Bravado
One of my favorite Rush songs is called Bravado. It's on the Roll The Bones album and it came out in 1991. Sometimes you have to listen to a song a time or 3 in order to start to really enjoy it. Bravado was not one of those. To be fair, the preceding track (and the first one on the album), Dreamline, is also one of those. There is at least one more song from the album, Heresy, that I'll probably write about later, but for now, I want to talk about Bravado.
One of the things that always amazed me about how the band worked together was that Neil would go off and write lyrics while Geddy and Alex noodled around with the music - melodies and bass lines, notes and chords. And somehow, they'd match them up, rearrange things and find the puzzle pieces that fit together. Then, Neil would work up his drum parts, Geddy and Alex would fine tun their parts and, wham, magic made.
Bravado is a brilliant mix of that. Musically, it's beautiful. The melody, the moving parts, the guitar solo, the drums - it's just a wonderful piece. Usually, I wouldn't post a live version as I think sometimes the vocals get a bit lost and the lyrics are so important, but this clip from their R30 tour is hard to pass by. It's a good look at how much they do as a 3 piece band to replicate the music from the album. Just watching three men who have mastered their instruments and work together is always a joy. I'll post the lyrics later on when I talk about them. Watching a bunch of videos of this song, I'm reminded of the joke: drummers use a metronome to keep time, metronomes use Neil Peart. Anyway, here's the song:
https://youtu.be/0Ka_oevW2sc
The first verse is this:
If we burn our wings,
Flying to close to the sun.
If the moment of glory,
Is over before its begun.
If the dream is won,
Though everything is lost.
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost.
So, obviously we have an allusion to Icarus. We won't go into that mythology, it's pretty well known. But, the idea behind it is more important. We must strive to better ourselves, to reach for more, to take risks. And, though we may fail, it is worse to not try.
The song goes right into a second verse. One of the things that I like about Rush is that they don't write songs that go: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. They do have some songs like that, but a lot of them don't. Probably one of the reasons they didn't get a whole lot of radio play.
Anyway, here's the second verse:
When the dust has cleared,
And victory denied.
A summit to lofty,
River a little too wide.
If we keep our pride,
Though paradise is lost.
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost.Another allusion, this time to Milton. While his Paradise Lost is about the fall of man, Bravado is more about the resilience. Sometimes, the summit isn't reachable, the river can't be crossed. But again, we don't count the cost.
After a great guitar solo, we go to the final verse:
And if the music stops,
There's only the sound of the rain.
All the hope and glory,
All the sacrifice in vain.
If every love remains,
Though everything is lost,
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost.
And the lines repeat a couple of times:
And if love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price (we will pay the price)
But we will not count the costÂ
Ending with a final:
And if love remains...
This is the part of the song that always gets me. Musically, there's a subtle break on "And if the music stops". The theme of the entire song gets wrapped up in "And if love remains, though everything is lost, we will pay the price, but we will not count the cost." Bringing home the idea that if we fail, but we have someone or someones in our life that still love us and know we tried, we will be ok.
The live version of the song then ends with more wonderful guitar work by Alex with the "rhythm section" supporting him. The studio version fades with the guitar, drums and bass repeating the melody. It really is a masterpiece of a song.
So, as I said, this song was an instant favorite. I can't begin to count the number of times I've listened to it. Probably in the 1,000s. It was released in September of 1991. Ten years later, terrorists would hijack 4 airplanes, crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and, after some heroes fought back, a field in Pennsylvania. A pretty obscure band called Paradigm Blue covered this song. They added newscasts, interviews and parts of a speech from President Bush. It's a fitting use of the song, a tribute to the men and women first responders and a catharsis for the rest of us. Fortunately, someone uploaded the song to YouTube.
I think either the band knew about the Paradigm Blue cover or, at the least, what the song means to everyone. There are clips of when they played a concert on the anniversary of 9/11 and they dedicate it to the victims.
Before I post the link, I'll just finish off with, again, why this song is one of my favorites. It's the combination of music and lyrics. It just grabs you and doesn't let go. It's one of those times that my favorite band hit everything just right. I hope you like it as much as I do.
https://youtu.be/GkaQz5_zIas