“The Spirit Of Radio” by Rush

Rush named "The Spirit of Radio" after a slogan, the one CFNY-FM was using out of Brampton, Ontario, and put it on Permanent Waves in 1980. Alex Lifeson built the opening riff to crackle like static, radio waves pinging around the room, and it spins in a mixolydian mode on E before the song settles into plain E major. Geddy Lee sings and handles bass and Minimoog, Lee and Lifeson wrote the music, and Neil Peart wrote the words and turns his corner of the studio into a percussion cabinet: timbales, crotales, tubular bells, timpani, even wind chimes. Terry Brown produced with the band.

Near the end they slide into reggae, a flavor they'd keep chasing on Moving Pictures, Signals and Grace Under Pressure. At home it gave them their first top-30 single, in the US it got to 51 on the Hot 100, and it helped carry the band to a much bigger crowd.

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