Cold Fire: Background

“‘Cold Fire’ is quite simply an under-heralded Rush classic, with its gorgeous verse melody exploding into one of the most insistent Rush choruses in years.”—Martin Popoff, Contents Under Pressure

“‘Cold Fire’ is one of my most satisfying songs, musically and lyrically. You love a song for small things. I had been inspired, I think, by a Paul Simon song, where I wanted to couch song lyrics in conversation—he said, she said, and all that. Simon has a song, maybe on Rhythm of the Saints, where it’s in conversation. And I thought, yeah, what a cool idea. I’d like to try something like that. And ‘Cold Fire’ achieved that. It’s a very grown-up relationship song. And relationship songs are never easy to do, convincingly anyway, as opposed to love songs. Relationship songs are by definition much more clinical, but this was one, I thought, that managed to be a grown-up one, with the mystified guy and the smart girl. I like the subtext of that. The guy is kind of dumb, and she’s really smart and cynical.”—Neil in Contents Under Pressure

“We rewrote that song quite a bit. And thankfully, I think Peter Collins’ presence really pulled that song together. He came in and he pointed out certain strengths in the previous versions of the songs that we had, and he really helped us reorganize that song. It wasn’t until he got there, I think, that we finally locked in on a feel for those verses that enabled Alex to play those great steel guitar-like lines that he’s playing, and enabled me to open up harmonically. I was having trouble with the verses, you know, it’s a tough song, when you’re dealing with this issue of male/female relationships, which is such a foreign subject for us to deal with, in a song. You want to make sure it doesn’t sound trite or hackneyed or you’re not just doing yet another song about relationships? It took us a while to get the right mood, and I was really happy with the mood we ended up with in the verses, and I think, oddly enough, as much as it was a nightmare, that song for me, when I hear the record now, I think the verses are one of the strongest parts of the album.” (Radio Special)—Geddy in Songfacts

More about “Cold Fire”

Back to Rush Vault