Syrinx, from the song "The Temples of Syrinx", was an Arcadian river-nymph who was pursued by Pan.One must cross the River Styx to get to Hades, the Greek form of Hell as in "By-Tor and the Snowdog".I was kind of referring to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the test for echo going out that way." - Neil Peart, Jam! Showbiz, October 16, 1996
and that's the feeling a traveler in the Arctic would get, that it was a sign of life. when you've been hiking for a few days and you come across one of these things, it's such an affirmation that there's life out there. I just came back with this postcard and I thought of 'test for echo.' I thought that's exactly what these men mean when you're out in the wilderness. I bought a postcard almost exactly the image you see on the cover. "I was up in Yellowknife last June on a motorcycle trip across the country, and there's one of those Inukashuk above the town overlooking it, and I was quite taken with it. An inukshuk is also shown on the flag of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Some inuksuit (singular) have been standing for centuries, most likely longer the Inuit, who have lived in Nunatsiaq (the beautiful land) for over 4000 years believed that these figures were built at the time of their earliest ancestors. Inukshuk serve as Inuit signposts in the Canadian Arctic, and mark the highest point of land to aid in navigation or to assist in hunting, while some serve as sight lines to important and powerful places beyond the horizon. The stone statue found in the Test For Echo album art is an "Inukashuk" (also spelled as "Inukshuk"), an Inuit word which translates as "taking the place of a man" (an extension of "inuk", or human being). "'Tai Shan' is a personal song that Neil wrote about his experience climbing a mountain in China that was called Tai Shan, and the feelings and thoughts that he had as he got to the top of this mountain." - Geddy Lee, "Rockline", October 5, 1987 Legend has it that if you climb "up the seven thousand stairs" and "raise your hands to heaven, you will live a 100 years". There are approximately 7000 stairs stretching over six miles to the summit. Tai Shan is a mountain in China which has been venerated as their most sacred peak since at least the third millenium B.C., functioning as a god who looked after the affairs of humans and who also acted as a communication channel for humans to speak to God. Mount Tai Shan, Shangdong Province, China "In 'Chain Lightning,' I celebrated the dazzling phenomenon of sun dogs in the winter sky and the Perseid meteor showers of August, then connected them to the light in my daughter's eyes when we shared those sights." - Neil Peart, "My Laurentian Soulscape", Canadian Geographic, January/February 2006 But often, as the crystals sink through the air they become vertically aligned, so sunlight is refracted horizontally and sun dogs are seen. If the crystals are randomly oriented, a complete ring around the sun is seen - a halo. These crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them by 22°. Sun dogs are formed by ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or, during very cold weather, by ice crystals called diamond dust drifting in the air at low levels. Non-telescopic methods of investigation into this constellation have detected the X-ray source Cygnus X-1, a candidate black hole.įrom "Chain Lightning", a sun dog is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often a halo on either side of the sun. The swan's tail is the star Deneb (Arabic for "tail"), and is traditionally pictured as flying south, down the Milky Way.
A chronological listing of historical, literary, theatrical and musical inspirations for Rush feel free to email any suggested additions.Īs described in the song's lyrics, the constellation of Cygnus (Greek for "swan") literally lies just east of the constellation of Lyra and northwest of the constellation Pegasus.