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Headlong Flight

2012 single by Rush

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

"Headlong Flight" is the second single from Canadian rock band Rush's 19th studio album, Clockwork Angels. It was released to radio stations and for online preview on April 19, 2012, and became available digitally and on disk April 24, 2012. A lyrics video was also made available on YouTube. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Geddy Lee commented on the song:

'Headlong Flight' was one of those songs that was a joy to write and record from beginning to end. Alex [Lifeson] and I had blast jamming in my home studio one day before the second leg of the Time Machine tour, and I did not revisit that jam until a year later. Alex and I assembled the song to be an instrumental and its original title was 'Take That Lampshade Off Yo Head!,' but once we saw the lyrics Neil [Peart] had written, I knew that the spirit of the lyrics matched the instrumental perfectly and it was just a matter of making them fit and writing the melodies.

Musically, the song contains elements inspired by "Bastille Day," another Rush song. In a 2012 interview, Neil Peart confirmed this was deliberate.

01Track listing

Music by Lee/Lifeson, lyrics by Peart

No.TitleLength
1."Headlong Flight" (Radio Edit)5:08
2."Headlong Flight" (Album Version)7:20

02Chart performance

ChartPeak
position
U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock23
Billboard Canadian Hot 10084

03Personnel

Watch videos about Headlong FlightExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Headlong Flight, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

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