The Rush song Geddy Lee wants to delete from history
For most bands, picking out a favourite song of their own is almost impossible. Not least because all of the songs created had their value at one point, but because picking a preferred piece of your work is a little too indulgent, even for rock stars. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped countless journalists from posing that very question to each and every grand rock band there has ever been, including Rush.
The prog-rock trio, formed of Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson, and Geddy Lee, had to navigate a similar barrage of questions whenever they conducted an interview. However, the more interesting question is: Which songs do those rock bands really hate? Which songs made their toes curl, their souls shudder, and their ears recoil in horror?
Bands hating their own songs is nothing new. Even the most accomplished groups that ever set the world alight with their music have created songs they admit deserve the garbage can. From a technical perspective, Rush are among the most competent groups in history, but in their expert opinion, they didn’t always get it right.
Famously, John Lennon was notoriously bitter about a selection of The Beatles’ work, which he later grew to hate. This is a common trope within music, and if given the opportunity, most artists would choose to delete certain tracks from their back catalogue, including Rush’s bassist, Geddy Lee.
For Lee, however, it wasn’t a collection of songs that he felt some shame over like Lennon; it was just one track that ranked as the band’s worst. Most Rush fans reading this will likely already have correctly guessed the song in question is ‘Tai-Shan’ from the band’s 1987 record Hold Your Fire. The track is widely cited as one of the group’s poorest, and Lee offered up some reasons why during a Reddit Q&A session.
“It’s just one of those songs that Alex [Lifeson, guitar] and I like to make fun of. At the time I was singing it, I wasn’t standing on a mountaintop,” Lee jokes.
However, the real reason Lee wasn’t a fan of the track was that, unlike many of Neil Peart’s lyrical compositions, the vocalist couldn’t connect with the song: “Because it was such a personal song for Neil [Peart, drums], and it was such a great moment for me, Alex and I had a hard time putting ourselves in it. And guys in bands really need all the ammunition we can get to make fun of each other. It just sort of landed on ‘Tai-Shan’.”
Although Lee wasn’t the band’s primary lyricist and left that part of the songwriting process to Peart, he still needed to wholeheartedly believe in every word left his mouth as a vocalist. As Lee didn’t have faith in the creation, he knew it would be impossible for fans to form a bond with ‘Tai-Shan’.
Over the years, the song has been routinely cited as Rush’s worst by other members of the group, too. Guitarist Alex Lifeson once slammed the track, noting: “Tai-Shan’ is one of the worst, easily.” A track written about a holy mountain in China may appear perfect Rush fodder; however, there’s something integrally flimsy about the track.
Considering Peart wrote the lyrics to the song while sitting atop the holy mountain, casting his eye across ancient lands, it was some achievement to make the song feel so inconsequential. Furthermore, the band even invented a new instrument for ‘Tai-Shan’; as Peart acknowledged on Roadshow, they used “a self-made recording of a plastic water bottle struck by a toothbrush.”
Lee also described it as “an error” and a song they “should have known better” than to make. However, this very experimentation was the foundation of Rush’s place in music history. Of course, it’s hard to disagree with two-thirds of the band who consider this Rush’s worst song; however, it is as vital to their sound as ‘2112‘ or ‘Tom Sawyer’.
If Rush had played it safe at every step of their career, they’d have never been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It took courage for them to break down new ground musically, and if they didn’t have this attribute, Rush would never have stood out from their peers. Although, with the benefit of hindsight, few would grieve the loss of ‘Tai-Shan’, it contains the critical progressive ingredients that made Rush renowned. Moreover, their experimental instincts typically paid off magnificently, therefore, ‘Tai-Shan’ represents only a minuscule black mark on an otherwise faultless legacy.
