The Weapon

This is about the cold war nuclear arms race.

The line, "Thy kingdoms will be done" is from The Lord's Prayer in the New Testament, Matthew (6:9-13): "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."

Alex Lifeson (Guitar magazine, July 1984): "When we write a song I think in context of a space for the solo. It's left at that. We work on the arrangement to get it tight. When we go into the studio to get the basic tracks down, I spend a couple of days and start doing my solos then. That is usually the first time I think about or work on my solos. Occasionally, I'll throw something down while we're writing just to fill in that space. Very seldom do I use anything. On 'The Weapon' I used a couple of things that came out during those writing sessions. Normally I spend a couple of days on solos and work from scratch. We work on getting a sound. I try to get a feel for what the solo should be doing and then pursue different directions. I might pursue something for hours and do a collage. I'll drop in a whole different section to see how it feels. Then I relearn the solo when we get ready to go back on the road."