Lyrics for Freewill as interpreted by shed27

Freewill Lyrics
There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance,
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot conceive.
"The stars aren't aligned
Or the gods are malign"-
Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them- they weren't born in lotus-land.

All preordained-
A prisoner in chains-
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate.

Each of us-
A cell of awareness-
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

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  • 45 Comments
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Psychokurty
05-08-2004

Rated -1 
this song is awesome! just has a philosophic feel about it

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masterofpuppets80
05-16-2004

Rated -1 
its just about being yourself and making your own choices. its about your "free will"

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tsucol
06-24-2004

Rated 0 
wow, you messed up the lyrics horribly.

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tsucol
06-24-2004

Rated 0 
not really actually, you just messed up "have" with "havn't". And "concieve" with "percieve". great bass solo in the middle of the song btw, Amazing man that Geddy.

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johnpauljones86
09-17-2004

Rated 0 
Song is (from what I take out of it) about Neil Peart's disdain for religion. This song is about horrible things happening like plague and murder that people blame on the gods."The stars aren't aligned Or the gods are malign"- Blame is better to give than receive". He also states that religion is some story that people made up (as in there really is no god) and use as an excuse to kill. "You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill". Basically in the song Freewill means atheism. Well that's what I got out of it. He writes about something similar in the song "Roll the Bones".

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Theo Reo
11-21-2004

Rated -1 
Fucking stupid song.

We don't have free will.
We're the conglomerates of genetics and upbringing; perceptual entities in an epistemologically ambiguous physical Universe.

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1 Reply
RUSHMAN
11-22-2004

Rated 0 
Hey Theo, try reading the last stanza before making yourself look like an ass:

"Each of us-
A cell of awareness-
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet."

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sheer
01-08-2005

Rated 0 
I'm currently playing with the idea that whatever we believe and a lot of the things that we dream happen. At the very least, whatever we believe controls our perceptions. And, the best choice would seem to be free will - i.e. we choose who and what we want to be, hopefully unfettered by the chains of old fears and the source code of old religions that were designed for places the human race has been in the past but is not now.

But then, I could be wrong. ;-) Anyway, it's obviously to me (and of course it could mean different things to different people and may mean different htings to me at different points in my life) a song about choosing to be yourself.

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t4r
02-25-2005

Rated 0 
..."Fucking stupid song.

...We don't have free will.
...We're the conglomerates of genetics and upbringing; perceptual
...entities in an epistemologically ambiguous physical Universe."

I'm guessing you didn't do very well on that week's vocabulary quiz. You pretty much said one thing, and then said the complete opposite.

Anyway, good song.

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coryoon
03-09-2005

Rated 0 
Theo, don't you see that's exactly what the song is about? Peart basically says what you said, that we're just pieces of genetics with imperfect perception, and that is the extent of it. By saying "I will choose a path that's clear; I will choose free will," he's basically saying "I'm honest in my understanding that I really know very little, and I'm living life based on that realization instead of casting it out on some article of faith."

I also want to point out an error in the lyrics: "If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice" - this should be, "If you choose not to decide, you still HAVE made a choice." It's important because he's pointing out that "freewill" occurs in all examples of human perception; that subscribing to a religious faith is still a choice made by someone based on the limitations of their perception.

Great song.

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*Modest_ Mouse*
04-06-2005

Rated 0 
i dont why i love this song its just great rush rocks!

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pengy
06-14-2005

Rated 0 
The original lyrics sheet was written "Hevn't mad e achoice" but upon singing he found he sounded like he was saying "have", decided this was better and continued it like that. This is an amzing song, the whole Permanent Waves album is amazing.

