I’ve seen few songs or entire albums inspired in books, stories, or poems. In this group is possible to mention the case of Camel, with their amazing The Snow Goose. And even more obscure bands, such as The Old Man & the Sea.
But the opposite situation (an album turning into a book), I guess I’ve never seen before.
Rush and their countless years on the road made one more inspired work and something incredible. So incredible that motivated the creation of a book, written by Kevin J. Anderson, the man who wrote Star Wars and X-Files… Yes, deal with it.
With a punch heavier than usual, Rush play a complex Hard Rock, ignoring almost completely their origins in the Progressive Rock. Clockwork Angels is about a beautiful and sad story, narrated in first person throughout its twelve tracks.
Clockwork Angels tells the story of the character Owen Hardy, who lives in a bucolic village called Barrel Arbor, in a world (Albion) that everything is tightly controlled by the Watchmaker (a supposedly benevolent creature). Full of dreams and ambitions, Owen sails away looking for adventures towards the big city.
There he wants to meet the Clockwork Angels (creatures that dispense wisdom to the people) and maybe see the great Watchmaker. The most intriguing thing is that, despite his desire of changes and new directions, Owen Hardy is described as a completely happy and satisfied man. And this detail is highlighted in the back cover of the book: “The best place to start an adventure is with a quiet, perfect life… And someone who realizes that it can’t possibly be enough.”
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| Back cover of the book showing the caravan (Albion's transport). |
The album isn’t noted for its individual tracks. You won’t find a big hit or a remarkable song by itself. The album is strong due its context and his whole. This is the kind of work that can’t be appreciated in just one simple listen. His high complexity in the lyrics and the plot requires maximum attention to comprehend the story and Rush’s finesse.
Caravan is the opening track and as the name suggests, tells about Owen’s inexplicable desire of leaving Barrel Arbor (“The caravan thunders onward/ To the distant dream of the city/ I can't stop thinking big”). Until this moment Owen has a pure and romantic view about the world around him.
His ingenuity is broached in BU2B. Owen talks about values of justice and beliefs (“I was brought up to believe/ The universe has a plan/ We are only human/ It's not ours to understand/ All is for the best/ Some will be rewarded”) while the ubiquity of the Watchmaker appears in his thoughts (“Believe in what we're told/ Until our final breath/ While our loving Watchmaker/ Loves us all to death”).
In the third track, that carries de disc name, it’s explained the role of the Clockwork Angels inside the society. Basically their objective is bringing hope and faith to the people of Albion. In parallel is shown a dialogue between the Watchmaker and Owen, which the Watchmaker appears disguised and tries to convince Owen to forget about his idea of leaving Barrel Arbor and go through adventures around the world. The song ends with the Watchmaker asking Owens: “What do you lack?” No response…
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| What do you lack? Would you know the answer? |
If to Owen everything was doing fine until this point, now he’ll start to suffer a little bit more. It’s presented the Anarchist, the story main villain. An unhappy creature, bitter by not being rewarded as he should be, he carries a huge desire of revenge inside him – he knows how to answer what he lacks (“I lack their smiles and diamonds/ I lack their happiness and love/ I envy them for all those things/ I never got my fair share…”).
The Anarchist’s revenge is completed in the song Carnies. A trap is prepared and a bomb is triggered, destroying everything around and spreading chaos. During the ambush Owen was seen with the detonator in his hands (“A ticking box, in the hand of the innocent/ The angry crowd moves toward him with bad intent”). Then Owen is forced to run away (“How I pray just to get away/ To carry me anywhere/ Sometimes the angels punish us”). It’s important to say that Owen’s values are still maintained after that. He still keeps looking for justifications related to the Clockwork Angels and his strong sense of justice that the evil will be retaliated.
