The Freedom of Music

I’m going to swerve off course a little this week because I’ve been pondering my experience in New York recently when I went into the city to see Rush. It has me thinking about a large worry that I’ve had, which is how we heal as a nation after such a divisive period that admittedly started before the Trump presidency, but has been ratcheted to a new level in recent years. And, while it has been spurred on by a leader who insults just about anyone who crosses him, many of us on both sides of the political fence are just as guilty of rolling around in the proverbial mud. I find it mentally exhausting to be so angry all the time and have so many angry at me, but the real problem is that we’re so busy slinging insults at one another, we’re not doing the job of solving anything. Is there a way past that?

One of the authors I tapped into when researching for my own book was Ece Temelkuran, who is a Turkish journalist who witnessed that country’s path toward an increasingly autocratic and restrictive government. It was a depressing read, because she does not believe that our political systems will bring us back together. And at first, I misinterpreted what she was saying, thinking she was implying we cannot come together as a population. But that’s not quite right: what she advocates is that people must do that work for themselves. I believe she is right, and I believe it can be done. Rush showed me that it’s possible.

Rush fans are “special.” Of course, we would tell you that, but don’t take our word for it; talk to venue employees, music store owners, and the artist who sold my husband a drawing of the band to give me. They’ll all say we’re next-level fanatical. The reason for that is not mystical really: Rush was never a Top 40 band, so if you found their music, you likely didn’t find it from casually hearing it on the radio, and if you kept listening to it, it resonated with you. Deeply. In short, the way the band found its base filtered out the casual fan. Ask people about the Beatles, and many will tell you they like their music, many more will tell you they love it, and some will tell you they would jump off a cliff if Paul McCartney asked them to because their music changed their life. Rush fans are all cliff jumpers.

I spent a few days in the company of my fellow jumpers recently, and it was glorious. The sense of camaraderie we all feel when together is unmistakable, and we were everywhere throughout Manhattan, easily recognizable because we were all wearing our new concert swag, wanting to be seen. On the street, in the train station, at tourist attractions, in hotel lobbies, we’d make eye contact, point at one another, and give a knowing smile that identified one another as musical allies. When we had a chance to talk to one another, it revolved around how long we’ve been fans, how many times we’d seen them live, what drew us to them, and this time around, how wonderful the concert was and how grateful we were that they were back on tour. We bond easily, and it's genuine. It’s been that way with this band for as long as I can remember. That sense of togetherness is part of the high that the concerts give us. I never once have wondered or worried what party my fellow fans align with. It simply doesn’t matter. We all have a common love that transcends all that.

That said, demographically, Rush fans these days are a little different than they were in the 70’s. There are a lot of younger fans who got introduced because of their parents, or because the music is just so complex and superlative that it attracts budding musicians – like the young man I sat with at the concert, who is a professional composer – and more women like me found Rush along the way, but it’s still a long-standing joke that you’ll never find a line to the women’s restroom at a Rush concert. But a large segment remains the same: older, male, and white. Many came to be fans based on the band’s seminal work, “2112,” which is based on Ayn Rand’s Anthem. Ayn Rand is the siren of conservatives such as Rand Paul, and as a young man, Neil Peart was heavily influenced by her writing, and some of my fellow cliff jumpers surely are or were as well. Over time, Peart’s worldview changed, and he rejected her philosophy and politically grew to align with left-leaning politics, but of course that means their fans are all over the political map. The reality is I was almost certainly shoulder to shoulder with someone who voted opposite of how I did at some point. But that doesn’t enter our experience at the concert. No one talks about the subtle political messaging of “2112” as opposed to their final album Clockwork Angels. Even though these are divisive times where our political alignment seems to be how we’re judged everywhere and by everyone, the notable absence of it over those few days in New York was noticeable. And I will tell you, it was heavenly.

What Rush shows us is that different people can rise above politics. There is more to us that can unite us than what pulls us apart. I find myself wondering if the great Neil Peart, if he could communicate down from the cosmos, would say that we must rise above it if we’re to rebound from the toxicity of this past decade. He, of course, would say it better.