Be One of Us #50 - "The Spirit of Radio"

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Because I'm confident that you'll figure it out within a couple of posts, I'm not even going to explain this series. Suffice it to say, I cut it off at 50 songs, and I'm doing them in no particular order, based on what I'm feeling on that day. But why not start off with a bang, guaranteed to alienate a few of you right off the bat? We are at #50: "The Spirit of Radio" by Rush. If you were lucky enough to listen to FM Rock Radio in the 1970's, you were in for quite the treat. The stations followed a freeform format, with the on-air talent playing whatever they thought was good. CFNY-FM in Toronto was one such station, and they held the distinction of being one of the very few radio stations that played Rush early in the band's career. In 1980, for their album, Permanent Waves, Rush repaid the favor by recording "The Spirit of Radio" (CFNY's slogan.) At the same time, the tune lambasted rock radio's move from freeform to commercial formats. The song also saw Rush moving away from their prog rock roots and into a more radio-friendly direction, albeit with a few tempo changes, and even a reggae section. It is their highest-charting single in the UK, peaking at #13, and reached #22 in their native Canada, but stalled at #51 on the Billboard Hot 100. Because Rush was such a great live band, I've linked to a boffo concert performance, one in which they treat the crowd to an instrumental medley of parts of early classics such as "Anthem," "Bastille Day," and "A Passage to Bangkok" prior to launching into a full-blown rock out version of "The Spirit." Bloody (insert F-Bomb here) awesome! (Info verified by Wikipedia)