It was released as the second single from their 1982 album Signals and reached number 19 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
[1] "The Analog Kid" is a moderately fast song, and was originally written in the key of A major.
[4] Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart wrote the lyrics for the song at first as a companion piece to "Digital Man", a song that Rush had started working on in late 1981, and presented it to bassist Geddy Lee.
They eventually decided on the opposite on what the words may suggest, with Peart describing the track as "a very up-tempo rocker, with some kind of a dynamic contrast for the choruses".
[6] Greg Prato of AllMusic, in a review for the album, said that the song was an example that Rush did not forget to "rock out" after adding synthesizers to their sound.