“Spirit of Radio” by Rush

Rush named "The Spirit of Radio" after a slogan used by CFNY-FM, a station out of Brampton, Ontario, and put it on their 1980 album Permanent Waves. Alex Lifeson wanted the opening riff to sound like static, radio waves bouncing around with electricity crackling through them, riding on top of a sequenced pattern underneath. The intro sits in an E mixolydian mode before the rest settles into plain E major, and the closing stretch detours into reggae, a flavor the band would chase further on Moving Pictures, Signals and Grace Under Pressure.

It mattered: it became their first top 30 single in Canada, reached 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped widen the Canadian band's audience.

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