Countdown

An electrifying, thunderous, momentous Rush song very prominent in my late-80s renaissance as a guitar player. Deceptively simple – simply deceptive – inspirational and awe-inspiring, with some of Neil Peart’s most vivid lyrics “Countdown” has that extra quality all electrifying, thunderous, and momentous songs have – the ability to draw out powerful emotions from the listener.

At least it does in my case.

Me and my drummer, between bands c. 1989, must’ve played this song a minimum of a hundred-fifty times.

My only bone with the video is the footage of the Space Shuttle. Why not the mighty Apollo rockets? Yeah, I know the shuttle was big in 1982, when the video was made. But it doesn’t quite capture the excitement of the song, I think, if I must be extremely discerning. And I must. The shuttle, for instance, is only a little over 180 feet in height, while the Saturn rockets that launched men to the moon doubled that size. And those Saturn rockets did put men on the moon, 240,000 miles distant, while the shuttle rockets put … men and women into low earth orbit a couple hundred miles above.

[But this is only a small complaint. The song – and video – are awesome!]