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Rush Instrumentals

"La Villa Strangiato"
Song by Rush from the album Hemispheres
Released October 28, 1978
Genre Progressive rock, hard rock, jazz fusion
Length 9:37
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Mercury Records
Producer(s) Rush and Terry Brown
Hemispheres track listing
"The Trees"
(3)
"La Villa Strangiato"
(4)
Exit...Stage Left track listing
"Tom Sawyer"
(12)
"La Villa Strangiato"
(13)
"Where's My Thing? (Part IV, "Gangster of Boats" Trilogy)"
Song by Rush from the album Roll the Bones
Released September 3, 1991
Recorded 1991
Genre Funk rock
Length 3:49
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Anthem/Atlantic
Producer(s) Rupert Hine and Rush
Roll the Bones track listing
"Face Up"
(4)
"Where's My Thing? (Part IV, "Gangster of Boats" Trilogy)"
(5)
"The Big Wheel"
(6)
"Leave That Thing Alone"
Song by Rush from the album Counterparts
Released October 19, 1993
Recorded 1993
Genre Progressive rock
Length 4:06
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Mercury Records
Producer(s) Peter Collins and Rush
Counterparts track listing
"Double Agent"
(8)
"Leave That Thing Alone"
(9)
"Cold Fire"
(10)
"Limbo"
Song by Rush from the album Test for Echo
Released September 10, 1996
Recorded 1996
Genre Progressive rock
Length 5:28
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Mercury Records
Producer(s) Peter Collins and Rush
Test for Echo track listing
"Resist"
(9)
"Limbo"
(10)
"Carve Away the Stone"
(11)
"Broon's Bane"
Song by Rush from the album Exit...Stage Left
Released October 1981
Genre Classical Guitar
Length 1:37
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Mercury Records
Producer(s) Terry Brown
Exit...Stage Left track listing
"Jacob's Ladder"
(7)
"Broon's Bane"
(8)
"The Trees"
(9)
"R30 Overture"
Song by Rush from the album R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour
Released November 22, 2005 (North America)
November 28, 2005 (Europe)
Recorded September 24, 2004
Genre Progressive rock, hard rock
Length 6:42
Label Anthem Records (Canada)
Mercury Records
Producer(s) Francois Lamoureux[1] and Rush
R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour track listing
"R30 Overture"
(1)
"The Spirit of Radio"
(1)

The Canadian rock band Rush has written, recorded, and performed several instrumentals throughout its career.

From the 2112 album, "Overture" opens up one of Rush's concept suites. Geddy Lee's voice is recorded as an instrument in the early parts of the song, as he sings no words. However, there is, despite the Overture's overall instrumental nature, only one line sung at the end, as the piece transitions to "The Temples of Syrinx": "And the Meek shall inherit the Earth". Like some overtures, music from the 2112 overture is repeated or built upon in other places in the suite, such as "The Temples of Syrinx", "Presentation", "Oracle: The Dream", and "Soliloquy." At the end of Overture, there's a direct quotation from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, played by Lifeson.

This section of the suite includes some spoken (not sung) lines at the end, with the following sentences repeated three times successively: "Attention all planets of the Solar Federation." and then "We have assumed control."

La Villa Strangiato was released on the 1978 album Hemispheres, and is subtitled "An Exercise in Self-Indulgence". The 9:37 song, the fourth and final track of the album, was Rush's first entirely instrumental piece. The multi-part piece was inspired by a dream guitarist Alex Lifeson had, and the music in these sections correspond to the occurrences in his dream. The opening segment was played on a nylon-string classical guitar. The next segment introduces the main theme of La Villa, the Strangiato theme. The song progresses to include an increasingly complex guitar solo backed by string synthesizer, followed closely by bass and drum fills. The Strangiato theme is then revisited before the song ends abruptly with phased bass and drums. The song is divided as follows:

Live versions of "La Villa Strangiato" have often featured altered sections. For instance, on Exit...Stage Left, Lee sings part of a nursery rhyme over "Danforth and Pape" (the liner notes include a translation of his words) and adds a short bass solo during "Monsters! (Reprise)." During later tours, as documented on Rush in Rio, a drum/bass vamp was inserted before "Strangiato Theme (Reprise)," over which Lifeson made a stream of consciousness rant. The classical guitar introduction was either played on electric guitar or, more commonly, cut out altogether. During the 2010-2011 Time Machine Tour, the piece began with a polka rendition of "To sleep, perchance to dream," then transitioned into the original arrangement.


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