Hold Your Fire

Force Ten
Lyrics by Pye Dubois and Neil Peart

Tough times demand tough talk
demand tough hearts demand tough songs
demand --

We can rise and fall like empires
Flow in and out like the tide
Be vain and smart, humble and dumb
We can hit and miss like pride

We can circle around like hurricanes
Dance and dream like lovers
Attack the day like birds of prey
Or scavengers under cover

Look in -- to the eye of the storm
Look out -- for the force without form
Look around -- at the sight and the sound
Look in look out look around --

We can move with savage grace
To the rhythms of the night
Cool and remote like dancing girls
In the heat of the beat and the lights

We can wear the rose of romance
An air of joie de vivre
Too-tender hearts upon our sleeves
Or skin as thick as thieves'

rising falling at force ten
we twist the world and ride the wind

Look in -- look the storm in the eye
Look out -- to the sea and the sky
Look around -- at the sight and the sound
Look in look out look around --


Time Stand Still
Lyrics by Neil Peart

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath,
Before I start off again.
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause.
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim --
Who learns to transcend --
Learns to live
As if each step was the end

Time stand still -- I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people and the places that surround me now

Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away...

I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes.
Let my defenses down --
All those wounds that I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause --
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain, whose ship runs aground --
I can wait until the tide comes around

Make each impression a little bit stronger
Freeze this motion a little bit longer
The innocence slips away...

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up -- old friends growing older
Experience slips away...


Open Secrets
Lyrics by Neil Peart

It went right by me --
At the time it went over my head
I was looking out the window
I should have looked at your face instead

It went right by me --
Just another wall
There should have been a moment
When we let our barriers fall
I never meant what you're thinking --
That is not what I meant at all...

Well I guess we all have these feelings
We can't leave unreconciled
Some of them burned on our ceilings
Some of them learned as a child

The things that we're concealing
Will never let us grow
Time will do its healing
You've got to let it go

Closed for my protection --
Open to your scorn
Between these two directions
My heart is sometimes torn

I lie awake with my secrets
spinning around my head
something that somehow escaped me --
Something you shouldn't have said
I was looking out the window
I should have looked at your face instead...

I find no absolution
In my rational point of view
Maybe some things are instinctive
But there's one thing you could do
You could try to understand me --
I could try to understand you...


Second Nature
Lyrics by Neil Peart

A memo to a higher office
Open letter to the powers-that-be
To a God, a king, a head of state
A captain of industry
To the movers and the shakers --
Can't everybody see?

It ought to be second nature --
I mean, the places where we live!
Let's talk about this sensibly --
We're not insensitive
I know progress has no patience --
But something's got to give

I know you're different --
You know I'm the same
We're both too busy
To be taking the blame
I'd like some changes
But you don't have the time
We can't go on thinking
It's a victimless crime
No one is blameless
But we're all without shame
We fight the fire -- while we're feeding the flames

Folks have got to make choices --
And choices got to have voices
Folks are basically decent
Conventional wisdom would say
Well, we read about the exceptions
In the papers every day

It ought to be second nature --
At least, that's what I feel
"Now I lay me down in Dreamland" --
I know perfect's not for real
I thought we might get closer --
But I'm ready to make a deal

Today is different, and tomorrow the same
It's hard to take the world the way that it came
Too many rapids keep us sweeping along
Too many captains keep on steering us wrong
It's hard to take the heat --
It's hard to lay blame
To fight the fire -- while we're feeding the flames


Prime Mover
Lyrics by Neil Peart

Basic elemental instinct to survive
Stirs the higher passions
Thrill to be alive

Alternating currents in a tidewater surge
Rational resistance to an unwise urge
(anything can happen)

From the point of conception
To the moment of Truth
At the point of surrender
To the burden of proof

From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey is not to arrive
(anything can happen)

Basic temperamental filters on our eyes
Alter our perceptions
Lenses polarize

Alternating currents force a show of hands
Rational responses force a change of plans
(anything can happen)

From a point on the compass
To magnetic north
The point of the needle moving back and forth

From the point of entry --
Until the candle is burned
The point of departure is not to return
(anything can happen)

I set the wheels in motion
turn up all the machines
activate the programs
and run behind the scene

I set the clouds in motion
turn up light and sound
activate the window
and watch the world go 'round --
(anything can happen)


Lock and Key
Lyrics by Neil Peart

I don't want to face the killer instinct --
Face it in your or me

We carry a sensitive cargo
Below the waterline --
Ticking like a time bomb
With a primitive design

Behind the finer feelings --
This civilized veneer --
The heart of a lonely hunter
Guards a dangerous frontier

The balance can sometimes fail --
Strong emotions can tip the scale --

Don't want to silence a desperate voice
For the sake of security
No one wants to make a terrible choice
On the price of being free
I don't want to face the killer instinct -- face it in you or me
So we keep it under lock and key...

It's not a matter of mercy
It's not a matter of laws
Plenty of people will kill you for some fanatical cause

It's not a matter of conscience --
A search for probable cause
It's just a matter of instinct -- a matter of fatal flaws

No reward for resistance
No assistance -- no applause...

we don't want to be victims
on that we all agree, so we lock up the killer instinct --
and throw away the key...


Mission
Lyrics by Neil Peart

Hold your fire --
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites --
A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct -- I wish I had that drive

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire

In the grip of a nameless possession --
A slave to the drive of obsession --
A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission...

I watch their images flicker
Bringing light to a lifeless screen
I walk through their beautiful buildings
And I wish I had their dreams

But dreams don't need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action --
Pride turns on the drive

It's cold comfort
To the ones without it
To know how they struggled --
How they suffered about it

If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission...


Turn the Page
Lyrics by Neil Peart

Nothing can survive in a vacuum
No one can exists all alone
We pretend things only happen to strangers
We've all got problems of our own

It's enough to learn to share our pleasures
We can't sooth pain with sympathy
All that we can do is be reminded --
We shake our heads at the tragedy

Every day we're standing in a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
Facing down the future coming fast

It's just the age
It's just a stage --
We disengage -- We turn the page...

Looking at the long-range forecast
Catching all the names in the news
Checking out the state of the nation
Learning the environmental blues

Truth is after all a moving target
Hairs to split, and pieces that don't fit
How can anybody be enlightened?
Truth is after all so poorly lit


Tai Shan
Lyrics by Neil Peart

High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air

Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold
Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold...

I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity --

If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere

The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea
I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries...

I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me...


High Water
Lyrics by Neil Peart

When the waters rose in the darkness
In the wake of the endless flood
It flowed into our memory -- it flowed into our blood

When something broke the surface
Just to see the starry dome --
We still feel that relation
When the water takes us home
In the flying spray of the ocean
The water takes you home --

Springing from the weight of the mountains
Like the heart of the earth would burst
Flowing out from marble fountains
In the dreams of a desert thirst

Something swam through the jungles
Where the mighty rivers roam --
Something breaks the silence
When the water takes you home
I hear the wordless voices
When the water takes me home --

Waves that crash on the shoreline
Torrents of tropical rain streaming down
Beyond our memory
Streaming down inside our veins

When something left the ocean
To crawl high above the foam --
We still feel that elation
When the water takes us home
In a driving rain of redemption
The water takes me home...