Music…

Red Sector A

Grace Under Pressure

Rush

and Words

All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive
All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shoutin′ guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I was in high school when I read George Orwell’s 1984; ironically, it was around 1984.  The words expanded my mind and darkened my heart; I loved that book.  Some allege that, in order to render a book boring to students, teachers need only label it required reading.  This book was required reading, and I loved it nonetheless.  I won’t spend my post detailing the events in the book.  I will say that its dystopian nature and the degree to which the state controlled everything awakened parts of my mind that lay dormant.

While I enjoyed reading other required assignments in high school, George Orwell’s 1984 sits at the top of the list.  I should be grateful that it was assigned reading, because I honestly doubt that I would’ve read it on my own.  On my own, I’ve read other books that others allege as classic must-reads, like Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, but it didn’t have the same impact.

In my mind, the dystopian world in 1984 existed in my mind strictly as fiction.  More specifically, I saw it as impossible fiction, much like reading Robert A. Heinlein or Roger Zelazny.  I don’t necessarily dismiss the idea that space or intradimensional travel is possible; I merely accept the fact that it is currently impossible.

Rush, the music group, had always been in my radar.  I had developed a respect for them as music geeks discussed the top bands or musicians.  They, the band or its members, were always mentioned among the elites of rock music.  Many Rush songs have left an indelible mark on me.  If I had a soundtrack when I was approaching high school, ‘Tom Sawyer’ would’ve definitely been on it. 

Years later, upon the release of Chronicles, I revisited many favorites from the band and discovered new music.  Among the discoveries was ‘Red Sector A’, previously released in Grace Under Pressure.  I’ll confess that I was blindsided by this song; I knew not of its existence before listening to it in Chronicles; it quickly became among my favorites.

Initially, the words from the song painted a picture in my head reminiscent of the scene from The Terminator set in the dystopian future.  You can feel the desperation in both those scenes and Geddy Lee’s words in the song.  While the verses may not align perfectly, such as “clutch the wire fence”, the picture they paint aligns well.  Another bit of interesting trivia?  Both ‘Red Sector A’ and ‘The Terminator’ were released in 1984.

Eventually, these words bled into that very same novel from my high school reading, 1984.  I won’t necessarily conclude that all dystopian fiction leads to the same conclusion, nor does it have the same soundtrack.  The plotlines diverge, and each work has its own merit.  To put them all into the same bucket does each an injustice.  Perhaps my fascination with the genre extends from my eternal sense of optimism.  Things may suck right now, but situations improve.

Fast forward a few more years, and I listened to ‘Red Sector A’ a few more times.  Having so many references to this song in my head, I marveled at the song’s origin.  Eventually, I tracked it down.  Neil Peart, Rush’s drummer and lyricist on this song, stated that accounts from the Holocaust inspired these lyrics.  Furthermore, these were accounts by the mother of Geddy Lee (his bandmate).  He scripted the words ambiguously so that they may apply to any prison camp setting, but the original inspiration was the Holocaust.  This moment envelops me with sadness.  Those stark images, painted by words written by Neil Peart and sung by Geddy Lee, did not represent fiction, the way I had imagined for so many years.  Even if uttered in the present tense, they represented not fiction, but history.

Reflexively, whenever I hear about the Holocaust, I also think about the Japanese prison camps during World War II.  I think about how Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of our favorite presidents, issued an executive order to imprison Japanese residents, two-thirds of whom were citizens of the United States.  Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on that.  We locked up tens of thousands of United States citizens because they were descendants of a particular country.  Would we be as quick to gather everyone of Swedish descent if Sweden were to attack the United States?  How about Norway?  Canada literally set the White House on fire; are we locking them up?  It is not convenient to lock them up and put them away if they don’t look like us?

Unfortunately, they look like me.  Japan invaded China in the 1930’s; even in my early childhood, my parents had animosity towards Japan.  However, they understood the clear delineation between the country and its people.  However, to people here in the US, Chinese people looked close enough to Japanese people that they may be guilty by association, even if both China and the United States were victims of Japan.  Americans looked at Chinese people as a rounding error; we were close enough.