"The Analog Kid" is a song by the Canadian

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

band Rush. It was released as the second song on their 1982 album ''

Signals In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

''. It became a top 20 hit, reaching number 19 on the

Mainstream Rock Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. Format background Mainstream rock stations represent the middle ground between classic rock and active rock ...

chart. "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, 48 minutes North, and 64 degrees, 30 minutes West, it covers an area ...

in the

British Virgin Islands ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = Territorial song , song = " Oh, Beautiful Virgin Islands" , image_map = File:British Virgin Islands on the globe (Americas centered).svg , map_caption = , mapsize = 290px , image_map2 = Bri ...

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

Neil Peart Neil Ellwood Peart OC (; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian-American musician, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an ...

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 (born Gary Lee Weinrib; July 29, 1953) is a Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush. Lee joined the band in September 1968, at the re ...

. 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 that the song was his first attempt at non-fiction, and that he "for the longest time eartstepped 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 music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

, 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 US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

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

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

rated the song 4.5/5, writing that its intro riff was extremely catchy. They also wrote that the solo in "The Analog Kid" was spectacular and that the song was upbeat and atmospheric.

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