This material showed a shift in the group's sound towards more concise arrangements and radio-friendly songs (such as "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill"), though their progressive rock blueprint is still evident on "Jacob's Ladder" and the nine-minute closer "Natural Science."

In June 1979, the band finished its eight-month tour of the United States, Canada and Europe in support of its sixth studio album, Hemispheres (1978).

The tour had taken its toll on the group and, for the first time in the band's history, each member agreed to take a six-week break before starting work on a new album.

[5][6] They set up their equipment in the basement and put down what Peart described as "a giant hodge-podge of instrumental mish-mash," initially titled "Uncle Tounouse", during the first session.

[7] Peart attempted to write a song based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the 14th-century epic set in King Arthur's time, but it was abandoned after it was deemed too out of place with the other material.

[5] With some material prepared for Permanent Waves, Rush moved into Sound Kitchen Studio in northern Toronto, Ontario[6] with their producer Terry Brown to put their ideas onto tape.

[5][6] In September 1979, Rush headed to Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec to record Permanent Waves with Brown and engineer Paul Northfield.

The water sounds at the beginning of the song were created by splashing oars in the private lake, performed by Brown and studio assistant Kim Bickerdike, and the natural echo outside was used to record various instruments.

[5] Upon the album's completion, Lifeson felt unsure about the record and for a period of time, could not listen to it due to his feeling that it failed to present any fresh ideas.

The group had experimented with reggae-influenced riffs in the studio and had come up with a reggae introduction to "Working Man" on their tours, so they decided to incorporate a passage into "The Spirit of Radio," as Lifeson said, "to make us smile and have a little fun.

The title is a reference to the natural phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, which in turn is named after the Biblical ladder to heaven on which Jacob saw angels ascending and descending in a vision.

[9][11] While the band began stepping back from the epic song format on this album, the closing track "Natural Science" is more than nine minutes long and is composed of three distinct movements: I) Tide Pools, II) Hyperspace, and III) Permanent Waves.