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"Subdivisions" is the first song from Rush's 9th studio album "Signals". Recording began in April and ended on July 15, 1982 at Le Studio, Morin-Heights, Quebec, Canada. The album was released September 9, 1982. "Subdivisions" was released as the 2nd single from the album. In the United States, it charted at #5 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart and #5 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
"Subdivisions" was one of the first songs Rush had arranged for Signals. After Peart devised a set of lyrics, Lifeson and Lee wrote a collection of musical ideas to fit Peart's words. Peart recalled that his band-mates interrupted him as he was cleaning his car & set up a portable cassette player on the driveway outside the studio, and played him what they had come up with. Peart added: "I listened closely, picking up the variations on 7/8 and 3/4, the way the guitar adopts the role of rhythm section while the keyboards take the melody, returning to bass with guitar leading in the chorus, then the Mini-Moog taking over again for the instrumental bridge", and told Lifeson and Lee that he liked it.
The song is a commentary on social stratification through the pressure to adopt certain lifestyles. The lyric is a cyclical one that describes the eternal societal pressure to conform, and particularly the suffocating sterility of suburban housing subdivisions. The suburbs are described as a lonely place for "the misfit" & "the dreamer." It describes young people dealing with a "cool" culture amidst a comfortable yet oppressively mundane suburban existence in housing subdivisions. Anyone who does not obey social expectations is regarded as an outcast; the lyrics flatly describe a choice of "conform or be cast out". Rush's drummer/lyricist Neil Peart said this song is "an exploration of the background from which all of us (and probably most of our audience) have sprung.'" "How we turn out as adults has a lot to do with the way others saw us in high school. Consider yourself as a teenager – whether you were treated as a geek, or as a scholar, or a jock, or a good-looking Lothario or whatever. However you were treated by others has a lot to do with how you turn out."
The theme of oppression described in “Subdivisions” is probably the theme to which listeners can most easily identify. Peer pressure, whether subtle or overt, is a nearly universal form of oppression. Even individuals who never faced peer pressures, or at least never submitted to them, certainly know of someone who did. Moreover, most listeners are aware of how peer pressure can cause fissures to form between individuals. In speaking to the oppressive demands for conformity that virtually any listener would have experienced, or have knowledge, “Subdivisions” has enormous cathartic potential.
While the song is clearly a tonic for the aforementioned dreamers & misfits who so often relate to it, it is also a warning. The 2nd verse of the song, which is frequently overlooked, describes the result of living with enormous pressure on one's dreams. The frustrated hopefuls are described as losing "the race to rats" and being "caught in ticking traps." With their dreams now abandoned, the crushed misfits return to where they started and begin the sorry tale again in the suburbs.
Neil: "Hugely autobiographical of course. It was an important step for us, the first song written that was keyboard-based. The upside of that: people don’t realize is that it made Alex and I the rhythm section. So the first time he and I tuned in to each other's parts was when Geddy was playing keyboards. It was a great new way for us to relate. It's also a good example of us learning to go into time signature changes more fluidly, and again, wonderful to play live. Lyrically, Geddy contributed by improvising "Battle Cars" instead of "Backs of cars" during recording and in live performances. It was a nice touch that better emphasized the struggle, or battle, we have with subdividing our lives. It's challenging and always rewarding to play decently."
This song marked a turning point for Neil Peart, whose early Rush lyrics were based in fantasy. "I didn't believe yet that I could put something real into a song," he told Rolling Stone. "'Subdivisions' happened to be an anthem for a lot of people who grew up under those circumstances, and from then on, I realized what I most wanted to put in a song was human experience."
The title of the song is heard twice per chorus, spoken by Peart (* or Toronto newsman Mark Dailey?) and lip-synched in the video by Alex Lifeson. Live performances include a sample of Peart's (* Mark Dailey's?) voice, triggered at the appropriate moments and still lip-synched by Lifeson.
Some sources indicate it was Peart's voice, others Mark Daily.
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