A sharp commentary on media-driven anxiety and the culture of fear — how news, advertising, and information overload create a state of perpetual neurosis. Peart catalogs the pressures of modern life with an almost manic energy that mirrors the condition he's describing.
The arrangement matches the lyrical anxiety with jittery rhythms and restless musical shifts. It's one of the most rhythmically complex tracks on the album, with Peart's drumming driving the sense of nervous energy.
Like "Digital Man" from Signals, the song proved remarkably prescient — its vision of information anxiety has only intensified in the decades since, making it more relevant now than when it was written.