Signals (Rush album)

Writing and recording

The writing of the album began in 1981, during soundchecks on the Moving Pictures Tour, which they taped. Coincidentally, parts of "Chemistry" were written by the band at once while they were separated from each other. Geddy Lee wrote the keyboard melody for the bridge section, Alex Lifeson wrote the guitar riff for the verse and Neil Peart wrote the drum beat for the chorus, and in a move unusual for Rush, Lee and Lifeson came with the concept and title for the song and presented rough lyrics for Peart to polish. In April, in Orlando, Florida, the band attempted to watch a launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was cancelled because of a computer malfunction, and they finally observed the launch a few days later for inspiration in writing "Countdown".

In September, at Le Studio, Quebec, Peart jammed with the road crew on a song, and was joined by Lee and Lifeson. It was recorded later and temporarily titled "Tough Break". Afterward, Peart wrote lyrics for the song, retitled "Subdivisions", while Lifeson and Lee came up with additional parts. Lee began experimenting with sequencers and drum machines while at home in Toronto, and came up with "The Weapon".

In January 1982, on a docked schooner in the Virgin Islands, Peart presented his lyrics for "The Analog Kid" to Lee and they both agreed that it would make a great up-tempo rocker, with a soft chorus. At Muskoka Lakes, Ontario in March at the Grange, "Digital Man" was put together and at Le Studio, the ska style bridge was created along with the sequencer pattern with the guitar and bass. Producer Terry Brown was not impressed and initially refused to record it. In May, the band set out to record a song that had a time limit of 3:57 to keep both sides of the record equal. The result, "New World Man", was written and recorded on the same day. In June, Ben Mink from the band FM was invited to play electric violin on "Losing It".

Signals represented the band's last collaboration with Brown, who had co-produced every Rush album since 1975's Fly by Night, and had engineered their eponymous first album in 1974.

Songs

The opening track from Signals is "Subdivisions", which has become one of Rush's live staples.

"The Analog Kid" and "Digital Man" served as the inspiration for writer Troy Hickman to create the comic book heroes of the same names in the 2004 comic Common Grounds.

The lyrics for "Chemistry" were written by all three band members. To date, it is the last time either Lee or Lifeson has written lyrics for a Rush song.

"Digital Man", a slightly reggae-based song, ultimately led to the end of the band's relationship with Brown. He was reluctant to leave behind the band's progressive rock past, while the band members, especially Lee, wanted to explore new musical directions. The instrumental break of the song has been compared with the song "Walking on the Moon" by the Police. The song was performed during the 2007 Snakes & Arrows Tour, marking the first time Rush performed it live in nearly 23 years.

"The Weapon" (Part II of the "Fear" series) would be featured in the album's supporting tour and would include a video opening hosted by Count Floyd of SCTV fame.

"New World Man" became a surprise hit single for the band, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for three weeks in October and November 1982. It is the band's highest charting single in the US, and the only one to have reached the top 40.

The lyrics for "Losing It" include references to the latter years of writer Ernest Hemingway: "for you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee". The song was not played live until 2015, when it was performed at four concerts on the R40 Live Tour.

The lyrics in the final track, "Countdown", describe the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981, which the band was present for. The song features samples of radio communications recorded before and during the flight. It was a minor UK chart hit in early 1983.

Critical reception

AllMusic retrospectively praised the album, complimenting the band for not simply making Moving Pictures, Pt. II, continuing their exploration of the synthesizer and introducing more contemporary themes into the lyrics. Rolling Stone, however, criticized the band's choice of "emphasizing synthesizers at the expense of Alex Lifeson's guitar," calling the album "mostly a wasted effort."

Remasters

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab issued a Gold CD remaster in 1994 that is currently out of print.

A Mercury Records remaster was issued in 1997.

Signals was remastered again in 2011 by Andy VanDette as part of the three-volume "Sector" box sets, which re-released all of Rush's albums recorded for Mercury. In addition to the standard audio CD, Signals was also included on an audio DVD in the Sector 3 set, remixed into 5.1 surround sound.

Signals was remastered for vinyl in 2015 by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios as a part of the official "12 Months of Rush" promotion. The high definition master prepared for this release was also made available for purchase in a 24-bit/48 kHz digital format at several high-resolution audio online music stores. These remasters have significantly less dynamic range compression than the 1997 remasters and the "Sector" remasters by Andy VanDette. Sean Magee remastered the audio from an analogue copy of the original digital master, using a 192 kHz sample rate. But since Signals was originally mixed on digital equipment at 16-bit/44.1 kHz, no audio above 22 kHz exists in the original digital master or any of the remasters, which is why many digital music stores are only selling the album at a maximum sample rate of 48 kHz.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Neil Peart except where noted; all music composed by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee.

Rush

Additional personnel

Production