Xanadu (song)

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"Xanadu"

Song by Rush
from the album A Farewell to Kings
Released	August 18, 1977
Recorded	1977, Rockfield Studios
Genre	Progressive Rock
Length	11:08
Label	Mercury Records
Writer(s)	Peart
Composer(s)	Lee & Lifeson
Producer(s)	Rush & Terry Brown
A Farewell to Kings track listing
"A Farewell to Kings" (1)	"Xanadu" (2)	"Closer to the Heart" (3)

Xanadu is a song recorded by the Canadian progressive rock trio Rush for their 1977 album A Farewell to Kings. It is approximately eleven minutes long, beginning with a five-minute-long instrumental section, then transitioning to a narrative written by lyricist Neil Peart, inspired by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan.

[edit] Lyrics

In Peart's lyrics, the narrator describes searching for something called "Xanadu" (although it is not explicity stated what this is) that will grant him immortality. His entire life has become consumed with the search. In the second half of the lyrics, the unnamed narrator has not only found the secret of eternal life, but he has become insane with his eternity, having at last found the thing that he desired and having been destroyed by it.

“

A thousand years have come and gone, but time has passed me by.
Stars stopped in the sky, frozen in an everlasting view.
Waiting for the world to end, weary of the night, praying for the light,
Prison of the lost, Xanadu... a mad immortal man ...

”

[edit] Music

"Xanadu" is the first Rush song in which synthesizers are an integral part of the song. Unlike the previous 2112 album or Caress of Steel, which relied on guitar effects to give a lusher sound to the arrangements, "Xanadu" used both guitar effects and synthesizers, and thus represented a transitional phase for the group.

A very ambitious arrangement for a three-piece band, "Xanadu" requires each member to utilize an array of instruments to affect the performance. Lifeson used a double-necked Gibson electric guitar (one twelve-string, the other six-string) as well as synthesizer pedals; Lee made use of a double-necked Rickenbacker (bass and twelve-string guitar) as well as extensive synthesizer arrangements (through both pedals and keyboards); and Peart took on various percussion instruments (notably temple blocks, tubular bells, bell tree, glockenspiel and wind chimes) in addition to his drum kit work.

More recent performances of the song have been altered in order to simplify the arrangement. For example, when played during the R30 tour, the end of the song was changed so that Geddy Lee did not play the rhythm guitar part, as in the original arrangement.

[edit] Trivia

"Xanadu" was previewed on Rush's first UK Tour in 1977 prior to recording A Farewell to Kings at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

"Xanadu" was covered by Silver Sun and released on their covers EP Too Much, Too Little, Too Late in 1998. Their version while generally faithful compressed the epic into a 4 minute pop song.