Marathon (Rush song)

"Marathon"
Single by Rush
from the album Power Windows
Released October 29, 1985
June 3, 1997 (remastered CD)
Genre New wave, hard rock, progressive rock
Length 6:09
Producer(s) Peter Collins and Rush
Rush singles chronology
"Manhattan Project"
(1986)		 "Marathon"
(1986)		 "Time Stand Still"
(1987)

"Marathon" is the 4th track on Canadian rock band Rush's 1985 album Power Windows. It was released as a single 4 years later in 1989 and reached #6 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.

It is written by Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Geddy Lee, and its lyrics are written by drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. The lyrics depict how one would feel while running in an actual marathon, but the meaning of the song is meant to use a marathon (an extreme challenge) as a metaphor for life, and say that life is full of obstacles and is all about achieving one's personal goals.

In an 1986 interview, Peart said "(Marathon) is about the triumph of time and a kind of message to myself (because I think life is too short for all the things that I want to do), there's a self-admonition saying that life is long enough. You can do a lot -- just don't burn yourself out too fast trying to do everything at once. Marathon is a song about individual goals and trying to achieve them. And it's also about the old Chinese proverb: 'The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Composition

During the mid-1980s, Rush's style was beginning to lean towards a more synthesizer based style of rock music, as opposed to their earlier, heavier guitar based hard rock and progressive rock. During the mid-1980s, Neil Peart was also beginning to experiment with an electronic drum kit. Power Windows is perhaps Rush's most heavily synthesizer influenced album. All of these elements are evident throughout the album, including on "Marathon". It contains different sections with both Geddy Lee's synthesizer as the lead instrument, as well as Alex Lifeson's guitar as the lead instrument. During the chorus, Lee's synthesizer is most prominent, while during the verses and solo passages there is a mix between synthesizer and guitar.

Live performances

Marathon was brought back to the set list of Rush's 2010-2011 Time Machine Tour, which was the first time the band played Marathon live since their 1990 Presto Tour. When Marathon was played on the Time Machine Tour, a pyrotechnic effect is used during the second verse, after Lee sang the lyric "...more than just the bottom line or a lucky shot in the dark."

See also

References

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