Soccer Dad

Returning the Favor

Many thanks to Josh Cohen for mentioning me in his version of the "Carnival of the Vanities". Since his theme was the rock group Rush, I thought I'd send him a profile of Geddy Lee (b. Gary Lee Weinrib) lead singer of the group that was just re-published in the Baltimore Jewish Times. I found a previous version of the article online at "J, the Jewish News Weekly of Northerne California" with this mention of one of the trio's songs:

The 20-year-old song “Red Sector A,” from the 1984 album “Grace Under Pressure,” comes from a deeply emotional and personal place in the heart of lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee.

The seeds for the song were planted nearly 60 years ago in April 1945 when British soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Lee’s mother, Manya (now Mary) Rubenstein, was among the survivors. (His father, Morris Weinrib, was liberated from Dachau a few weeks later.) The whole album “Grace Under Pressure,” says Lee, who was born Gary Lee Weinrib, “is about being on the brink and having the courage and strength to survive.”

Though “Red Sector A,” like much of the album from which it comes, is set in a bleak, apocalyptic future, what Lee calls “the psychology” of the song comes directly from a story his mother told him about the day she was liberated.

“I once asked my mother her first thoughts upon being liberated,” Lee says during a phone conversation. “She didn’t believe [liberation] was possible. She didn’t believe that if there was a society outside the camp how they could allow this to exist, so she believed society was done in.”

(Alas the Baltimore Jewish Times doesn't put anywhere near all of its content online. I just realized that the article had probably not been an exclusive. A quick search confirmed my suspicion.)

Posted by SoccerDad at July 17, 2004 11:41 PM | TrackBack