This and 2112 are how us Old School, lifelong fans judge if someone is a REAL RUSH fan or not. We were stoned teenagers when this came out! 🤯 I started seeing them live shortly after this. You’re in the club now. No dummies in a RUSH crowd. That’s one of the coolest things about us. 😁👍
For the record, this song came out in 1975. Neil was heavily into J.R.R. Tolkien at the time. Tolkien authored The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings fantasies. The Necromancer is Neil's spinoff of those novels. The song is about three travelers under the watch of the magic prism eye. If you watch the Lord of the Rings, this was also the story of three travelers under the watch of a magic prism eye.
Finally 😀 so few people react to this album, this is one of my Favorite Rush songs from Alex's wailing guitar and Neil's pause drumming and Geddy's deep drawn out bass lines. Top tier 🤯 another Favorite from this album is Lakeside Park, talk about opposite themes, just goes to show their amazing versatility. 🤩
Alex has masterful technical abilities, but he is also able to come up with unforgettable melodies, within his solos and throughout. It's not all dweedledee with him. He makes you come back by writing shit that stays in your head.
In my next life I'm gonna come back as Alex Lifeson. Very much overlooked as one of the best. All three are my favorite people since 1980. Being that I love guitar, cello and violin sounds, when a true artist play their instruments, and plays them well, the tones reached can take one to a Zen place. Alex is as high on my list of respected guitarist as one can get. And as for Geddy and Neil, they are my favorites at what they bring as well. I guess...😂😂😂 Rush on eh!!!
I've been listening to this song for almost 50 years. It still blows me away today like it did 49 years ago. What a banger of a song and banger of an album! Everything Rush was to become is illuminated in this song. Just brilliant!
Out of all songs in their catalog, this is the one I wish I could have seen them play live, and I've seen them 20+ times starting with the Signals tour. Definitely one of my favs😊. Great tune for a reaction. Welcome to the RUSH family 👍👏💯🎶🎸🎶🎹🎶🎤🎶🥁 RIP Professor 😔⚘️
Do you know the story behind By-Tor and the Snow Dog? Rush members went to a party and the home owner had two dogs, a German Shepherd and a small jittery white dog. The German Shepherd was trying to bite everyone who came in the house. Hence they were calling him By-Tor (biter), and of course the small white dog was Snow Dog.
I didn't know that. I haven't heard the song in full either. 😅Definitely one I will react to - it's one that has been on my list since the beginning. Thanks for the information!
What Kelvin said!🎉 Lakeside Park is a great listen, much more of a "traditionally" constructed rock song with incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt lyrics written about a festival held every year...enjoy. One of my favorite lyrics from Lakeside “Though it’s just a memory Some memories last forever”
Thanks for showing love to "Carress of Steel"! One of the more slept on albums. When you get it, you truly understand this diamond in the rough. Happy Holidays to your crew!
In the early/mid ‘80’s Houston stations only played their newer stuff so I didn’t discover this until I started seriously building my collection in ‘89. This became my favorite album of theirs (primarily because of this song) and has been ever since.
Most of my commentary on your channel so far has been Jacob Collier focused, but as a southwestern Ontario dude, and life long Rush fan (I've seen them live literally dozens of times over the decades), I love to see your Rush reactions as well. Interesting tidbit, Caress of Steel was not a well received album, critically, and when they were touring it, they gave the tour the nickname the "down the tubes tour", as they really thought it would be their last. Then of course, 2112 happened, and Rush exploded into the superstar act that they would remain for more than 4 decades. It's been many, many years since I've heard anything from this album, so this was a trip down memory lane for me too. Couple of other interesting notes. "Men of Willowdale", Willowdale is a suburb of Toronto where Alex and Geddy grew up (as you mentioned near the end, I wrote that before you got to that!), and "The River Don", the Don River is an actual river that flows south through the east side of Toronto into Lake Ontario. It's actually very interesting that the Genius lyrics actually spell it "The River Don", as almost every other site I've seen (including Rush's own site) show it as "The River Dawn", which is obviously intended to be the same reference, but not so on the nose. So a bit of reality meets fantasy there. 😄 Anyway, always looking forward to more Rush as well as more JC!
