I have known Neil Peart for over forty years. Known of Neil Peart for forty years? Listened to Neil Peart for forty years? At the very least the music and words of this man. I did not know him. He was simply a man, a musician, who performed on some of the most listened-to albums in my music collection - old fashion vinyl. And somehow, through those albums, that music, he had more of an influence on me than most others who were far closer to me.
He was an amazing drummer. There is no disputing that. You can hear it. You can see it. For me good drummers are almost more a pleasure to watch. Good singers pull you into the song. Live, a singer’s presence, their gaze, their place on the stage – all effect the song you are listening to them perform. The song, the voice and the singer must be one for a song to work. Drummers though? It is different. I can just be mesmerized by what a drummer does. Forget the song, I can just watch them go, ignoring all else that is beyond their drum kit.
Neal Peart had that. In the end though, this essay has nothing to do with that.
No, what got me was his lyrics. He opened up the world of ideas to me. Rush when I first heard them continued what I had started with Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, and so forth. With Rush, however, there was these lyrics, these words - these ideas.
When it came to my music, to what I listened to, it was all about the guitar. It was just loud guitar, guitars, tone. Often distorted. Amplified. Sometimes it was quiet picking. I liked the contrasts. Still do. And all of it over a beat that just drove and propelled. Amidst this were vocals that challenged, Whether it be Steven Tyler, Philip Lynott, or Geddy Lee. They provoked. Some with such a range, some with just a certain voice. Sometimes howled, sometimes whispered, sometimes screamed. There was no crooning here. That was rock music for me in 1978. It largely still is.
And Rush was very much part of that scene, but their lyrics were different. I was a sophomore in a high school English class when I realized that their song “Xanadu” was a nod to Samuel Coleridge and his poem “Kubla Khan”. Likewise, it was around the same time that I discovered that 2112 was a recreation of Ayn Rand’s book “Anthem”.
As much as I loved Zeppelin, I never did track down Tolkien’s Hobbit and all. That is despite not only Zeppelin, but one of my local favs, a cover-acts out of Easton PA, Gandalf. Nope. Still did not read Tolkien. Ayn Rand’s “Anthem”, however, I did track down. I was always reading something, but before this, it was about World War II and the mafia. I loved books about Patton, Rommel, and Lucky Luciano. I kid you not. Rush and Anthem changed all of that.
And from there I became obsessed with Ayn Rand. I read much of her work. Bought it hook line and sinker for a period.
And who is Ayn Rand? She is a novelist. She is known for Anthem, a short futuristic novelette. She is known also for the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. the latter two are larger, more developed works, proper novels. In each of her stories, the central protagonists struggled to create. Meaning and value for Rand were purely found in the individual's act of creation.
Rand went on, based upon her literary work, to develop a philosophy centered upon these acts of creation. Her later writing became entirely focused upon the development of a philosophy driven by this theme. She embraced the idea of a complete philosophy, beginning with a metaphysics, an epistemology, ethics, etc. Her work here was largely based upon and began with the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle.
Her work in this sphere challenged modern philosophy. She asserted that it was modern philosophy that was had lost its way and that had ultimately led us to the struggles described in her novels. Likewise, it was for her modern philosophy that had led to socialism and communism, what she saw evil and corrupt systems, as they abandoned the individual. Again, all of this began with the struggles she depicted in her literary work.Out of this she ultimately arrived at an ardent defense of the capitalism.
And for me, all of this began with Neil Peart and Rush. I had gone from Neil Peart's tale of a man discovering a guitar in the song "2112" to this. I had gone from buying every Rush album to buying every Any Rand book. I embraced all of it. I ultimately did abandon her ideas, but regardless, it was her writing that inspired me to go and pursue and complete a degree, a BA in philosophy. I regret not pursuing philosophy further, but such is life. If I had not listened to and embraced the music, the lyrics, of Rush and Neil Peart, I would not have known any of it.
So there is a debt there. Something is owed to Neil Peart. To leave it there, however, would not be a full accounting. His lyrics are simply more than just references to an interesting and controversial author. It was not, however, till late 2019 that I fully realized this. I somehow arrived back at Rush a few months ago. I did now and again listen to their stuff, but musically, I had moved on. They like all bands evolved, and likewise my musical taste had changed. At some point I just no longer related as much to the band, to their sound. Though I never stopped listening to La Villa Strangiato! Yet that song is an instrumental.
Somehow last year I did return to them and realized that Peart was really doing something quite interesting, almost intellectual history. I somehow, while on my train into Grand Central, listening their album, Farewell to Kings arrived at this. The various Rush songs that had inspired me to pursue philosophy 40 years ago, were not outliers or one-offs. Neal Peart I suspect had, through his lyrics been exploring some of the same woods and forests, some of the same briar patches, as myself and many others.
