Songfacts®:

• Tempest is a 1981 Atari arcade video game in which the player controls a claw-shaped spaceship. The objective of Tempest is to survive as long as possible and clock up as many points as you can by clearing the screen of enemies. The video game is featured prominently in the music video for Rush's 1982 track "Subdivisions."
  
  This long and intoxicating track is named after the game. Grant explained to BBC 6Music's Lauren Laverne the song is about his obsession with Tempest as well as "the cathedrals of the United States" - the shopping malls. He added that it's a nostalgic look at going to local mall arcades in his youth.
• Grant told The Sun: "The song is about American escapism in the early Eighties - from Reagan, cocaine, money, hedge funds - by playing this beautiful game, which makes some of the most beautiful sounds."
• The song is a hymn to teenage loneliness, as Grant finds refuge from intolerance in Atari video games. "That's one of my favorite tracks I've ever done in my life," he told Uncut. "When I heard it I felt a little bit teary. I felt like, wow you doing some of the things you've always dreamt about. You're achieving the sounds and the atmospheres that really move you."