Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Peaceful Mountain

Wed, Oct 26, 2005@9:50AM | comments removed/disabled

[D.C. panda gets a name]

This happened last week, but I just got wind of it. The Washington D.C. Zoo finally decided to name its Panda Tai Shan after the famous Chinese mountain. Tai Shan means Peaceful Mountain; an apt name for a Panda and also a Rush song off the album Hold Your Fire. The song was inspired by Neil Peart's trip to the summit of this holiest of holy mountains in China. This also happens to be my personal favorite song on the album:

High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air

Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold
Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold...

I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity-

If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere

The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea
I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries...

I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me...

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.

Share