Home on the Strange: Background

This piece, put together spontaneously towards the end of the production process for My Favorite Headache, takes a look at a guy Geddy used to work with that, although a bit of an eccentric (“He sleeps with a chainsaw”), has a place in the colorful parade of people that makes up our world. Lyrically, it takes the shape of a tall tale; musically, it’s straight-ahead rock, although at the point at which Geddy sings “He likes to work with his hands,” the melody is reminiscent of Billy Crystal’s “Get out of my dreams / Get into my car.”—Rob Freedman, Rush Vault

“‘Home on the Strange’ was the last piece written for the record. We had been working really hard on all these other songs, slaving over details, and we wanted to do something where we wouldn’t slave at all over details. So, it was pretty well recorded live: Jeremy [Taggert] and I, bass and drums, then Ben [Mink] threw some guitars on, and that was it—what I think is a real fun, spontaneous deal.”—Geddy in the video press release for the album

“The metallic ‘Home on the Strange,’ possibly the heaviest song on the record . . . could have been lifted from Rush’s Vapor Trails, only with much better production.”—Raff on Prog Archives

“‘Home on the Strange’ is . . . well . . . strange. But in a good way. . . . This song is likely in place simply to lighten up the album before the very emotional segments begin.”—King By-Tor on Prog Archives

“The lyrics are amusing enough . . . . Lee insists that the words describe a very eccentric individual, but that we should recognize that our world is made up of many eccentric individuals, so we should not isolate them just because they are, well, weird. Compared to everything that came before and after, the music is really off-kilter, and the bridge is repetitive.”—Epignosis on Prog Archives

More about “Home on the Strange”

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