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- Lyrics to Rush - Permanent Waves
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- The Spirit of Radio
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- Begin the day with a friendly voice,
- A companion unobtrusive
- Plays the song that's so elusive
- And the magic music makes your morning mood.
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- Off on your way, hit the open road,
- There is magic at your fingers
- For the Spirit ever lingers,
- Undemanding contact in your happy solitude.
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- Invisible airwaves crackle with life
- Bright antennae bristle with the energy
- Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength
- Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free
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- All this machinery making modern music
- Can still be open-hearted.
- Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question
- Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty.
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- One likes to believe in the freedom of music,
- But glittering prizes and endless compromises
- Shatter the illusion of integrity.
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- For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,
- Concert hall
- And echoes with the sounds of salesmen.
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- Freewill
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- There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance,
- A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.
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- A planet of playthings,
- We dance on the strings
- Of powers we cannot perceive
- "The stars aren't aligned
- Or the gods are malign"-
- Blame is better to give than receive.
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- ou can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
- If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice.
- ou can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
- I will choose a path that's clear-
- I will choose Free Will.
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- There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
- The cards were stacked against them- they weren't born in lotus-land.
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- All preordained-
- A prisoner in chains-
- A victim of venomous fate.
- Kicked in the face,
- ou can't pray for a place
- In heaven's unearthly estate.
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- Each of us-
- A cell of awareness-
- Imperfect and incomplete.
- Genetic blends
- With uncertain ends
- On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.
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- Jacob's Ladder
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- The clouds prepare for battle
- In the dark and brooding silence.
- Bruised and sullen stormclouds
- Have the light of day obscured.
- Looming low and ominous
- In twilight premature
- Thunderheads are rumbling
- In a distant overture...
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- All at once, the clouds are parted.
- Light streams down in bright unbroken beams...
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- Follow men's eyes as they look to the skies.
- The shifting shafts of shining weave the fabric of their dreams...
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- Entre Nous
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- We are secrets to each other
- Each one's life a novel
- No-one else has read.
- Even joined in bonds of love,
- We're linked to one another
- By such slender threads.
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- We are planets to each other,
- Drifting in our orbits
- To a brief eclipse.
- Each of us a world apart,
- Alone and yet together,
- Like two passing ships.
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- Just between us,
- I think it's time for us to recognize
- The differences we sometimes fear to show.
- Just between us,
- I think it's time for us to realize,
- The spaces in between
- Leave room for you and I to grow.
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- We are strangers to each other,
- Full of sliding panels,
- An illusion show.
- Acting well-rehearsed routines
- Or playing from the heart?
- It's hard for one to know.
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- We are islands to each other,
- Building hopeful bridges
- On a troubled sea.
- Some are burned or swept away,
- Some we would not choose,
- But we're not always free.
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- Different Strings
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- Who's come to slay the dragon,
- Come to watch him fall?
- Making arrows out of pointed words,
- Giant killers at the call?
- Too much fuss and bother,
- Too much complication and confusion.
- Peel away the mystery,
- Here's a clue to some real motivation.
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- All there really is,
- The two of us,
- And we both know why we've come along.
- Nothing to explain,
- It's a part of us
- To be found within a song.
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- What happened to our innocence,
- Did it go out of style?
- Along with our naivete',
- No longer a child.
- Different eyes see different things,
- Different hearts beat on different strings.
- But there are times
- For you and me, when all such things agree.
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- Natural Science
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- 1. Tide Pools
- When the ebbing tide retreats
- Along the rocky shoreline,
- It leaves a trail of tidal pools
- In a short-lived galaxy.
- Each microcosmic planet
- A complete society.
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- A simple kind mirror
- To reflect upon our own.
- All the busy little creatures
- Chasing out their destinies.
- Living in the pools,
- They soon forget about the sea...
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- Wheels within wheels in a spiral array,
- A pattern so grand and complex,
- Time after time we lose sight of the way,
- Our causes can't see their effects.
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- 2. Hyerspace
- A quantum leap forward
- In time and in space,
- The universe learned to expand.
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- Myths and the magic,
- Triumphant and tragic,
- A mechanized world out of hand.
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- Computerized clinic
- For superior cynics
- Who dance to a synthetic band.
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- In their own image,
- Their world is fashion.
- No wonder they don't understand.
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- 3. Permanent Waves
- Science, like nature
- Must also be tamed
- With a view toward its preservation.
- Given the same
- State of integrity,
- It will surely serve us well.
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- Art as expression,
- Not as market campaigns
- Will still capture our imaginations.
- Given the same
- State of integrity,
- It will surely help us along.
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- The most endangered species,
- The honest man,
- Will still survive annihilation.
- Forming a world
- State of integrity,
- Sensitive, open and strong.
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- Wave after wave will flow with the tide, and bury the world as it does.
- Tide after tide will flow and recede, leaving life to go on as it was...
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