You Bet Your Life: Background

“The song continues the game of chance theme of Roll the Bones. ‘If there’s a chance, you might as well take it. So what if some parts of life are a crap shoot? Get out there and shoot the crap. We can change the odds, load the dice, and roll again.'” (Row the Boats)—Neil in Merely Players

“I particularly like the lyrics in ‘You Bet Your Life.’ I wove together all the different religions and musical styles and everything. Those kinds of things are really fun and satisfying. Yeah, I like that one.”—Neil in Contents Under Pressure

“Geddy had called the piece one of the most difficult tracks to assemble on the album, specifically in the mixing stage, due to the density of the chorus.”—Martin Popoff, Contents Under Pressure

“I did [the guitar work] originally, then Stephen [Tayler, the engineer] added a little bit more DDL [digital delay] to one of the other cleaner guitars to give it more energy. The song seemed quite tame as we went through different sections. Something was lacking. We wanted to get the first verse seesawing a little more. Edge, from U2, is a pro at that.” (Guitar Player, 1991)—Alex in Songfacts

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