Assignment 2, Musical poetic analysis

For my second blog post I have chosen to analyze the song "Limelight" by Canadian power trio, Rush. (The greatest band in the world.)

Living on a lighted stage           A

Approaches the unreal             B

For those who think and feel     B

In touch with some reality         C

Beyond the gilded cage.           A

Cast in this unlikely role,          A

Ill-equipped to act,                   B

With insufficient tact,               B

One must put up barriers          C

To keep oneself intact.             B

Living in the Limelight,              A

The universal dream                 B

For those who wish to seem.    B

Those who wish to be               B

Must put aside the alienation,   C

Get on with the fascination,      C

The real relation,                      C

The underlying theme.              B

Living in a fisheye lens,             A

Caught in the camera eye.        B

I have no heart to lie,                B

I can't pretend a stranger          C

Is a long-awaited friend.            A

All the world's indeed a stage,   A

And we are merely players,      B

Performers and portrayers,       B

Each another's audience          C

Outside the gilded cage.          A

The song describes the author as uncomfortable with adoration, finding it hard to deal with being put up on a pedestal. He explains that he feels unprepared for the attention that he's getting from his fame, and he's walled himself off to keep it from getting to his head, from losing himself. The fourth stanza especially tells us how he can't seem to relate to his fans, or the press, that he won't put on a show for people just because they recognize him.

The rhyme scheme is relatively consistent, ABBCA, except for the chorus which has it's own longer pattern of ABBBCCCB, and the second verse, which changes the last line to rhyme with the second.

The author is trying to give the audience a glimpse of what his life is like: a series of stages, the gilded cage he says he plays on and the world he sees beyond it, how he still has to try and act a part even when he isn't performing. It really sets the tone that the author regrets his fame, and how it's changed his perception of the world beyond the stage. How he yearns for a simpler life where he doesn't have to worry about being accosted by anyone who wants his attention.