“Only” Words?
Today I want to honor a person whose words have immeasurably changed my life for the better. If he were alive, today would be his 72nd birthday.
If you know me, you very likely know about whom I’m writing: the late great Neil Peart. Best known as the primary lyricist and percussionist for prog rock band Rush, his willingness to dive in to deep subjects immediately appealed to me. Not many rock bands delved into individualism, secularism, healthy relationships, or humanism—and I respected Rush for it. I didn’t necessarily agree with everything, but that was great too: the lyrics set me to thinking about issues and exploring my feelings about them.
The details of my transformation to a hardcore Rush fan are lost in the mists of time, and are barely relevant anyway. I still can’t even say whether I like the music or lyrics best: they are two sides of a coin that aren’t easily separated.1 I do remember that the 1987 album Hold Your Fire was the first I could buy on release day; I’m pretty sure that I did get a cassette and immediately started driving my then-husband crazy playing it. Many of its positive, motivational themes were just what I needed as I was working through graduate school. In fact, I referenced one song from the album along with the band in my doctoral dissertation’s acknowledgments—that’s how important it was to me.
The title of today’s post is drawn from another trio whose music I adore: the Bee Gees’ classic “Words.” Part of the chorus goes: “it’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.” When I first heard it I was around seven years old, and I thought it was a romantic song; even so, I disagreed that words were the “only” tool available for the character to use. It turns out the impetus for the song was two arguments. Knowing that context, it’s less objectionable … and these days, as a professional word wrangler I understand that “only” isn’t meant as “solely,” but rather “merely.” Those two meanings for the adverb highlight the importance of choosing words carefully.
Words span the most superficial to the deepest of our communications, and the jump between those ends of the continuum can happen really fast. I think Peart grokked that in fullness (consider the fun he surely had while writing “Anagram (for Mongo)”) and covered it quite capably.
I know that for many people, Rush’s music is “too complex,” and their lyrics “too cerebral.” I don’t like every Rush song, nor everything Peart has written2—and I think each member of the trio would have no problem with that. As vocalist–bassist–keyboardist Geddy Lee put it in one of his turns as lyricist, “different hearts beat on different strings.” Rush’s music still inspires me and motivates me—to think and to act, and to strive to be the best person I can. There are millions of others like me. Not bad for “only words,” eh?
1: Covers can provide interesting data for that experiment, but that isn’t my focus today. (back to the paragraph)
2: In a couple of his books, his style occasionally got clunky to my ear. (back to the paragraph)