Lady!! Looking up facts and lyrics!!! Now That's How You Do RUSH!! A Farewell To Kings will always be my favorite RUSH album. Poor dog! From BYTOR to huckleberry 🫐 Alex is one of the Tastiest, ambiance setting players and he Shreds! LOVE 💕 that verse 2 heavy riff! Great Reaction MommaOG!!! First time visiting. So what's in YOUR channel?? Peace 🕊️☮️♾️😎🎸🤟🏼 OH YA Huckleberry Hound!! Oh my darling,,OH My darling,, Oh My DARLING Clementine 💕
Loved Rush as these early albums came out, but never got into their later stuff, 80's & beyond. I acknowledge they're virtuoso musicians forever, but I don't sit around listening to Bach & Beethoven either (talk about early stuff!) If I were a musician maybe I'd like Rush's later stuff, but I'm just a guy that used to like listening to 2112 for hours at a time, tripping w/ the headphones & blacklights on until dawn tinged the eastern suburban sky. With all due respect to Rush that's good enough for me.
Seriously, you to listen to the whole catalog, preferably in chronological order. All of their albums are master pieces from beginning to end. Can't wait to see your reactions to Xanadu and Hemispheres Cygnus X-1 Book II! Xanadu is based on a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called Kubla Khan.
When I was a kid, this was the song that Rush fan’s used as a measuring stick. If you did not like this song, you were not a true rush fan. Most people did not like this song.😂
Nope. 😆 You deserve more views! This is deep, Old School, Classic RUSH. It’s a cool album. The flip side of the record has one of their only love songs. I’ll let you discover it. 😁 Otherwise a heavy album (the first side anyway) The flip side is a trip. Very unique record. You have to remember RUSH were potheads! Never hid that fact. They even wrote a song about it. (on 2112)
Ok, one more thing on the video recommendation. This one has made its way around YT a lot. Have you seen YYZ live in Rio? Great video, very popular, great song. They had never toured South America before so the fans down there went bananas! Highly recommended. 😉👍
I know YYZ well but have never watched the Rio live version. Of course, I've seen thumbnails of many people reacting to it. I've added it to my list! Thank you!
You are venturing into uncharted territory for most in today's music listening world. This is not only very experimental, but an album that did so poorly, the band was afraid that it would soon be all over. Then, against the will of the record company, Rush put out 2112, another album with songs that were "too long," like that which can be found on Caress of Steel. However, if you're a real Rush fan, and not one who joined the club when more radio friendly songs came along, you know just how great this album is. Great job reacting.
Rush had actually come out at the time and apologized for this album. They were embarrassed by it. Ridiculous! This is a great album. One of my favorites, actually. RIP Neil Peart...
This song is a hidden gem on an otherwise lackluster album. This track and Bastille Day save it from being a total dud. Love Geddy’s bass line- so thick you can park a truck on it.
So you were one of the two women I ever saw at a Rush concert back in the day? This album was the "down the tubes" tour for Rush, I never thought so because Bastile Day was on it. I am one of the few that think every rash album is great in its own right. They were a progressive band, they played to the times and did what they wanted to do... who wouldn't want to do that? Of course, there are albums i love more than others but they never did what others wanted them to do, they did what THEY wanted to do and I lived my life vicariously through them, or did they live it through me? Doesn't matter because it is the soundtrack I prefer.
Haha - I featured them talking about that in my Neil Peart drum solo reaction compilation. ruclips.net/video/_phjcbdWqKE/видео.html Neil says "7 females at a Rush concert - must be some sort of a world record". Rush is so different. All three are genius level musicians - I have faith that it's all good stuff. Even if it's something I don't particular vibe with... they're just amazing as a whole.
I would recommend reading the lyrics to Rush songs first, then listen to the song without trying to concentrate on the lyrics. You will hear them more clearly as well as the music.