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bugingu
07-24-2005

Rated 0 
In the 1500's John Calvin wrote extensively on predestination which influenced the thinking. In the 1600's Jacobos Armenius wrote of free will. These were Christian writers. Free will vs. predetermination is another fence war in our quest for truth. Nice angle t4r

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tragik
08-08-2005

Rated 0 
This is a very humanistic song. Pert is saying that instead of worrying about Gods and paths that they have for humans he chooses his own path which is free will. My favorite line is "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice". I think he says that when it comes to following the God's ways no matter what you do, it's because the God's make you do it, none of your actions are of your choosing, so he chooses his own way which is to disregard all of that and choose freewill. Pert writes the best lyrics of any drummer there is.

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nemt
09-01-2005

Rated 0 
This is one of my favorite Rush songs, and I'm a really big Rush fan. Is the correct lyric "still have" or "still haven't" made a choice?

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ColonelClaypool_00
11-08-2005

Rated 0 
I like this song even more than I did before because in my Philosophy and Literature class we're talking about Spinoza. He believed that we act upon natural laws and that we don't choose our own path in life, but God has already made a path for us. This is why I like this song

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floydfan87
01-10-2006

Rated 0 
I wouldn't go as far to say this song is a knock at religion...or at least that's not the overall intention of the song...it tries to encourage people to make their own choices and not listen to everything like a bunch of playstrings.

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2112Rush2112
01-10-2006

Rated 0 
And all three instruments just go absolutely nuts in the solo, and it sounds perfect. Nothing out of place; fits together great. How do they do it?

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Dreamline
02-19-2006

Rated 0 
Neil Peart, being in intellectual most likely realizes the fact that freewill is a paradox and doesn't exist and at the same time it doesn't not exist. However i'm absolutely certain that Peart means free will in a religous sense which does exist.

The song is about finding your own path without the interference of anyone else (god). Nobody will deny that we can choose our own path in our lives, whether or not the path we take is pre-determined, is irelivant to whether or not we have the ability to chose our own mindset.

Basically, this is just adding onto what coryoon said.

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funk
02-24-2006

Rated 0 
It is "still have made a choice," not "still haven't." Rather major screw up. Not much to interpret here...pretty straight forward.

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The Rat
02-26-2006

Rated 0 
Confusing 'have' with 'haven't' is very very WRONG! Please, somebody edit the lyrics if possible.

I have a friend who also doesn't agree with the concept of 'free will', and I tend to agree with him. So I look at it the way I look at the words 'believe' or 'belief'. There is a 'big B belief' and a 'little b belief'. Example - I get on the subway near where I live, and I believe it will transport me down to the Blue Jays game (Can't wait for opening day!). Now, maybe there will be a problem with the train, or there could be a power failure, or a jumper, but based on all the evidence of my past experience I have every reason to 'believe' that I will get there for the first pitch.

Contrast that with 'Belief' in a god. It is without any direct evidence, no compelling inferred evidence (at least to me), and therefore is based entirely on faith, a different type of belief altogether, a big B.

So we can look at us as having 'free will', the ability to make our own choices about our lives based on our experiences and desires, or having 'Free Will', meaning, well..., ah screw it, you work it out!

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JakeLandis
05-01-2006

Rated 0 
I'm definitely a free will believer and I love this song.

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burbster
05-15-2006

Rated 0 
This song almost seems to be fighting ideas of determinism. Basically saying "Determinism sucks, look at the choices we make, they are true."

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abnormallity
07-18-2006

Rated 0 
my friends make fun of me for liking this song

they say its like a fifth grade choosing the right lesson in prog rock for

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tobintax
08-22-2006

Rated 0 
I'm not religious but I see a problem "free-willers" encounter in the absence of a higher power. Namely, that without a higher power, all that you're left with is the material world - all that is in the universe is made up solely of a collection of atoms and molecules which strictly conform to the physical laws of the universe. In turn, this means that we are made up of the same thing, so the atoms and molecules of our beings must conform to those same laws as well - over which we of course have no control. In this view then, free will disappears. Even our very thoughts are generated by a brain that is composed of material that must conform to these physical laws of the universe in this view. Even allowing for a degree of randomness (as quantum phyics allows), you're left with just that - randomness - which hardly equates with free will. So, a strictly material universe must by definition exclude free will.

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