What Makes a Song Great: Limelight by Rush

[P. Aaron]

Not being a Rush fan, I only know this song from radio play as I do Tom Sawyer, Fly By Night, and a few others (names I can't associate with the songs) over the many years Rush has cranked out top rock music.

Limelight is terrific because it's a Get In rock it and Get Out type song. Most great songs are like this, and we appreciate their brevity and play them over & over.

Limelight fits this bill perfectly in lyrics and music. We can relate to both in the kick ass musical performances all-around and the lyrical meaning and we musicians enjoy solving the mysteries of...

"How do they do that?"

Rock Beato breaks this down for us in the handy-dandy video.



Beato also has a Kid Charlemagne video too. Very cool stuff.

 

[osv]

His video of Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police is also excellent.

 

[lat]

Was just going to start a thread on this vid, thanks for saving me the trouble! lol
Love a lot of Rick's vids on songs, with the access he has to the multi-tracks. A lot of the songs he talks about I wouldn't normally pay any attention to, so it's good to learn about styles I'm really not into.
Rush is interesting to me. Some of their songs I really can't get into, but some of them, especially the ones from Moving Pictures, I absolutely love.

 

[India_Sierra]

Another great video from Rick Beato. I found his channel through an interview he did with Jeff Berlin and I have been an avid viewer ever since.

Rick's breakdown of this track really gives credit to the excellent playing of Alex Lifeson. His use of chords to add colour and harmony was always astounding to me.

 

[Spectrum]

Rick is a fantastic musician in his own right, if you watch enough of his channel. His enthusiasm as he breaks down these songs is infectious, he genuinely loves the music.

As for Rush, I can listen to these isolated tracks all day long. Some of the greatest details of these instrumental performances are easy to miss in the mix, in particular the chordal stuff that Alex Lifeson does; he is truly a great guitarist.