Neil had two dogs one was a white dog and another was a black one....Bytor was the black dog because he was a biter. Thus the name bytor. And the story develops
This is the actual origin of those names - not my comments but a source of different blogs and books over the years: By-Tor and the Snowdog’ marks the beginning of a Rush tradition of extended story songs, in this case a battle between By-Tor and the Snowdog. The song has bite in more ways than one. Howard Ungerleider [the band’s long-time roadie] came up with the title one night at a party at Rush manager Ray Danniels’ house “‘Ray had these two dogs. One was a German Shepherd that had these fangs, and the other was this little, tiny white nervous dog. I used to call the Shepherd By-Tor because anyone who would walk into the house would get bitten by him. Ray would go, “The dog is trained fine; don’t worry about it.” Well, the night of the party, we were sitting down eating our steaks when the Shepherd started biting my leg. I started screaming and calling the dog By-Tor. Now, the other dog was real neurotic, constantly barking and jumping all over you. And since he was a snow dog, I started calling the pair By-Tor and the Snowdog.”‘-Bill Banasiewicz, Rush Visions “We must have been high one day, imagining a song about these two dogs. And then Neil went ahead and wrote it. But the guys at our record company weren’t happy. They signed the band that was on the first album, and they said, ‘This is not the same - what is this By-tor shit? You were talking about Working Man and now you’re talking about this crazy stuff.’ It was a bit of hiccup in the plan they had for us. … The title of the first part of By-tor and the Snow Dog is a mystery to all three members of Rush. Geddy: “I don’t know what ‘tobes’ are. I assumed that Neil knew, and there must be such a place in mythology. I just went with it.” Alex: “I think the Tobes of Hades is kind of like the waiting room to Hell!” Neil: “Nobody know what it means - that’s what I love about it. But it’s something that my friend’s father used to say: ‘It’s hotter than the Tobes of Hades!'”-Geddy, Alex, and Neil, Prog Magazine, Issue 35, April 2013 “My friend’s dad always said ‘colder than the Tobes of Hell.’ That’s all. I don’t know what it means.”-Neil in Backstage Club (1990), quoted in Merely Players “‘Eth’ is an Old English name, probably for demonic power. Styx was a river in Hades, the underworld. This song is an 8-minuter demonstrating the band’s early musical unity and prowess. The song is the first to be broken up in sections: Section III was originally called ‘The battle.'”-Robert Telleria, Merely Players One of the memorable riffs in the piece, during which the two dogs go at it, was originally part of Alex’s solo in the live version of “Working Man.” More on this or watch 30-second video.
Thanks - I am familiar with Closer to the Heart, Freewill and The Spirit of Radio ( I did a reaction compilation of that one you should watch if you haven't yet: ruclips.net/video/Jk8g2l5x_JM/видео.htmlsi=4orlHuh9-5eCd44z )I will add Vital Signs and In the End. Thank you !
This and 2112 are how us Old School, lifelong fans judge if someone is a REAL RUSH fan or not. We were stoned teenagers when this came out! 🤯
I started seeing them live shortly after this. You’re in the club now. No dummies in a RUSH crowd. That’s one of the coolest things about us. 😁👍
Absolutely, this is one of their pieces that made me a life-long fan. I absolutely LOVE their older stuff like this. The most remarkable ensembles.
And By-Tor and The Snow Dogs
For the record, this song came out in 1975. Neil was heavily into J.R.R. Tolkien at the time. Tolkien authored The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings fantasies. The Necromancer is Neil's spinoff of those novels. The song is about three travelers under the watch of the magic prism eye. If you watch the Lord of the Rings, this was also the story of three travelers under the watch of a magic prism eye.
wow it's been ages since I heard this, brings back a lot of old memories. I hear a little bit of Bridge of Sighs in there!
Caress of Steel is such an underrated album - without this album 2112 wouldn't have been the way it was. Best 3 piece band ever,
Caress of Steel is one of my many favorite albums of RUSH. I just love this older stuff. Hard to get enough.
