The corny Rush song Geddy Lee couldn’t stand: “It sounds kinda dinky to me”
Getting the kind of freedom that Geddy Lee had in Rush is what every single rock and roll band dreams of.
The Canadian icons were about to become one of the forgotten casualties of the 1970s for a while before 2112 started everything up again, and their permission to do pretty much anything they wanted on record was like getting a creative golden ticket whenever they walked into the studio. They had to pay their dues before they got there, and it’s not like Lee was in love with everything that the band worked on before making their progressive classics.
Because while Rush has always done what they wanted to do, it’s not like everything is spotless. Even when they were making great songs on records like Vapor Trails, it’s hard enough trying to hear the original pressing of the record without wanting to rip your headphones out because of how loud it is. There are blemishes for sure, but the further back you go, the more noticeable they are.
Rush were capable of doing a lot of great things on all their records, but going through their debut, they clearly had to get a lot of Zeppelin worship out of their system. Lee certainly had the chops to scream the same way that Robert Plant does, but if you look at the lyrics behind that first record, Neil Peart couldn’t have come on board fast enough. The drummer’s lyrics are an acquired taste, but they’re much better than the goofy lyrics about sex like ‘Need Some Love’ or ‘In the Mood’.
And if you look at the debut and Fly By Night side by side, you’d swear they were coming from two completely different bands. Their fascination with groups like Yes had become their greatest strength, and while they did have a few moments where things simply didn’t come together, it was better for them to take risks on tunes like ‘By Tor and the Snow Dog’ and ‘Anthem’ than play the same bluesy riffs they were used to.
But if there was one complaint that Lee had with the album, it would be the title track. Despite having a solid hook, Lee felt that it was the cheesiest thing they could have written at the time, saying, “I know it’s well-loved now, but it’s always been one of my least favourite Rush songs. It sounds kinda dinky to me. To my taste there was something too sugary, too corny about the chorus. I must have liked it somewhat when we finished it, or it wouldn’t have made the record, but it’s never wrapped its arms around me.”
In all fairness to the song, though, this is the perfect middle ground that the band could have asked for at this point. They were never going to be going back to the days of playing tunes like ‘Working Man’, but having a chorus hook that strong was at least going to give them a chance on radio, even if it managed to only reach as high as 180 on the charts before slipping back off. But there is something to be said for the corniness of the tune.
Whereas Lee’s issue had more to do with the melody, it’s not like Peart exactly knocked it out of the park, either. There are great moments in the tune that show some progression like the moody bridge, but given the massive worlds that he would build throughout the rest of Rush’s catalogue, the drummer’s words here feel like him trying to write a soundtrack to a cartoon version of a quest into unknown lands.
This kind of theme would be explored a lot better in tunes like ‘The Camera Eye’ off of Moving Pictures, but the corniness does at least give the song some charm. If nothing else, the band were still cutting their teeth, and even if this was far from the best that they were capable of, it does serve as a nice sonic trailer for where they would be going once they had more albums under their belt.
