Hold your fire

Hold your fire,
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct
I wish I had that drive

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire

In the grip of a nameless possession
A slave to the drive of obsession
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.

I watch their images flicker
Bringing light to a lifeless screen
I walk through their beautiful buildings
And I wish I had their dreams
But dreams don't need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action
Pride turns on the drive

It's cold comfort
To the ones without it
To know how they struggled
How they suffered about it
If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

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...

Nothing can survive in a vacuum
No one can exists all alone
We pretend things only happen to strangers
We've all got problems of our own
It's enough to learn to share our pleasures
We can't soothe pain with sympathy
All that we can do is be reminded
We shake our heads at the tragedy

Every day we're standing in a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
Facing down the future coming fast

Looking at the long-range forecast
Catching all the names in the news
Checking out the state of the nation
Learning the environmental blues
Truth is after all a moving target
Hairs to split, and pieces that don't fit
How can anybody be enlightened?
Truth is after all so poorly lit

It's just the age
It's just a stage
We disengage
We turn the page.
Every day we're standing in a time capsule
(It's just a stage)
We disengage, we turn the page
Racing down the river running fast
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
(It's just a stage)
We disengage, we turn the page
Facing down the future coming fast

Repeat

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath
Before I start off again.
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was the end

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
(Time stand still)
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away

I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes
Let my defences down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain, whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide comes around

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
(Time stand still)
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer

MAKE EACH SENSATION A LITTLE BIT STRONGER

Make each impression a little bit stronger
Freeze this motion a little bit longer
The innocence slips away
The innocence slips away...

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away.

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

It went right by me --
At the time it went over my head
I was looking out the window
I should have looked
At your face instead

It went right by me --
Just another wall
There should have been a moment
When we let our barriers fall
I never meant
What you're thinking --
That is not what i meant at all...

Well i guess we all
Have these feelings
We can't leave unreconciled
Some of them burned on our ceilings
Some of them learned as a child

The things that we're concealing
Will never let us grow
Time will do its healing
You've got to let it go

Closed for my protection --
Open to your scorn
Between these two directions
My heart is sometimes torn

I lie awake with my secrets
Spinning around my head
Something that somehow
Escaped me --
Something you shouldn't have said
I was looking out the window
I should have looked
At your face instead...

I find no absolution
In my rational point of view
Maybe some things are instinctive
But there's one thing you could do
You could try to understand me --
I could try to understand you...