As the prospect of going to a Rush concert looms on the horizon, I’m listening to more Rush, and I’m amazed how songs that seemes like happy shiny songs in highschool now seem very dark, insightful, and profound.

I found this to be particularly interesting, at the end of Middletown Dreams, a song about people dreaming about a better life that they will assuredly never achieve:

It’s understood
By every single person
Who’d be elsewhere if they could
So far so good
And life’s not unpleasant
In their little neighbourhood

And, indeed, life is not unpleasant, just because we dream of something better. But if this realization means that we abandon our dreams, then it’s not worth it.

No, life is not unpleasant, but I do dream of better things, and there are indeed times that I am far away.