Red Sector A:
All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves
Is stay alive...
Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shouting guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones
I clutch the wire fence
Until my fingers bleed
A wound that will not heal-
A heart that cannot feel-
Hoping that the horror will recede
Hoping that tomorrow-We'll all be freed
Sickness to insanity
Prayer to profanity
Days and weeks and months go by
Don't feel the hunger-too weak to cry
I hear the sound of gunfire
At the prison gate
Are the liberators here-
Do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother-it's too late
But I must help my mother
Stand up straight...
Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings
To survive?...
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sector_A]
Rush's 1984 album "Grace Under Pressure" included the track "Red Sector A." The song, written by drummer Neal Pert, focuses on the experience of a person struggling to survive at an unnamed prison camp. "Red Sector A" was particularly meaningful to the band's lead singer/bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee:From "How the Holocaust rocked Rush front man Geddy Lee", Jewish News Weekly, June 25, 2004: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.”
- What motivated Rush to write Red Sector A?
- According to the lyrics, what impact did the camp have on its captives physically and mentally?
- In the song, what hope surfaces for the camp's captives?
- According to the final lines of the song, what are the captives left thinking and feeling after being freed?
Ans. #1- He asked his mom what her first thoughts were on being liberated.
ReplyDeleteAns. #2- To survive and to stay alive.
Ans. #3- That are they the last ones left alive and are they the only human to survive.
Ans. #4- That after the war, were they still the last ones left alive and were they still the only human beings left.
To survive?
The stories his mother told him inspired him to write a song about it. It made them fearful, it made them somewhat dark and the only thing in their minds was survival. They hope/fear the sound of the liberators. The last thing that goes into their heads is if they are the last ones to survive and if not then are they only people who to them are still "human."
ReplyDelete1. hes mom toeld hem a beet the stoer the day she wes liberated.
ReplyDelete2. awes tien to stae levy
3. freed
4. that we srevied wet hpend to ever 1 ells
his mom told him the story and he was mad
ReplyDeleteto survie and stay alive
hoping that the horror go away and that they will be freed
last ones left alive,only human to survive
When Lee talked to his mother over the phone, and her stories of her stories in a conitarion camp and being liberated.
ReplyDeleteHis mother belived that liberation wasnt even possible and that it would never happen and it changed people for there hole life. Everything was about surviving.
hoping to see if you will be freed even tho some belived that it would never.
how they were so happy that they made it out alive
1. His Mom had told him a story of her experiences of her time.
ReplyDelete2.Physically unknowing if you were going to live or die and that would end up messing with the mental stuff and the loses of their loved ones
3.They are hoping to live, freed, and at home
4.They are left wondering if they are the only ones left alive, and if any one else lived through this
1.His mom told him the story so he wrote a song about the troubles that the prisoners went through.
ReplyDelete2.The captives were weaker and just had the instinct to stay alive no matter what
3.That everything well be over and they families are alive
4.Who else is alive and is there any “real” humans left or did they all die
I. it is really cool that just from hearing what the prisoners went through that he can wirght a song about how it would feel and how he feels
ReplyDeleteII. they would weaken them even more and put strain on there bodes
III. there families
IIII. how meany ppl are still alive if any
1. Lee's family went through the holocaust.
ReplyDelete2. It made lots of people go insane and it phisicaly beet there bodys down until they died.
3. They hope they will be freed.
4. They were wondering if they were the only ones left.
1. Rush's motivated where that Lee's pairents lived through the Holocaust.
ReplyDelete2.Mentally the people where broken and with a feel like that they were the last humans on Earth, physically they were weaken to a point were the could not stand on there owen.
3.That they hear gun fire at the gates and thing that their liberators are here.
4.That are we alone, are we the last to survive, and that how could humans let these go on with out doing some thing.
1.What motivated lee was his mom's story about the holocaust.
ReplyDelete2. to never give up in survival and to keep pushing through the hard times
3. that they can go home or whats left of it and be free.
4. they are left thinking about if they are the only humans left living through the horrors of what they just went through.
1.) He found out was his mother's thoughts were on the idea of him getting liberated.
ReplyDelete2.)They were made weaker, they were not killed, but they were tortured, they were basically made the slaves of the german people.
3.) They have hope for their families, they don't have much help for themselves.
4.) They believed that they would be the last surviving type of human.