Album: Grace Under Pressure (1984)

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• All that we can do is just survive
  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive
  
  All that we can do is just survive
  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive
  
  Ragged lines of ragged grey
  Skeletons, they shuffle away
  Shouting guards and smoking guns
  Will cut down the unlucky ones
  
  I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed
  A wound that will not heal, a heart that cannot feel
  Hoping that the horror will recede
  Hoping that tomorrow, we'll all be freed
  
  Sickness to insanity
  Prayer to profanity
  Days and weeks and months go by
  Don't feel the hunger, too weak to cry
  
  I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate
  Are the liberators here, do I hope or do I fear?
  For my father and my brother, it's too late
  But I must help my mother stand up straight
  
  Are we the last ones left alive?
  Are we the only human beings to survive?
  
  Are we the last ones left alive?
  Are we the only human beings to survive?
  
  I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate
  Are the liberators here, do I hope or do I fear?
  For my father and my brother, it's too late
  But I must help my mother stand up straight
  
  Are we the last ones left alive?
  Are we the only human beings to survive?
  
  Are we the last ones left alive?
  Are we the only human beings to survive? Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 11

• Remnants Of A Soundblast from SomewherevilleRed Sector A is written about a concentration camp. COUNTDOWN is the song written about their experience at the Space Shuttle launch
• Melanie 2112 from San Diego, CaliforniaI’ve since introduced to RUSH felt an uncommon connection as the music and individual Notes, instruments, timing a beautiful essence As the lyrics define a familiar taste of reality. May sound silly to some . Once you taste it if you’ve any sense of what’s happened and Fear of repeating itself without learning or appreciating preciousness of life and the word we’ve been gifted, life has little understanding .
  The more things change the more they stay the same..
  Neil Peart eloquent words are unlike anyone else can bring light on what has come before. Stories, experiences, combined with all that Geddy and Eric is something I wish all youth can learn and carry on as we’ve raised our beautiful daughter Tabitha from the womb. At concert 6th row center stage Hold your fire. Presto. Roll the Bones. And more than I’ve attended times ten she’s attended!
  to now 33 years and still moved by Rush . First favorite at 6 years old was The Trees.
• Desert Tripper from Yuckapai, CaWhat an account. It's humbling to think that we wouldn't have Rush (or at least the band in the form that we know and love) if they hadn't liberated Auschwitz. Who knows what other potentially great things were snuffed out in those terrible days.
• T.parlett from Norfolk Va. Red sector A is a very sad and powerful song . Watch the video it will give you chills and piss you off at the same time. Just ask yourself can man really be that evil?
• John from Asheville, NcVery atmospheric song, sung with a ton of passion and emotion. It'd be nice to hear some other songs from this album live, but you can't go wrong here. Love the mention of this album having a bleak pensivity to it. It does indeed.
• John from Overland Park, KsI picked up the album one spring, and I made the mistake of listening to it during an unseasonably cold snap, with overcast skies and cold winds. It was incredibly depressing at the time. This particular track was one of the most emotionally-affecting songs I can remember ever hearing.
• Dave from Cardiff, WalesJesse - I also love the bass synthesizer in this song, especially the distorted, high-octane synth loops at the climax of the song, which would become Rush trademarks. Modern rock bands such as Radiohead have also tried experimenting with distorted bass-synths in their music, but in my opinion no one has ever done it better than Rush
• Dave from Cardiff, WalesLike "Distant Early Warning" (which also came from 1984's 'Grace Under Pressure' album), I've always felt that this song - and its accompanying video - appears to be a testament to life in the early 1980s, written in a climate of a society self-destructing and veering towards catastrophe. In fact, all of the songs on the 'Grace Under Pressure' album were moody, stark and bleak in their sound, and had a touch of pensive sadness about them. "Distant Early Warning", for instance, appears to be rooted in the past, reflecting past disasters, and warning that history is about to repeat itself. "Afterimage" is plainly a song that deals with someone's attempts to come to terms with losing someone close to them, but who cannot cope with the overwhelming feeling of grief caused by their loss. "Distant Early Warning" on the surface seems to be a 1984-ish look towards hardship in the 21st Century, though may also have been a release of emotion, a personal statement from Geddy Lee, conveying his anger about the way that his ancestors were treated by the Nazis
• Brian from Meriden, CtA high school history professor of mine showed the controversial TV-movie "The Day After" to our class. It portrayed a rural American community after a Soviet nuclear strike and occupation. It raised a fuss among our parents. I was glad I saw it. It showed some pretty intense scenes of mass destruction, everything covered with white nuclear fallout. Chronologically this seems to jibe with the release date of Grace Under Pressure, the album on which Red Sector A is found and seems to coincide with the movie's theme, too. I've always wondered if this was any source of inspiration for the song.
• Jesse from L.a., CaThat bass synthesizer in this is cool. Love the lazers they use when they play this live...
• Joe from Allston, MaAside from what the song is obviously about, I've always seen Red Sector A as a song about someone who's had their masculine side stripped from them, the submissive prisoner forced to await salvation in a chaotic situation. Even the way Geddy sings this, it's like someone crying out to a patriarchal figure that's not there anymore.

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