Hold your fire

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.

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

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...

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 soothe 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

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

It's just the age
It's just a stage
We disengage
We turn the page.
Every day we're standing in a time capsule
(It's just a stage)
We disengage, we turn the page
Racing down the river running fast
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
(It's just a stage)
We disengage, we turn the page
Facing down the future coming fast

Repeat

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

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...

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

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