Finally 😀 so few people react to this album, this is one of my Favorite Rush songs from Alex's wailing guitar and Neil's pause drumming and Geddy's deep drawn out bass lines. Top tier 🤯 another Favorite from this album is Lakeside Park, talk about opposite themes, just goes to show their amazing versatility. 🤩
Alex has masterful technical abilities, but he is also able to come up with unforgettable melodies, within his solos and throughout. It's not all dweedledee with him. He makes you come back by writing shit that stays in your head.
In my next life I'm gonna come back as Alex Lifeson. Very much overlooked as one of the best. All three are my favorite people since 1980.
Being that I love guitar, cello and violin sounds, when a true artist play their instruments, and plays them well, the tones reached can take one to a Zen place.
Alex is as high on my list of respected guitarist as one can get. And as for Geddy and Neil, they are my favorites at what they bring as well. I guess...😂😂😂
Rush on eh!!!
I've been listening to this song for almost 50 years. It still blows me away today like it did 49 years ago. What a banger of a song and banger of an album! Everything Rush was to become is illuminated in this song. Just brilliant!
Same here. I was 15 when this album came out. I had this on vinyl originally.
Majority of people never understood this album. It's o.k. At 15 years old I had already mastered the meaning of it all. What a masterpiece!
Out of all songs in their catalog, this is the one I wish I could have seen them play live, and I've seen them 20+ times starting with the Signals tour. Definitely one of my favs😊. Great tune for a reaction. Welcome to the RUSH family 👍👏💯🎶🎸🎶🎹🎶🎤🎶🥁 RIP Professor 😔⚘️
The ending guitar work is mesmerizing. His tone here is sonic gold.
Great song! Caress of Steel is a gem! My favourite on the album is The Fountain of Lamneth and I also love Lakeside Park.
Cheers
Do you know the story behind By-Tor and the Snow Dog? Rush members went to a party and the home owner had two dogs, a German Shepherd and a small jittery white dog. The German Shepherd was trying to bite everyone who came in the house. Hence they were calling him By-Tor (biter), and of course the small white dog was Snow Dog.
I didn't know that. I haven't heard the song in full either. 😅Definitely one I will react to - it's one that has been on my list since the beginning. Thanks for the information!
What Kelvin said!🎉
Lakeside Park is a great listen, much more of a "traditionally" constructed rock song with incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt lyrics written about a festival held every year...enjoy.
One of my favorite lyrics from Lakeside
“Though it’s just a memory
Some memories last forever”
It's like an entire fantasy movie in 12 minutes.
Best band...ever.
Thanks for showing love to "Carress of Steel"! One of the more slept on albums. When you get it, you truly understand this diamond in the rough. Happy Holidays to your crew!
In the early/mid ‘80’s Houston stations only played their newer stuff so I didn’t discover this until I started seriously building my collection in ‘89. This became my favorite album of theirs (primarily because of this song) and has been ever since.
50-odd years since I first heard this track, and it's still one of my favourites by the band!
My first album... of many
Most of my commentary on your channel so far has been Jacob Collier focused, but as a southwestern Ontario dude, and life long Rush fan (I've seen them live literally dozens of times over the decades), I love to see your Rush reactions as well.
Interesting tidbit, Caress of Steel was not a well received album, critically, and when they were touring it, they gave the tour the nickname the "down the tubes tour", as they really thought it would be their last. Then of course, 2112 happened, and Rush exploded into the superstar act that they would remain for more than 4 decades.
It's been many, many years since I've heard anything from this album, so this was a trip down memory lane for me too. Couple of other interesting notes. "Men of Willowdale", Willowdale is a suburb of Toronto where Alex and Geddy grew up (as you mentioned near the end, I wrote that before you got to that!), and "The River Don", the Don River is an actual river that flows south through the east side of Toronto into Lake Ontario. It's actually very interesting that the Genius lyrics actually spell it "The River Don", as almost every other site I've seen (including Rush's own site) show it as "The River Dawn", which is obviously intended to be the same reference, but not so on the nose. So a bit of reality meets fantasy there. 😄
Anyway, always looking forward to more Rush as well as more JC!
