Emotion Detector

I'll attempt to pick this song piece for piece.

"When we lift the covers from our feelings We expose our insecure spots Trust is just as rare as devotion-- Forgive us our cynical thoughts"

This is pretty obvious. When you express your feelings you show your emotional weaknesses, and it is hard to trust someone to share your feeling with. So forgive us when we don't want to express our feelings.

"If we need too much attention -- Not content with being cool We must throw ourselves wide open And start acting like a fool"

Perhaps this means that if you want attention, sometimes you will have to risk being "cool".

"If we need too much approval Then the cuts can seem too cruel"

However, if you want to be cool, then getting laughed at or insulted will be very harsh.

"Right to the heart of the matter Right to the beautiful part Illusions are painfully shattered Right where discovery starts In the secret wells of emotion Buried deep in our hearts"

This is probably talking about your true emotions.(the beautiful part) And when you discover who you really are, the illusion of yourself is painfully shattered. To find yourself though, you'll have to dig deep into your heart.

"It's true that love can change us But never quite enough Sometimes we are too tender Sometimes we're too tough"

When you find true love, you can be changed but not enough to become a new person. You'll always be too passive or too dominate.

"If we get too much attention It gets hard to overrule So often fragile power turns To scorn and ridicule Sometimes our big splashes Are just ripples in the pool"

If you get too much attention and want to be less famous, it'll be hard. So often your fragile power turns on you and you'll get insulted. In the end, your big moments are just small events in the big picture.

It seems like Rush has two different "stories" going on to show the difference between who you truly are and what you try to be.