I’ve written extensively for EW&SL of my stoney younger years, so, like Dan, I too felt a kinship with this song back in my early teenage days. But even then I could tell that the melody was the equivalent of this TV commercial that was all over the TV back in the 1970s.
I’m trying to remember what Geddy said about the song in the book, and nothing in particular is coming up. Did he mention the melody being taken from anything specific? One could say that the song hasn’t aged well, but it’s unfair to place current cultural values and norms on a time almost a half century ago. It all reminds me of how happy I am that cell phones and the internet weren’t around growing up — that all the stupid, offensive shit I did and said back in the day wasn’t recorded.
Having traveled quite a bit and learned how other people around the world live, my perspectives and beliefs are way more expansive from my younger years. I imagine that will only continue (hopefully) and in 20 years my view will grow wider even as my eyesight worsens….
"Unfair to place current cultural values and norms on a time almost half a century ago." Totally, and yet, I can still cringe whenever I hear the Western-written "Oriental Riff," just as I cringe when I hear it in "Kung Fu Fighting" or "Turning Japanese" or any number of other songs and media.
One thing I've always loved about Rush is that you can see them grow throughout the years; Neil especially writes through that growth, so you can track it in real-time. Neil at 55 didn't write the same songs that Neil at 25 did. That's why I'd like to think "A Passage to Bangkok" wouldn't have made it onto a later album, at least not in the state it was recorded in back then.
As someone who smoked his first joint in 1979 at the age of 13, I was pretty much in the prime demographic for this song – but even I was a little embarrassed at the time by the artlessness of its "You know we totally like to get high, right?" message. I still love it, though.
I started listening to Rush in the 90's. Pre internet, no lyric sheet in my cruddy rushed out CD pressing, and I was never a big lyric guy anyway. Also I wasnt into drugs. I say all this to preface that I thought "A Passage To Bangkok" and, in fact, the rest of the album were a continuation of the 2112 story. We've attacked the solar federation, or whatever, now we're going to Indochina to check the landing fields for our rebel ships, etc.
I’ve written extensively for EW&SL of my stoney younger years, so, like Dan, I too felt a kinship with this song back in my early teenage days. But even then I could tell that the melody was the equivalent of this TV commercial that was all over the TV back in the 1970s.
https://youtu.be/6YewrnKgBMM?si=Yfy9IzaM0OGtGlWW
I’m trying to remember what Geddy said about the song in the book, and nothing in particular is coming up. Did he mention the melody being taken from anything specific? One could say that the song hasn’t aged well, but it’s unfair to place current cultural values and norms on a time almost a half century ago. It all reminds me of how happy I am that cell phones and the internet weren’t around growing up — that all the stupid, offensive shit I did and said back in the day wasn’t recorded.
Having traveled quite a bit and learned how other people around the world live, my perspectives and beliefs are way more expansive from my younger years. I imagine that will only continue (hopefully) and in 20 years my view will grow wider even as my eyesight worsens….
"Unfair to place current cultural values and norms on a time almost half a century ago." Totally, and yet, I can still cringe whenever I hear the Western-written "Oriental Riff," just as I cringe when I hear it in "Kung Fu Fighting" or "Turning Japanese" or any number of other songs and media.
One thing I've always loved about Rush is that you can see them grow throughout the years; Neil especially writes through that growth, so you can track it in real-time. Neil at 55 didn't write the same songs that Neil at 25 did. That's why I'd like to think "A Passage to Bangkok" wouldn't have made it onto a later album, at least not in the state it was recorded in back then.
As someone who smoked his first joint in 1979 at the age of 13, I was pretty much in the prime demographic for this song – but even I was a little embarrassed at the time by the artlessness of its "You know we totally like to get high, right?" message. I still love it, though.
I guess, as a 70's band, they couldn't escape that decade without at least one over-the-top love letter to getting high.
I started listening to Rush in the 90's. Pre internet, no lyric sheet in my cruddy rushed out CD pressing, and I was never a big lyric guy anyway. Also I wasnt into drugs. I say all this to preface that I thought "A Passage To Bangkok" and, in fact, the rest of the album were a continuation of the 2112 story. We've attacked the solar federation, or whatever, now we're going to Indochina to check the landing fields for our rebel ships, etc.
Yes, I am a moron!
Okay now I'll never be able to listen to A Passage to Bangkok *without* thinking of it as part of the story! I like it better this way now, too :)