Now we come to the middle of the story, accompanied by Halo Effect. Love wasn’t a subject discussed until this point of the tale; Halo Effect breaks the linearity of the story and talks about this theme. Owen talks about a wonderful girl that he met, and in her he projects the ideal woman with an intense and obsessive love. In the end, he suffers her rejection and contempt. In this context, the expression “halo effect” represents a psychological term for the effect that beautiful people have on us. We tend to project onto beautiful people what we want to believe about them, and that blinds us to their true nature. "Halo effect" is a common term in psychology, and can be used in many different situations, such as in marketing and economics.
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| "Halo effect"... Who is immune? |
Well, back to the tale of Albion... After the ambush, Owen goes westbound, to a region where the caravans can’t reach. Then he finds the Seven Cities of Gold. Observing some unearthly monuments and as the region gets colder and colder, the protagonist discover the cities that used to appear in his dreams when he was younger (“Seven Cities of Gold/ Stories that fired my imagination”). Despite the beauty, the place is described as hostile and dangerous, a region full of opportunities to get rich or to get in trouble (“A man can lose himself, in a country like this/ A man could lose his life, in a country like this”).
Working in a port town, Owen suffers another big fall. The boat which he was crewing is catch by a storm in the middle of the open sea. During the track The Wreckers is possible to notice a change in his principles. Amid the storm they see a great light emerging from the fog. So the crew, thinking that the light was a port or a lighthouse, follows the light to try docking. Actually it was a trap; the boat hits a reef wall and gets rifled by foreigners.
From this trap, some existential questions arise from Owen’s head (“All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary/ Of a miracle too good to be true”). Everybody dies in the accident, except Owen.
The adventure ends here. Now, after having seen so many good and bad things during his journey, the character starts a more reflective moment. First he looks at everything he passed through (Headlong Flight), and concludes that his choices were great, without big regrets or remorse (“I learned to fight, I learned to love, I learned to feel/ Oh, how I wish that I could live it all again”). In the sequence (BU2B2), he drops his nostalgic feeling and consolidates a change in his principles and values. It’s possible to note that Owen acquires a very similar way of thinking and reasoning to the way of his enemy, the Anarchist, used to be. As the antagonist, Owen questions the divine balance and sense of justice, and realizes that hadn’t and won’t have what he deserved (“Belief has failed me now/ Life goes from bad to worse/ No philosophy consoles me/ In a clockwork universe”). The conclusion is there is nobody controlling the universe, not even the Watchmaker.
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| Life goes from bad to worse... |
After all indications that Owen would become a cruel and vindictive guy, like the Anarchist, Wish Them Well shows us just the opposite situation. Owen concludes that in essence everybody is living their own hell, and the best response against those bitter spirits is to get away from them and simply wish them luck, nothing else you make will help them (“All the victims who will never learn/ Even the lost ones, you can only give up on”). Look, it's not a matter of understanding them (like a fool would try to do), or a question of revenge (like the Anarchist). It is a matter of neglect. Just leave them and go on.
Finally, the disc and story are closed masterfully with The Garden. Rush tells about a metaphorical garden, watered by the actions and attitudes of people. The plants and flowers of this garden are love and respect. In the end, that's what matters. Time is cruel and everybody ages (“The arrow flies while you breathe, the hours tick away, the cells tick away/ The Watchmaker has time up his sleeve/ The hours tick away, they tick away”), the only retribution that you will have during your life will be the love and respect which you accumulated in your garden (“The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect/ So hard to earn, so easily burned”)
Incredible!
This is Rush. This is Clockwork Angels.
“Thank your stars you're not that way; turn your back and walk away. Don't even pause and ask them why; turn around and say goodbye.”
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FACTSHEET:
Artist: Rush
Year: 2012
Album: Clockwork Angels
Genre: Hard Rock
Country: Canada
Members: Alex Lifeson (guitar), Geddy Lee (vocals and bass), Neil Peart (drums).
TRACKS:
1 - Caravan
2 - BU2B
3 - Clockwork Angels
4 - The Anarchist
5 - Carnies
6 - Halo Effect
7 - Seven Cities of Gold
8 - The Wreckers
9 - Headlong Flight
10 - BU2B2
11 - Wish Them Well
12 - The Garden
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