“New World Man” by Rush

song info

    “New World Man” by Rush (live video from the Grace Under Pressure tour) is a progressive rock song. Rush’s only American Top 40 hit (#21 on Billboard Oct and Nov 1982). Also reached number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart for two weeks.

    Commentary:
    Geddy Lee (from Success Under Pressure): “It wouldn’t have been on the record if we didn’t have four minutes space available. We tend to have pretty strict ideas on how long an album should be and basically it’s just a matter of value. Our shortest albums are about 18 minutes a side and that’s a pretty good value. I couldn’t see us going below that; it doesn’t make sense to me. But, at the same time, we’re now recording digitally and so we do have certain considerations as to how the whole thing’s going to sound when you cut it. There, you’re dealing with quality, which is again down to value for money. I think what it really boiled down to was that we’d worked so hard getting all these slick sounds that we were all in the mood to put something down that was real spontaneous. In the end, the whole song took one day to write and record. It’s good to put something together like that.”

    Neil Peart (from Stories From Signals, Signals Tourbook): “Writing it in one day and recording it the next! We wanted to capture a spontaneous, relaxed feel for this one, not even spending much time getting the sounds together. Thus, it could stand in contrast to the rest of the album, being much more raw and ‘live’ in its effect. Two days is very close to a record for us to write and record a song.”

Translations courtesy of Apple and Google.