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- Lyrics to Rush - Hemispheres
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- Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres I. Prelude
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- When our weary world was young
- The struggle of the ancients was begun.
- The gods of Love and Reason
- Sought alone to rule the fate of Man.
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- They battled through the ages,
- But still neither force would yield.
- The people were divided,
- Every soul a battlefield.
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- II. Apollo: Bringer of Wisdom
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- "I bring truth and understanding,
- I bring wit and wisdom fair,
- Precious gifts beyond compare.
- We can build a world of wonder,
- I can make you all aware.
- I will find you food and shelter,
- Show you fire to keep you warm
- Through the endless winter storms.
- You can live in grace and comfort
- In the world that you transform."
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- The people were delighted
- Coming forth to claim their prize
- They ran to build their cities
- And converse among the wise.
- But one day the streets fell silent,
- Yet they knew not what was wrong.
- The urge to build these fine things
- Seemed not to be so strong.
- The wise men were consulted,
- And the Bridge of Death was crossed
- In quest of Dionysus,
- To find out what they had lost.
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- III. Dionysus: Bringer of Love
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- "I bring love to give you solace
- In the darkness of the night,
- In the Heart's eternal light.
- You need only trust your feelings;
- Only love can steer you right.
- I bring laughter, I bring music,
- I bring joy and I bring tears.
- I will soothe your primal fears.
- Throw off those chains of reason
- And your prison disappears."
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- The cities were abandoned,
- And the forests echoed song.
- They danced and lived as brothers;
- They knew love could not be wrong.
- Food and wine they had aplenty
- And they slept beneath the stars.
- The people were contented
- And the Gods watched from afar.
- But the winter fell upon them
- And it caught them unprepared,
- Bringing wolves and cold starvation,
- And the hearts of men despaired.
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- IV. Armageddon: The Battle of Heart and Mind
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- The Universe divided
- As the Heart and Mind collided,
- With the people left unguided
- For so many troubled years.
- In a cloud of doubts and fears,
- Their world was torn asunder into hollow Hemispheres.
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- Some fought themselves, some fought each other.
- Most just followed one another,
- Lost and aimless like their brothers,
- For their hearts were so unclear,
- And the truth could not appear.
- Their spirits were divided into blinded Hemispheres.
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- Some who did not fight
- Brought tales of old to light.
- My Rocinante' sailed by night
- On her final flight.
- To the heart of Cygnus' fearsome force
- We set our course.
- Spiralled through that timeless space
- To this immortal place.
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- V. Cygnus: Bringer of Balance
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- I have memory and awareness,
- But I have no shape or form.
- As a disembodied spirit,
- I am dead and yet unborn.
- I have passed into Olympus
- As was told in tales of old,
- To the city of Immortals,
- Marble white and purest gold.
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- I see the gods in battle rage on high,
- Thunderbolts across the sky.
- I cannot move, I cannot hide,
- I feel a silent scream begin inside.
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- Then all at once the chaos ceased.
- A stillness fell, a sudden peace.
- The warriors felt my silent cry
- And stayed their struggle, mystified.
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- Apollo was atonished;
- Dionysus thought me mad.
- But they heard my story further,
- And they wondered, and were sad.
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- Looking down from Olympus
- On a world of doubt and fear,
- Its surface splintered
- Into sorry Hemispheres.
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- They sat a while in silence,
- Then they turned at last to me.
- "We will call you Cygnus,
- The god of Balance you shall be."
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- The Sphere: A Kind of Dream
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- We can walk our road together
- If our goals are all the same.
- We can run alone and free
- If we pursue a different aim.
- Let the truth of love be lighted,
- Let the love of truth shine clear.
- Sensibility, armed with sense and liberty,
- With the Heart and Mind united in a single perfect Sphere.
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- Circumstances
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- A boy alone, so far from home,
- Endless rooftops from my window.
- I felt the gloom of empty rooms
- On rainy afternoons.
- Sometimes, in confusion,
- I felt so lost and disillusioned,
- Innocence gave me confidence
- To go up against reality.
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- All the same, we take our chances,
- Laughed at by Time,
- Tricked by Circumstances.
- Plus ca change,
- Plus c'est la meme chose,
- The more that things change,
- The more they stay the same.
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- Now I've gained some understanding
- Of the only world that we see.
- Things that I once dreamed of
- Have become reality.
- These walls that still surround me
- Still contain the same old me,
- Just one more who's searching for a world that ought to be.
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- The Trees
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- There is unrest in the forest,
- There is trouble with the trees,
- For the maples want more sunlight
- And the oaks ignore their pleas.
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- The trouble with the maples,
- (And they're quite convinced the're right)
- They say the oaks are just too lofty
- And they grab up all the light.
- But the oaks can't help their feelings
- If they like the way they're made.
- And they wonder why the maples
- Can't be happy in their shade.
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- There is trouble in the forest,
- And the creatures all have fled,
- As the maples scream `Oppression`
- And the oaks, just shake their heads
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- So the maples formed a union
- And demanded equal rights.
- "These oaks are just too greedy;
- We will make them give us light."
- Now there's no more oak oppression,
- For they passed a noble law,
- And the trees are all kept equal
- By hatchet, axe, and saw.
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- La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence) (Instrumental)
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- Includes:
- 1. Buenas Noches, Mein Froinds!
- 2. To sleep, perchance to dream...
- 3. Strangiato Theme
- 4. A Lerxst in Wonderland
- 5. Monsters!
- 6. Danforth and Pape
- 7. The Waltz of the Shreves
- 8. Never turn your back on a Monster!
- 9. Monsters! (Reprise)
- 10. Strangiato Theme (Reprise)
- 11. A Farewell to Things
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