I was brought up to believe
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It's not ours to understand
I was brought up to believe
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It's not ours to understand
The universe has a plan
All is for the best
Some will be rewarded
And the devil will take the rest
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death
In a world of cut and thrust
I was always taught to trust
In a world where all must fail
Heaven's justice will prevail
The joy and pain that we receive
Each comes with its own cost
The price of what we're winning
Is the same as what we've lost
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death
Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe
Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to
Loves us all to death
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It's not ours to understand
I was brought up to believe
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It's not ours to understand
The universe has a plan
All is for the best
Some will be rewarded
And the devil will take the rest
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death
In a world of cut and thrust
I was always taught to trust
In a world where all must fail
Heaven's justice will prevail
The joy and pain that we receive
Each comes with its own cost
The price of what we're winning
Is the same as what we've lost
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death
Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe
Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe
All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to
Loves us all to death
Lyrics submitted by priest_of_syrinx
BU2B Lyrics as written by Geddy Lee Alex Lifeson
Lyrics © OLE MEDIA MANAGEMENT LP
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
The thing that I will say is that I can't judge Neil, I haven't walked in his shoes. I have no idea how I would react, feel or lash out if my son and wife were taken from me. I'm sure I would be devastated. Knowing how my life has gone though, I tend to include God more in my life when the chips are down.
All this aside, I really like the album but I really hate being preached at. In fact when someone jams their faith down my throat it turns me off. Conversely, when someone tells me I'm an idiot for believing in God, it tends to turn me off just as much. I'm turned off by the lyrics on this album unfortunately. I love the bass line, the guitar work and the percussion is amazing again as always. I wish Pye Dubois (from Max Webster songs, Kim Mitchell and the writer of Tom Sawyer) would write the song lyrics for Rush though. I appreciate Neil's lyrics more when he's not trying to convince me God doesn't exist. We're all big boys and girls, let us decide on our own.
One thing I will say, Neil knows the bible much better than I ever will. If you go to his website, constant bible references. To me, this doesn't make sense. I like to think of myself as open minded but if I didn't believe in God, I wouldn't spend a minute of my time reading the bible. For example, I don't believe in socialism, I've taken classes on it in college to understand it and it pretty much reinforced my initial take. So why would I cozy up to the Communist Manifesto and make references to it in my work everyday, my writings, my website, my blog, etc.?
It's like one of those crappy TV evangelists that screams from the top of his lungs about God and the proper way to believe in God, how to interpret the bible, live your life according to God and then later he's in bed with a hooker or stealing money from the congregation, etc.
Feel free to disagree, I'm open minded (I think) and opinions vary. Caravan is my favorite song on the album though, just can't get enough of it, and BU2B (musically) is fantastic as well, lyrics are just too much for my taste though.
And regarding 'the jamming their faith down your throat': that's what happens to us almost every day. Comparing Peart to one of your TV evangelists proves your lack of open-mindedness.
I have a confession! Despite the fact that I am the senior pastor of a firmly, “Fundamentalist” Christian denomination, I confess to you that I am a big time closet Rush fan! Yes, I STILL listen to Rush after all these years, (in secret of course). I can’t help it, Rush rocks man!!! But I'm sure most Christians would not understand and may even call it sinful, or at the very least, spiritually immature. Perhaps they’re right, but I find a lot of truth in the lyrics that Neil writes, I always have. I have even quoted from Rush in my sermon illustrations, and I feel that I have the liberty to rock out with my favorite band from my youth from time to time. I just do it in the closet so that I won't stumble a weaker brother or sister in the faith.
Having said that, I have to admit that it has becoming increasingly more difficult to justify that liberty as of late! Songs like BU2B, Faithless, Totem Pole, and Armor and Sword seriously push the envelope for me. But rather than turn me off to stop listening, they just grieve me and make me sad for Neil. Because they are still truthful in the sense that they are the true but bitter feelings and tortured thoughts of a man that has suffered great loss and the love of his wife and child. That’s brutal! He can't find the answers to give him the inner peace about that loss and you see that coming through in his song writing. I feel for Neil and all that he has gone through and is most likely still going through. He is obviously searching for truth and unhappy about not being able to find it in what he was, "Brought up to believe", but most of us can relate to that. But I can also see in his lyrics that he is definitely reading the Bible (Hey, “Armor and Sword” comes right out of Ephesians Ch. 6), and other religious writings, searching for meaning in this life, as we all are.
