The first Time I heard it was about 8 months ago. I bought Farewell to kings and played the whole thing in my stereo. This song got my attention. Awesome Prog music! 
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When you first heard Cygnus X-1
- Thread starter the_hook
- Start date
When I first bought the album almost 25 years ago, I was so busy listening to Xanadu over and over again that I didn't pay attention to X1. Nowadays, I dig the song.
Hmmmm... it's/was a little foggy, but I am certain I was at one of my neighbors' - (you know the cool neighbor you have that had the cool van) and we were feeding his python little white mice. Is that the quintessential cliche or what! The sad thing about it... is that it is so true! Aaahhhh junior high and the 70's rocked!
For the longest time I'd go to sleep to Rush albums, and the intros to Book I and Witch Hunt are kind of creepy to hear when you're half asleep.
I remember when it first came out.
I spent hours learning the bass line, note for note, using a 33 1/3 record player in my parents' family room.
To this day, I can play it, note for note.
Brilliant playing and tone if you ask me.
I spent hours learning the bass line, note for note, using a 33 1/3 record player in my parents' family room.
To this day, I can play it, note for note.
Brilliant playing and tone if you ask me.
Well yeah... all the time changes made for not a very approachable and radio friendly song for a young and impatient teenager, but I was pretty engaged with just the first few bass notes. I just kinda of felt that all the various changes and chord progressions really didn't meld at first (at least not as well as say, xanadu, necromancer, hemispheres or la villa). I was definitely a title track guy on "Kings"! But those first few bass notes could linger for days!
Weird- just listened to it for the first time in ages last night! One of my favorites. Made me pull out my Ric 
I loved this song from the first listen (I often don't- Camera Eye is another one of my favorites, but I didn't like that one the first time I heard it). But FTK is one of the coolest, nastiest, dark, melodious, dissonant, well constructed hard rockin' prog rock albums ever. If you haven't heard it or listened to it in a while, give it a go! I can listen to Geddy's 70's shriekin' all day long!!
I loved this song from the first listen (I often don't- Camera Eye is another one of my favorites, but I didn't like that one the first time I heard it). But FTK is one of the coolest, nastiest, dark, melodious, dissonant, well constructed hard rockin' prog rock albums ever. If you haven't heard it or listened to it in a while, give it a go! I can listen to Geddy's 70's shriekin' all day long!!
First time I heard AFTK I was at my friend Keith's apartment back in '77. He had just picked up the album and a couple of grams of hash. Keith was one of those guys who had a killer stereo system - all Pioneer along with huge Celestion speakers - you know the type. Anyways, we got nice and buzzed and we cued it up. It was fantastic! I don't remember if I suddenly had the urge to learn it all on guitar (didn't play bass back in the day), but I do remember thinking that Canadian bands like Rush were making a lot of progress, moving towards "world-class", and that the Guess Who had some comprtition! But CHOM-FM (Montreal's rock station back in the day) wasn't playing much Rush back then, simply because there was so much good music to choose from!
CHOM isn't what is used to be... 
Unless you listen at night, you're a) either listening to commercials of the worst kind or b) listening to Nickleback/The Tragically Hip/Jonas (not the brothers thankfully) or 80s rock. No disrespect to any of those bands (except Nickleback), but they're not my cup of tea. Also, and this is what bugs me, it's that it's not the type of music they advertise themselves as playing; whenever you get the commercials for CHOM with the song clips, it's all 70s rock which had really been pushed aside in recent years. But like I said, at night it's still great Anyways, you got me ranting completely off topic lol, I think I'll stop.
Unless you listen at night, you're a) either listening to commercials of the worst kind or b) listening to Nickleback/The Tragically Hip/Jonas (not the brothers thankfully) or 80s rock. No disrespect to any of those bands (except Nickleback), but they're not my cup of tea. Also, and this is what bugs me, it's that it's not the type of music they advertise themselves as playing; whenever you get the commercials for CHOM with the song clips, it's all 70s rock which had really been pushed aside in recent years. But like I said, at night it's still great Anyways, you got me ranting completely off topic lol, I think I'll stop.