He was an amazing drummer. There is no disputing that. You can hear it. You can see it. For me good drummers are almost more a pleasure to watch. Good singers pull you into the song. Live, a singer’s presence, their gaze, their place on the stage – all effect the song you are listening to them perform. The song, the voice and the singer must be one for a song to work. Drummers though? It is different. I can just be mesmerized by what a drummer does. Forget the song, I can just watch them go, ignoring all else that is beyond their drum kit.
Neal Peart had that. In the end though, this essay has nothing to do with that.
No, what got me was his lyrics. He opened up the world of ideas to me. Rush when I first heard them continued what I had started with Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, and so forth. With Rush, however, there was these lyrics, these words - these ideas.
When it came to my music, to what I listened to, it was all about the guitar. It was just loud guitar, guitars, tone. Often distorted. Amplified. Sometimes it was quiet picking. I liked the contrasts. Still do. And all of it over a beat that just drove and propelled. Amidst this were vocals that challenged, Whether it be Steven Tyler, Philip Lynott, or Geddy Lee. They provoked. Some with such a range, some with just a certain voice. Sometimes howled, sometimes whispered, sometimes screamed. There was no crooning here. That was rock music for me in 1978. It largely still is.
And Rush was very much part of that scene, but their lyrics were different. I was a sophomore in a high school English class when I realized that their song “Xanadu” was a nod to Samuel Coleridge and his poem “Kubla Khan”. Likewise, it was around the same time that I discovered that 2112 was a recreation of Ayn Rand’s book “Anthem”.
As much as I loved Zeppelin, I never did track down Tolkien’s Hobbit and all. That is despite not only Zeppelin, but one of my local favs, a cover-acts out of Easton PA, Gandalf. Nope. Still did not read Tolkien. Ayn Rand’s “Anthem”, however, I did track down. I was always reading something, but before this, it was about World War II and the mafia. I loved books about Patton, Rommel, and Lucky Luciano. I kid you not. Rush and Anthem changed all of that.
And from there I became obsessed with Ayn Rand. I read much of her work. Bought it hook line and sinker for a period.
And who is Ayn Rand? She is a novelist. She is known for Anthem, a short futuristic novelette. She is known also for the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. the latter two are larger, more developed works, proper novels. In each of her stories, the central protagonists struggled to create. Meaning and value for Rand were purely found in the individual's act of creation.
Rand went on, based upon her literary work, to develop a philosophy centered upon these acts of creation. Her later writing became entirely focused upon the development of a philosophy driven by this theme. She embraced the idea of a complete philosophy, beginning with a metaphysics, an epistemology, ethics, etc. Her work here was largely based upon and began with the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle.
Her work in this sphere challenged modern philosophy. She asserted that it was modern philosophy that was had lost its way and that had ultimately led us to the struggles described in her novels. Likewise, it was for her modern philosophy that had led to socialism and communism, what she saw evil and corrupt systems, as they abandoned the individual. Again, all of this began with the struggles she depicted in her literary work.Out of this she ultimately arrived at an ardent defense of the capitalism.
And for me, all of this began with Neil Peart and Rush. I had gone from Neil Peart's tale of a man discovering a guitar in the song "2112" to this. I had gone from buying every Rush album to buying every Any Rand book. I embraced all of it. I ultimately did abandon her ideas, but regardless, it was her writing that inspired me to go and pursue and complete a degree, a BA in philosophy. I regret not pursuing philosophy further, but such is life. If I had not listened to and embraced the music, the lyrics, of Rush and Neil Peart, I would not have known any of it.
So there is a debt there. Something is owed to Neil Peart. To leave it there, however, would not be a full accounting. His lyrics are simply more than just references to an interesting and controversial author. It was not, however, till late 2019 that I fully realized this. I somehow arrived back at Rush a few months ago. I did now and again listen to their stuff, but musically, I had moved on. They like all bands evolved, and likewise my musical taste had changed. At some point I just no longer related as much to the band, to their sound. Though I never stopped listening to La Villa Strangiato! Yet that song is an instrumental.
Somehow last year I did return to them and realized that Peart was really doing something quite interesting, almost intellectual history. I somehow, while on my train into Grand Central, listening their album, Farewell to Kings arrived at this. The various Rush songs that had inspired me to pursue philosophy 40 years ago, were not outliers or one-offs. Neal Peart I suspect had, through his lyrics been exploring some of the same woods and forests, some of the same briar patches, as myself and many others.
I can see it now, the fever of Rand gone, and likewise catching up to Peart regarding others he read and his thoughts on them. The song "Farewell to Kings" alludes to the enlightenment era. It is the abandonment of faith, the divine. Not just the elimination of kings, but the embrace of reason. Historically, you can see it in the American and French Revolutions – two literal farewells to kings or queens, and almost simultaneously - the Enlightenment.
On that same album we have Xanadu, a homage to Coleridge, a romantic poet who wrote and published the poem Kubla Khan in the early nineteenth century. Peart has transitioned from the Enlightenment to Romanticism – from reason to wisdom or better yet mysticism. It is through an ancient text that he finds his way to this mystical place and immortality.
