San Francisco Chronicle pop culture critic Peter Hartlaub describes himself as the San Francisco Chronicle's biggest Rush fan and earlier today he posted an article titled Driverless cars and Red Barchettas: Did Rush predict a Google-controlled future? In the article Hartlaub performs a tongue-in-cheek analysis of Rush's Red Barchetta as it relates to Google's recent unveiling of the latest version of its driverless vehicle, a two-seater that has no steering wheel or other driver controls. His analysis brings him to the conclusion that the white haired uncle in the song is none other than George Lucas:

... I've listened to this song 17,827 times in my life, and never understood the second and third lines in this stanza until I looked them up today. But this all fits together now.

"The valley" = Lucas Valley Road.
"One-lane bridge" = Nicasio Valley Road Bridge.
"The riverside" = Nicasio Creek.
The "fireside" and "farm" = Skywalker Ranch.

Does George Lucas pay off the government to look away from his property? Does he secretly install a cloaking device above Skywalker Ranch to jam the Google Earth sensors? I'm pretty sure the answers to these questions are somewhere in the lyrics of Signals, Rush's follow-up album after Moving Pictures. Listening very closely for clues in "The Analog Kid."

Is it too late for humanity? Probably. But it's not too late to declare Neil Peart a prophet. Someone should go write his words on the subway walls. Or at least apologize for all the "worst song lyrics" lists he has appeared on.

I'm going to go hug my children now. You should do the same. Then I'm working on my theory that "2112" from Rush's 2112 is coming true as well. It all starts when the public schools cut their music programs, people...

You can read the entire article at the San Francisco Chronicle website here.