Virtuality: Background

“I’ve become the Salman Rushdie of the Internet for daring to poke fun of it. I have some friends who use the Interet productively, but for the most part [this is in 1996] it’s the worldwide wank. (San Jose) . . . I love the image the verse opens up with, seeing a woman’s face through the window in the rain. That’s a really romantic image. Imagination, though, is a little bit of sense input, but the rest of it is just imagination. All I was pointing out there is, here’s a romantic little image, but let’s not pretend that it’s real. You cannot feel the voltage from her fingertips, but you can imagine it. (T4E Premiere)—Neil in Merely Players

“I think Neil is more skeptical than cynical about the rush to embrace the benefits of the Net. I can’t say I agree with him on that front. The song ‘Virtuality’ deals with that and, you know, in one sense I disagree with what the song says and, in the other, I kind of understand that point of view. So, I can do the song even though I don’t wholly agree with it. There is an aspect of the Internet that, like anything, can be abused, that can be a waste of time. But the benefits are tremendous. If you’re researching something, it’s out there.” (Bassics, 1997)—Geddy in Merely Players

“The verse ‘to see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour’ comes from William Blake. Alex’s guitar in the chorus tries to simulate a modem initializing online.”—Robert Telleria, Merely Players

“‘Virtuality’ is bound to sound dated, given it’s Internet theme. But it sure does rock, though.”—Martin Popoff, Contents Under Pressure

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