2112 Part Two: The Temples of Syrinx by Rush
You guys aren't ready for the level of nerd I'm about to unleash.
So "2112" is a 20:33 long track, the first side of Rush's 1976 album 2112. Which means it's 20:33 glorious minutes of utopia-building prog rock.
I didn't think it prudent to take up that amount of time in class so I opted just to share "The Temples of Syrinx," the song's introduction to the utopia.
The Priests control "The words you read/The songs you sing/The pictures that give pleasure/To your eye," and the unnamed protagonist initially thinks them extraordinarily benevolent. These Temples rise in each city throughout the Solar Federation as hubs from which everything is controlled. Life goes on relatively unimpeded. Sound familiar?
Long story short: the protagonist discovers an ancient guitar, plucks away at it (becoming a rock god not unlike Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson in the process), shows it to the Priests who dismiss him, is visited by an Oracle in a dream which shows him how awesome life used to be before the Federation, becomes a hermit living in a cave behind a waterfall: bedridden and suicidal, because he is but one person under an administration of oppression. The song ends with the phrase "Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation/We have assumed control".
FUN and UPLIFTING
And here is the whole thing for the adventurous among us (on your own time for goodness' sake):
2112 by Rush
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