 - So, at the bottom of the lyrics, just put with acknowledgement to the genius of mine.

00:06:55 - We're on the train to Fakar

00:07:00 - Above the Thailand Express

00:07:05 - We'll never stop, say life and way

00:07:10 - We only stop for good

00:07:15 - We only stop for good

00:07:20 - We only stop for good

00:07:24 - Father and Son

00:07:30 - We've been smoking Lebanon

00:07:34 - We've burned the midnight oil

00:07:39 - The foray from the sun

00:07:42 - I will get this sand

00:07:44 - And the world's a long day's soil

00:07:49 - I'm puttin' in to get mental

00:07:52 - But wings fill the air

00:07:54 - A world you're buying

00:07:56 - A whole life express

00:07:58 - To get to the end

00:08:00 - We're on the train

00:08:02 - To failure

00:08:04 - But what the time

00:08:06 - That goes to rest

00:08:08 - We'll hear the stops

00:08:10 - Turn down the way

00:08:12 - We only stop

00:08:14 - For the best

00:08:22 - I'll be right back, I'll be right back

00:08:24 - I'll be right back, I'll be right back

00:08:26 - I'll be right back, I'll be right back

00:08:28 - I'll be right back, I'll be right back

00:08:30 - I'll be right back

00:08:32 - I'll be right back

00:08:34 - I'll be right back

00:08:36 - I'll be right back

00:08:38 - I'll be right back

00:08:40 - I'll be right back

00:08:42 - I'll be right back

00:08:44 - I'll be right back

00:08:46 - I'll be right back

00:08:48 - I'll be right back

00:08:50 - We ride the train to Fancacababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababab

00:09:20 - We only stop for the best

00:09:28 - Just run a train to think out

00:09:33 - Of all the silent express

00:09:38 - We only stop for the best

00:09:50 - You