My favorite Rush album
Ahhh, Rush's contribution to high fantasy!
You can hear the beginnings of 2112 in this song. Not lyrically, but musically, it floats in the background at times.
Lady!! Looking up facts and lyrics!!! Now That's How You Do RUSH!! A Farewell To Kings will always be my favorite RUSH album. Poor dog! From BYTOR to huckleberry 🫐 Alex is one of the Tastiest, ambiance setting players and he Shreds! LOVE 💕 that verse 2 heavy riff! Great Reaction MommaOG!!! First time visiting. So what's in YOUR channel?? Peace 🕊️☮️♾️😎🎸🤟🏼 OH YA Huckleberry Hound!! Oh my darling,,OH My darling,, Oh My DARLING Clementine 💕
Loved Rush as these early albums came out, but never got into their later stuff, 80's & beyond. I acknowledge they're virtuoso musicians forever, but I don't sit around listening to Bach & Beethoven either (talk about early stuff!) If I were a musician maybe I'd like Rush's later stuff, but I'm just a guy that used to like listening to 2112 for hours at a time, tripping w/ the headphones & blacklights on until dawn tinged the eastern suburban sky. With all due respect to Rush that's good enough for me.
Alex's playing is amazing throughout the song but I especially like the beautiful guitar tone at the start of Part III and then that triumphant outro.
the fountain of lamneth is another off the same album . another trip .
Love this track. Thanks for the reaction.
Seriously, you to listen to the whole catalog, preferably in chronological order. All of their albums are master pieces from beginning to end. Can't wait to see your reactions to Xanadu and Hemispheres Cygnus X-1 Book II! Xanadu is based on a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called Kubla Khan.
ah. Caress of Steel. fantastic album. "lakeside park".
When I was a kid, this was the song that Rush fan’s used as a measuring stick. If you did not like this song, you were not a true rush fan. Most people did not like this song.😂
most people could not get it. We , the few , do.
I like this one, but my favorite from this album is The Fountain of Lamneth.
I think I'm going bald
My favorite Rush album! Now do the side 2 epic The Fountain Of Lamneth. Thanks!
deep track
The number 2112 is in your future.
Watch the animated video to follow the story.
I know that song well. I haven't watched the video though - added it to my list. Thanks, Phil!
Nope. 😆 You deserve more views! This is deep, Old School, Classic RUSH. It’s a cool album. The flip side of the record has one of their only love songs. I’ll let you discover it. 😁
Otherwise a heavy album (the first side anyway) The flip side is a trip. Very unique record.
You have to remember RUSH were potheads! Never hid that fact. They even wrote a song about it. (on 2112)
Passage to Bangkok! Yes, that is among my top three favorite songs of theirs!
Roll for "Initiative"
❤
NASA or someone needs to do a study, calculating the odds that these three guys ended up in the same band.
If you like this you will probably like the even longer The Fountain Of Lamneth or side b from the same album
Ok, one more thing on the video recommendation. This one has made its way around YT a lot. Have you seen YYZ live in Rio?
Great video, very popular, great song. They had never toured South America before so the fans down there went bananas!
Highly recommended. 😉👍
I know YYZ well but have never watched the Rio live version. Of course, I've seen thumbnails of many people reacting to it. I've added it to my list! Thank you!
You are venturing into uncharted territory for most in today's music listening world. This is not only very experimental, but an album that did so poorly, the band was afraid that it would soon be all over. Then, against the will of the record company, Rush put out 2112, another album with songs that were "too long," like that which can be found on Caress of Steel. However, if you're a real Rush fan, and not one who joined the club when more radio friendly songs came along, you know just how great this album is. Great job reacting.
Rush had actually come out at the time and apologized for this album. They were embarrassed by it. Ridiculous! This is a great album. One of my favorites, actually. RIP Neil Peart...
This song is a hidden gem on an otherwise lackluster album. This track and Bastille Day save it from being a total dud. Love Geddy’s bass line- so thick you can park a truck on it.
Always was my favourite RUSH album. To each their own.