Go back to 2112, the album preceding Rush’s Farewell To Kings. Peart’s protagonist talks of his discovery of a guitar that is then demolished by the elders of his community. It is so very much like Rand’s protagonist in Anthem. In the song Xanadu, however, we have one who searches out the mystical and becomes immortal. Both songs involve lone individuals. Both involve discovery, actually, recovery, or re-discovery. In both, they discover what had been. A theme explored by many and starting with Plato?
Rush ends the album, Farewell to Kings with Cygnus X-1 Book 1, a bit of science fiction, which was another of Peart’s fascinations. The tale of Cygnus X-1 is picked up again in their next album, Hemispheres. It is the whole of side one of Hemispheres. Somehow, the dash of science fiction introduced in Farewell to Kings, however, now becomes an exploration of the Nietzschean theme of Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo, the son of Zeus in Greek mythology; the god of the sun, and bringer of reason, and Dionysus – the god of wine, chaos, of emotions and instincts. Nietzsche again is in the Romantic tradition, but he is later in that tradition.
Nietzsche, in his work, The Birth of Tragedy explores the tension between reason and emotion. Peart through his lyrics and science fiction, like Nietzsche, and Rand too, likewise explores the tension between these themes. For Peart, and Nietzsche, both gods are needed. For Peart, his lyrics, his story is again of recovery, or rediscovery. It entails a return to Cygnus X-1 and reclaiming what or who was lost – ultimately the balance between reason and emotion.
Nietzsche, in his work, The Birth of Tragedy explores the tension between reason and emotion. Peart through his lyrics and science fiction, like Nietzsche, and Rand too, likewise explores the tension between these themes. For Peart, and Nietzsche, both gods are needed. For Peart, his lyrics, his story is again of recovery, or rediscovery. It entails a return to Cygnus X-1 and reclaiming what or who was lost – ultimately the balance between reason and emotion.
Perhaps, I go too far, but this is what I see here, what I find in Peart’s lyrics. Themes found in Greek tragedy, and likewise pondered by nineteenth and twentieth century romantic thinkers.
Jump ahead to Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Subdivisions – the next three Rush albums after Hemispheres. It is again similar themes, similar tensions. The title song on Permanent Waves explores the relation between art and commerce on the airwaves followed by a song titled Free Will. The song Subdivisions for me is an exploration of the struggle for self-knowledge in our schools and all they entail, amidst the sprawl of suburbia. In Subdivisions, Peart embraces a real-estate term. I, however, always took it to be about the cliques and sub-cultures found in those high school hallways, and the alienation that results. For me it was sociology. It is the title of the album.
So again, Peart and Rush start with the Enlightenment in Farewell To Kings. They find their way to Romanticism in Hemispheres, and ultimately arrive at the late 20th century. Lyrics and songs exploring the self in relation to other, in relation to capitalism, in relation to schools and suburbia. Throughout, Peart is pondering how one makes art, how one expresses one’s self. Whether it be Nietzsche, or an exploration of art for markets, or the embrace of poets and authors, or even the embrace of Mark Twain’s favorite; they all explore the challenge of self-expression in a shared world.
I stop. It is late in another night of exploring these themes. This started as things I pondered while listening again to Rush’s music in recent months – my hour long train rides in and out of the city. And then there was Peart's passing. I point to something here. However you catalogue Neil Peart’s lyrics; they did and do provoke me.
So I. . . we still have his music, his lyrics, but the world will not be the same without this individual. He will be missed.
Jump ahead to Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Subdivisions – the next three Rush albums after Hemispheres. It is again similar themes, similar tensions. The title song on Permanent Waves explores the relation between art and commerce on the airwaves followed by a song titled Free Will. The song Subdivisions for me is an exploration of the struggle for self-knowledge in our schools and all they entail, amidst the sprawl of suburbia. In Subdivisions, Peart embraces a real-estate term. I, however, always took it to be about the cliques and sub-cultures found in those high school hallways, and the alienation that results. For me it was sociology. It is the title of the album.
So again, Peart and Rush start with the Enlightenment in Farewell To Kings. They find their way to Romanticism in Hemispheres, and ultimately arrive at the late 20th century. Lyrics and songs exploring the self in relation to other, in relation to capitalism, in relation to schools and suburbia. Throughout, Peart is pondering how one makes art, how one expresses one’s self. Whether it be Nietzsche, or an exploration of art for markets, or the embrace of poets and authors, or even the embrace of Mark Twain’s favorite; they all explore the challenge of self-expression in a shared world.
I stop. It is late in another night of exploring these themes. This started as things I pondered while listening again to Rush’s music in recent months – my hour long train rides in and out of the city. And then there was Peart's passing. I point to something here. However you catalogue Neil Peart’s lyrics; they did and do provoke me.
So I. . . we still have his music, his lyrics, but the world will not be the same without this individual. He will be missed.