He, along with Geddy and Alex, may very well be, if we want to label them as such, “atheists”. They are without a doubt, secular humanists at the very least. However, they along with everyone else riding this planet through space, headlong into eternity don’t have all the answers either and we are all seeking for truth whether we admit it or not. Sometimes it’s just easier to accept seemingly logical concepts such as evolution or atheism, so that you don’t have to deal with the obvious conclusions that you would otherwise come to… “The Watchmaker” Such concepts are found in Clockwork Angels. Peart writes in the song, The Garden… “The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes”, “The Watchmaker has time up his sleeve”. I see bitter anger toward God because of his loss in these lyrics, not atheism.
Remember back to Power Windows when he wrote:
“We sometimes catch a window, A glimpse of what's beyond. Was it just imagination, stringing us along? More things than are dreamed about, unseen and unexplained. We suspend our disbelief and we are entertained. Mystic rhythms, Capture my thoughts, Carry them away, Nature seems to spin, a supernatural way.”
Now obviously, that is very metaphysical and new age lingo, but it shows clearly that in the past, Neil was thinking of the natural world in terms of spiritual implications. Something that, “any rational person” should do. If you find a watch in the forest, your rational response is that a watchmaker made the watch. If you find a universe filled with metabolic machines and complex life forms, you should rationally conclude that it didn’t arise by chance because of an explosion of nothing that created everything. Look, I realize that it is hard to reconcile the bible and the teachings of Jesus with the way his followers act sometimes, but that doesn't get you off the hook for believing the truth that is found in His words and His creation, that testify with super decibels of His existence.
Ok, I’m done, now you can let me have it…
"Well I know they've always told you selfishness was wrong-
yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song."
Sometimes, art it a complete expression from within. It's not always meant to preach or to explain upon another, but as a streak of blood created from your own proverbial slit wrist- unapologetically authentic and true, without censorship or rose colored lenses.
This new album is the best from Rush in a long time, but lyrically Peart was at his lyrical best when he focused on philosophy. This spiritual focus of his lyrics are just too damn preachy and turn me off. The poetry is pretty good but you can hear it that he is trying to convince the listener to his POV. No longer does Peart just opine and wax poetic on a subject from a philosophical POV, as a brief window into his mind, now he tries to PUSH his POV out and just comes across as forced and contrite. I hate it when people put their spirituality out there and claim it to be superior. Nobody knows jack squat about the metaphysical, so to all artists, dont feed me the line that you have all the answers cause you dont.
Didnt mean that to be such a rant, I appreciate anything Neil has to say over the drivel that is the usual fare these days.
And for the poster who said Peart is not an athiest.....yes he is, and so are Ged and Al.
I have respect for people who have reached religious convictions on their own (while i may not agree with them) but when people my age and younger go around talking like they know all the answers to the world and can't begin to really justify why.. thats just creepy
When I played Clockwork Angels and read along with the lyrics I was gasping at what I heard....
I couldn't believe hearing:
" All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind man in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death"
After researching this further on the internet, I come to find out Neil Peart is heavily influenced by an atheist (name escapes me) who wrote books that the only form of God is "Time". You live your, life, you love, you die...and zap. thats it. you dont exist and anymore. No heaven, no hell. That there is no God of the Bible.
My soul just HURT after researching this as I'm a true believer in God of the Bible.
Like Neil, I have suffered great pain and suffering in my life. To the point, where I had daily panic attacks. Such panic and anxiety that it led me to lose my job and become a hermit in my own house full of depression.
I understand Neil's pain of losing his daughter in an auto-crash and his wife to cancer within months of each other in the late 1990s. But Neil ran in one direction away from God.
I personally have run the other way TOWARDS God.....and God is rebuilding me from the inside out. God is changing my life in so many ways.
I'm very disappointed reading into the lyrics in songs like BU2B.... and the title song, Clockwork Angels.....where Neil pretty much makes fun of people who raise their hands to the skies to praise and be thankful to God for all their blessings:
You promise every treasure, to the foolish and the wise
Goddesses of mystery, spirits in disguise
Every pleasure, we bow and close our eyes
Clockwork angels, promise every prize
Clockwork angels, spread their arms and sing
Synchronized and graceful, they move like living things
Goddesses of Light, of Sea and Sky and Land
Clockwork angels, the people raise their hands
As if to fly
.....in these lyrics I interupt the meaning that those who believe and raise their hands to the skies in belief of God and his Angels are FOOLS.
