Music
"The Spirit of Radio" featured the band's early experiments with a reggae style, which was explored further on Moving Pictures and Signals.
A notable track on Permanent Waves is "Jacob's Ladder", a song style reminiscent of their earlier heavy progressive rock period. Exploring odd time signatures, the song possesses a dark, ominous feel. The song's lyrics are based on a simple concept; a vision of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. The title is a reference to the natural phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, which in turn is named after the Biblical ladder to heaven on which Jacob saw angels ascending and descending in a vision.
"Entre Nous" ("Between Us") is similar in style to "Freewill," yet it did not receive heavy radio airplay, and was not featured in concerts until the Snakes & Arrows Tour. While the band began stepping back from the epic song format on this album, "Natural Science" does clock in at over nine minutes and is composed of three distinct movements. The lyrics are driven by concepts of natural science. It was featured, with a different arrangement, on every tour from 1996 to 2002, and was also featured on their 2007-2008 Snakes and Arrows tour.
Read more about this topic: Permanent Waves
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them, was superfluous—entirely superfluous.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall....”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)