Moving to Bohemia: Background

This piece takes up where “Subdivisions” on Signals leaves off. That Rush piece talks about restless youth leaving the suburbs for the city, with its promises of opportunity and excitement; this piece is from the point of view of someone older who’s leaving the suburbs but without the illusions; rather, he goes knowing what he’ll get is hard reality, but at least that’s a more honest existence. We don’t have to take the move out of the suburbs literally. It could just represent a new, more realistic, state of mind. “Bohemia” refers to a land of outcasts. The roots of the term are the settlements in France where immigrants from Czechoslovakia moved to after being expelled from their own country in the 18th century. French artists and writers adopted that outcast identity (Bohemians), so the term has come to mean artists who reject the mainstream.—Rob Freedman, Rush Vault

“We wanted an aggressive, sort of Russian attitude from real strings, so Ben [Mink] studied the works of Russian composers before he wrote the parts.”—Geddy in Bass Player, reproduced in Merely Players, Robert Telleria

“‘Moving to Bohemia,’ the seventh song on the album, is one of the best, with some of Lee’s more interesting lyrics, which describe recognizing reality for what it is rather than accepting and offering up sugar-coated and censored versions of the truth. The strings make another appearance.”—Epignosis on Prog Archives

The tracks that may be more reminiscent of Rush’s ’90s output include “Moving to Bohemia,” where the violin part reminds me somehow of Mink’s contribution to ‘Losing It.'”—Raff on Prog Archives</a

“The pair of tracks that come up next, ‘Moving to Bohemia’ and ‘Home on the Strange,’ are a couple of quirky tracks that Geddy pulls off quite well, even if Rush maybe would not have been able to. ‘Moving to Bohemia’ is an almost ominous song with intriguing lyrical content.”—King By-Tor on Prog Archives</a

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