"The Analog Kid" is a song by the Canadian

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

band Rush. It was released as the second single from their 1982 album ''

Signals A signal is both the process and the result of Signal transmission, transmission of data over some transmission media, media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processin ...

'' and reached number 19 on the

Mainstream Rock chart Mainstream Rock is a music chart published by ''Billboard'' magazine that ranks the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the United States. It is an administrative category that combines the " active rock" and " heritage rock" fo ...

. "The Analog Kid" is a moderately fast song, and was originally written in the key of A major. It is played in common time.

Recording

The song originates from when the band stayed at

Virgin Gorda Virgin Gorda () is the third-largest island (after Tortola and Anegada) and second-most populous of the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Geography Located at about 18 degrees, 30 minutes North, and 64 degrees, 30 minutes West, it covers an area o ...

in the

British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...

in January 1982, travelling on a yacht that was named Orianda. Drummer and lyricist

Neil Peart Neil Ellwood Peart ( ; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian and American musician, known as the drummer, percussionist, and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush (band), Rush. He was known to fans by the nickname "the Profe ...

wrote the lyrics for the song at first as a companion piece to " Digital Man", a song that Rush had started working on in late 1981, and presented it to bassist

Geddy Lee Geddy Lee Weinrib (; born Gary Lee Weinrib, July 29, 1953) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Rock music, rock band Rush (band), Rush. Lee joined the band in September 1968 at the request o ...

. Peart and Lee talked about what could be done with the lyrics in a musical sense. They eventually decided on the opposite on what the words may suggest, with Peart describing the track as "a very up-tempo rocker, with some kind of a dynamic contrast for the choruses". Peart said the song was his first attempt at non-fiction: "For the longest time I stepped into characters until I had my own confidence and technique to be able to step outside them as a writer."

In popular culture

"The Analog Kid", along with "Digital Man" (another song from the album) served as the inspiration for the writer Troy Hickman to create the comic book heroes of the same names in the 2004 comic '' Common Grounds''.

Reception

Greg Prato of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, in a review for the album, said that the song was an example that Rush did not forget to "rock out" after adding synthesizers to their sound. In 2016, '' Prog'' wrote that it was the 7th best Rush song from the 1980s. ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

'' readers voted "The Analog Kid" the band's 24th best song.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Analog Kid 1982 songs 1983 singles Rush (band) songs Song recordings produced by Terry Brown (record producer) Songs written by Geddy Lee Songs written by Alex Lifeson Songs written by Neil Peart