Gary Lee Weinrib and Aleksandar Živojinović (better known as Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush) are both big car fans.
No no, big fans of cars, not necessarily fans of big cars...
Not sure about Neil Peart - I think he's more into motorcycles.
I actually met Alex once, and he reads
Wheels faithfully - or at least did at the time.
And Geddy has owned a variety of interesting cars over the years - at one point, a rare Renault Alpine Gordini.
Which has always made me wonder - how come in the Rush song 'Red Barchetta', Geddy pronounces 'barchetta' incorrectly?
'Barchetta' means 'little boat' in Italian; the word has often been used to describe smallish two-seat open Italian sports cars like the one he's singing about here.
Again in Italian, 'ch' is pronounced as a 'hard C', as in 'chianti' - 'kee-AUNT-ee'.
So, 'barchetta' is 'bar-KETT-a', not 'bar-CHET-a'.
I would have guessed a car fan like Geddy would have known this. If not him, then Alex, Neil (who is such a stickler for detail), the producer, a roadie - SOMEBODY - would have caught this.
Cool song though. Probably not ex-OPP boss Julian Fantino's favourite song though, because it is essentially about street racing...
BTW, I assume the 'alloy air car' in that song is a silver Porsche.
And that of course is pronounced 'POR-sha'.
BTW (2), Geddy did a great job throwing out the first pitch at the Jays' opening game last week (in addition to cars and wine, Geddy is a huge fan of baseball). Given how R. A. Dickey did later that evening (and again Sunday afternoon) maybe Geddy should have stayed on the mound...
Comments