12/26: Closer To The Heart (LIVE)

To put a smile on your face, here's an endearing, joyful performance of one of Rush's best tunes.

You can be the captain
And I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

Thanks for holding down the fort while I was traveling, y’all. I hope you enjoyed the tuneage! We’re in the home stretch—the final few days of 2024. Let’s end the year strong!

This year I have featured “Closer To The Heart” more than any other song besides “Tom Sawyer”—which, btw, was one of the Secret Rules I set forth for myself: Every month had to have at least one “Tom Sawyer” in it, and only one of them could be the original. Why? Because otherwise, the game would have been too easy!

But maybe I should have set a Secret Rule about “Closer To The Heart” as well, because I apparently can’t stop listening to this damn song.

Today’s live performance, off Exit… Stage Left, is one of—if not the—most endearing live performances the guys ever captured on film. Filmed in 1981, they were barely out of their twenties. They’d long since established themselves as bona fide rockers who could sell out stadiums—they’d probably earned a bit of burnout by this point—but you sure couldn’t see any malaise in this performance. This is just three guys at the top of their game, playing like mad geniuses and having a ball while doing it.

That’s what I love about Rush: Every time they took the stage, they did it like it mattered: like they would rather be nowhere else, with nobody else, than playing songs they wrote to a room full of adoring fans. I’d like to think that was true.

I hope you enjoy this performance as much as I do!