Double Agent: Background

“‘Double Agent’ was a complete exercise in self-indulgence, and really, it was one of the last things we wrote on the record. We’d written all these songs that were heavily structured and were crafted and meticulously worked on: this note and that note, and this is a song we just wanted to kind of get our yah-yahs out and just have a bit of a rave. And really, it’s one of the goofiest songs I think we’ve ever written, but I’m quite happy with the result. In its own way, I think it’s an interesting little piece of lunacy.” (Radio Special)—Geddy in Merely Players

“I noticed that sometimes if I had a difficult decision to make I’d be weighing up the pros and cons, and my conscious mind would be doing a lot of thinking and worrying, and then suddenly one morning I would wake up and I would know what to do. And a friend of mine was working on a book about the secret war between the CIA and the FBI and asked me to be his reader, as it were. So, in reading that, I read a whole bunch of books on background of the CIA and the KGB and all this stuff, and got totally into the world of espionage. So I thought of using the imagery of espionage, and the whole romance of cloak and dagger, and the Third Man.” (Up close) ‘Wilderness of mirrors’ is a phrase from T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘Gerontion’ and was also applied by former CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton to describe the world of espionage, hence the twist on ‘Double Agent,’ reflecting the clandestine workings of dreams and the subconsciousness. (Wilderness of Mirrors)—Neil in Merely Players

“‘Double Agent’ contains joyous, muscular drumming among mischievous chords from Lifeson. It is a track where caution is thrown to the wind, indeed, the song thrown together near the end of the Counterparts process.”—Martin Popoff, Contents Under Pressure

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