2/1: Cygnus X-1: Hemispheres

Let's start February off by sinking our teeth into some Prog with a capital P.

The universe divided
As the heart and mind collided.
With the people left unguided
For so many troubled years
In a cloud of doubts and fears,
Their world was torn asunder into hollow hemispheres.

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Hooray, welcome to February! We made it a whole month; just eleven more to go! As a quick point of bookkeeping, if you want to revisit any of the songs we covered last month, please check the January tag.

At some point in the next few days I hope to create a page listing out all the tags, so you can more easily navigate the archives. More to come!

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Yes, I know I’m highlighting the sequel before the original here, but this was the order in which I discovered the songs as a teen. I bought the Hemispheres album before Farewell to Kings, though ultimately I think Farewell is the better album and the one I’ve given the most spins across my lifetime.

Anyway, can we pause for a second to marvel at the fact that Rush recorded a sequel to one of their songs? As if that was a thing that bands actually do, as if a song were as worthy of serialization as a movie or a book franchise.

Not only that, but it’s a deeply ambitious sequel, longer and more complex than its predecessor. They really upped their musical game for “Cygnus X-1: Hemispheres.” At eighteen minutes, with multiple named movements, nobody can possibly miss that this is Prog™ with a capital P.

And it’s also so earnest that it verges on embarrassing. Whereas “Cygnus X-1: The Voyage” has a dark, brooding energy, “Hemispheres” is bright and in-your-face. It’s an epic tale of classical mythology, the societal pendulum that swings between romanticism and rationality, and a guy flying through a black hole to become a god. Just bonkers stuff. I love it.

“Cygnus X-1: Hemispheres” is probably the best of their high concept epic anthems—yes, better than “2112,” don’t stone me!—without a single note out of place. And that final movement, about the heart and mind united in a single perfect sphere… well, it gets me every time. (We’ll come back to it, another day…)