I was also very very disappointed when Geddy Lee was asked a question about God and his answer was, "the only time I've ever prayed was on the tennis court."
All very disappointing gentleman of Rush. I will pray for each of you to find the TRUE answers in your lives.
As for my 37th concert of Rush, who is schedule to appear at Riverbend July 2nd, 2013 in Cincinnati, Ohio...... my concert streak ends right here and now.....as I have to make a stand for what I believe in: the God of the Bible.
Wishing all of you reading this to seek out your own answers to yoru own life. For me, it's God.
Neil Peart has never said a single time what his personal beliefs are. People are trying to assume what his beliefs are through the music he writes. Neil is a very private man, and he's entitled to his privacy. His personal beliefs doesn't matter. Canada and the United States both have religious freedom. If he's personally an atheist who cares? Geddy Lee is Jewish for Christ's sake! Are you going to ridicule him for not accepting Christ as his savior?
Clockwork Angels is a rock opera that takes place in an imaginary world that catalogues the journey of a young man who goes on an adventure instead of doing what he was told to do. The world he lives in is controlled by an omnipotent Watchmaker who maintains order through a strict caste-like system. He meets an Anarchist who has an opposing view of valuing personal freedom above all and that humans aren't meant to be treated like that. The story in short catalogues the boy's struggle with these opposing viewpoints, and it concludes with his choice.
There's nothing in the entire album about Neil Peart's personal beliefs. It's an album that tells a story, nothing less -- nothing more. There is an accompanying novel called Clockwork Angels by Kevin Anderson. It's a short novel, but it's quite good. This isn't the first time Rush has done a concept album. Cygnus X-1 catalogues a man's journey through space into a black hole and eventually meeting the Greek Gods. Where was your outrage with that? In 2112 he wrote a story of Earth in 2112 controlled by the Priests of Syrinx who control the entire world's population through their religion and beliefs. Where was your outrage with that?
Maybe you should stop being a Rush fan because the music seems to be above your intelligence level.
I was told a particular version of The Book of Genesis that included the following quote: "...And you shall be called woman because I have taken you from the womb of man." This was in reference to the creation of Eve. I was also told that the this was the very word of God and infallible truth as were all the words in the Bible. At a mere ten years old I dared to ask if the passage quoted above made sense in any other language beside English. Do the words for "Womb" and "man" combine phonetically in other languages to form a word meaning "woman." I already knew that in Spanish and Latin they did not. When asked why I posed the question I answered honestly. English wasn't formed as language until the middle ages. This word of God was the ancient text of more than 3,000 years. Why would such a sentence have been in the bible if didn't make linguistic sense when it was written? Why would it only work in one not-yet-existing language? It seemed to me that the sentence was added after English was formed and therefore so too might other passages. Which ones were original and which ones were "updates"?
Well, rather than rewarding my logic and insight and/or offering me an explanation that would satisfy the question, I was instead punished for bringing it up. Knuckles beaten , stand in the corner, don't pollute the other children type stuff. Such is the fear of exposure that dogma creates. You see once you say that something temporal must be true because our very faith depends upon it being so, it is highly disruptive when that thing you said must be true isn't. (See Galileo, See Copernicus).
My point is this. Religion is a good thing until handcuffs you. Any religious person should embrace our ability as humans to continue to evaluate and observe the universe in which we reside and form new truths as they are revealed to us. If God exists then he or she gave us brains to solve problems, make medicines, and help each other. He or she would not want you to close your mind on his or her behalf. Those who would chose to believe that faith and science are enemies have failed at both. clinging dogmatically to one or the other keeps you from reaching your potential intellectually and spiritually. For further advice from Mr. Peart himself I recommend a thorough listening of the complete song "Hemispheres". Mr. Peart is not faithless, he just refuses to be willfully blind on its behalf.
Finally, please don't think that just because someone writes something that they are promoting it as a position. Poe often wrote in the first person from the perspective of a maniacal killer. No one I can think of has yet to suggest that he was proponent of actual murder. Sometimes writers write just to get the rest of us to think. Perhaps Mr. Peart has succeeded at doing just that.