“Distant Early Warning” by Rush

"Distant Early Warning" opens Grace Under Pressure, Rush's tenth studio album, and it went out as a single in 1984 too. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson wrote the music and Neil Peart the words, the band's usual split, and the title comes from the Distant Early Warning Line, the chain of radar stations strung across Canada's Arctic north to watch for incoming missiles. It's a Cold War bulletin that touches on fallout, acid rain and communism, with an environmental alarm running underneath; AllMusic's Greg Prato heard a story about nuclear war.

Hugh Syme, who also made the album's cover art, plays the synthesizer intro, and Peter Henderson produced with the band. Biographer Jon Collins singled out Lifeson's guitar at its most dissonant, riding over echoing drums and keyboards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.