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YYZ

Bassman Ski

Bassman Ski

Apr 15, 2010
131
80
#1
OK some of you may say "no profanity ~Mod BASSMAN SKI! YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT???"

Well this is addressed to people who may NOT know these useless little facts that I just learned.

YYZ is the airport designation for Rush's hometown (Like JFK is New York and LAX is Los Angeles) ... OK that I knew since I was a tot back in the 80's

All this time I have been calling the song "Why Why Zee"... DUH! They are Canadian... I didn't know Rush called it "Why Why Zed"

The unmistakable intro that Neil Peart plays to start off the song is the Morse Code identifier for the airport.

Cool!!
 
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#6
another (well known?)YYZed fact...

the sound in the part of the song after the extended drum solo that sounds like a china cymbal and glass breaking is a sample of Neil smashing a folding chair into a pane of glass that was outside of the studio.

It was the last instrumental they wrote before Where's My Thing (Part 2). For the interim albums, Neil could not convince the other 2 to write an instrumental, so for the Roll the Bones album, he "held the lyrics to the other songs hostage" until Alex and Geddy wrote an instrumental
 
#8
chuck norriss said:
take this rush quiz
Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...

8 out of 10. Missed the one about Midsummer Nights Dream, and the one about which celebrity talked about the bottle of "hot sauce" or whatever that was.

They are my number one most favorite musical entity, and the main reason that I pursued music as a career. I am definitely a Rush geek and proud of it. Signals was the first tour I saw them live on, and have seen them on every tour since at least once.
 
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#9
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1398201875.886121.jpg
 
#10
xUptheIronsx said:
another (well known?)YYZed fact...

the sound in the part of the song after the extended drum solo that sounds like a china cymbal and glass breaking is a sample of Neil smashing a folding chair into a pane of glass that was outside of the studio.

It was the last instrumental they wrote before Where's My Thing (Part 2). For the interim albums, Neil could not convince the other 2 to write an instrumental, so for the Roll the Bones album, he "held the lyrics to the other songs hostage" until Alex and Geddy wrote an instrumental
Click to expand...

It was actually plywood that was broken, not glass. In fact, Neil is credited with playing 'plywood' in the liner notes.

Funny but when I met Alex he referred to it as "Y Y Zee" (not Zed). Maybe he was Americanizing it for me. ;)
 
#15
chuck norriss said:
You met Alex?! Lucky.
Click to expand...

Yes, it was the Vapo(u)r Trails tour. I won front row tickets and meet & greet passes on the radio, and when we were at the head of the line, Alex asked me "Did you win a radio contest or something?" Trying to be a wise-aker, I said, "Yes, I had to name all the Rush songs in alphabetical order." That wasn't true, I had to identify 10 songs in a 5 second clip put together by the radio station.

Anyhew, he said "Wow, impressive! What was the last song?" "Xanadu, because it starts with a Z," I said, trying to be funny. "Oh, I would have thought it would be YYZ..." By that time, we were whisked away and I didn't get a chance to say much to Geddy except for 'hi.' Alex was very nice, and even introduced himself to my wife (who was with me at the meet & greet) while I was being awkward with Geddy.

So, the lesson here is: Be gracious and succinct when you meet your musical heroes, otherwise you'll wind up saying something dumb that you'll regret.

Back to the topic...
 

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