So you were one of the two women I ever saw at a Rush concert back in the day? This album was the "down the tubes" tour for Rush, I never thought so because Bastile Day was on it. I am one of the few that think every rash album is great in its own right. They were a progressive band, they played to the times and did what they wanted to do... who wouldn't want to do that? Of course, there are albums i love more than others but they never did what others wanted them to do, they did what THEY wanted to do and I lived my life vicariously through them, or did they live it through me? Doesn't matter because it is the soundtrack I prefer.
Haha - I featured them talking about that in my Neil Peart drum solo reaction compilation. ruclips.net/video/_phjcbdWqKE/видео.html Neil says "7 females at a Rush concert - must be some sort of a world record".
Rush is so different. All three are genius level musicians - I have faith that it's all good stuff. Even if it's something I don't particular vibe with... they're just amazing as a whole.
Put on your seatbelt, lol
I would recommend reading the lyrics to Rush songs first, then listen to the song without trying to concentrate on the lyrics. You will hear them more clearly as well as the music.
Neil had two dogs one was a white dog and another was a black one....Bytor was the black dog because he was a biter. Thus the name bytor. And the story develops
This is the actual origin of those names - not my comments but a source of different blogs and books over the years:
By-Tor and the Snowdog’ marks the beginning of a Rush tradition of extended story songs, in this case a battle between By-Tor and the Snowdog. The song has bite in more ways than one. Howard Ungerleider [the band’s long-time roadie] came up with the title one night at a party at Rush manager Ray Danniels’ house
“‘Ray had these two dogs. One was a German Shepherd that had these fangs, and the other was this little, tiny white nervous dog. I used to call the Shepherd By-Tor because anyone who would walk into the house would get bitten by him. Ray would go, “The dog is trained fine; don’t worry about it.” Well, the night of the party, we were sitting down eating our steaks when the Shepherd started biting my leg. I started screaming and calling the dog By-Tor. Now, the other dog was real neurotic, constantly barking and jumping all over you. And since he was a snow dog, I started calling the pair By-Tor and the Snowdog.”‘-Bill Banasiewicz, Rush Visions
“We must have been high one day, imagining a song about these two dogs. And then Neil went ahead and wrote it. But the guys at our record company weren’t happy. They signed the band that was on the first album, and they said, ‘This is not the same - what is this By-tor shit? You were talking about Working Man and now you’re talking about this crazy stuff.’ It was a bit of hiccup in the plan they had for us. … The title of the first part of By-tor and the Snow Dog is a mystery to all three members of Rush. Geddy: “I don’t know what ‘tobes’ are. I assumed that Neil knew, and there must be such a place in mythology. I just went with it.” Alex: “I think the Tobes of Hades is kind of like the waiting room to Hell!” Neil: “Nobody know what it means - that’s what I love about it. But it’s something that my friend’s father used to say: ‘It’s hotter than the Tobes of Hades!'”-Geddy, Alex, and Neil, Prog Magazine, Issue 35, April 2013
“My friend’s dad always said ‘colder than the Tobes of Hell.’ That’s all. I don’t know what it means.”-Neil in Backstage Club (1990), quoted in Merely Players
“‘Eth’ is an Old English name, probably for demonic power. Styx was a river in Hades, the underworld. This song is an 8-minuter demonstrating the band’s early musical unity and prowess. The song is the first to be broken up in sections: Section III was originally called ‘The battle.'”-Robert Telleria, Merely Players
One of the memorable riffs in the piece, during which the two dogs go at it, was originally part of Alex’s solo in the live version of “Working Man.” More on this or watch 30-second video.
Consider, by Rush: Vital Signs. Closer to the Heart. Freewill. The Spirit of Radio. In the End. Just a few suggestions from different eras.
Thanks - I am familiar with Closer to the Heart, Freewill and The Spirit of Radio ( I did a reaction compilation of that one you should watch if you haven't yet: ruclips.net/video/Jk8g2l5x_JM/видео.htmlsi=4orlHuh9-5eCd44z )I will add Vital Signs and In the End. Thank you !