‘Limelight’: the Rush song about how Neil Peart hates fame
Not everyone is coming into the music business to become famous. Outside of the great music that’s been made by The Beatles and The Who, their goal was never to deal with the hysteria that their work caused in fans around the world. Most artists aren’t equipped for that level of fame, and Neil Peart realised he could do without it once Rush started to get famous.
In the early days, Rush was always known as a niche band, playing progressive rock songs that would have left acts like Genesis and Yes winded. As the band began to streamline their sound after 2112, Peart was beginning to tire of the constant press junkets that happened after every show. When it came time to record Moving Pictures, Peart channelled all of his uncomfortable feelings into ‘Limelight’.
Geddy Lee mentioned Peart getting desensitised to the sudden rush of fame, saying (via Songfacts), “he was having a very difficult time dealing with. I mean, we all were, but I think he was having the most difficulty of the three of us adjusting; in the sense that I think he’s more sensitive to more things than Alex [Lifeson] and I are”.
Throughout each verse, Peart is talking about how he was pushed down an unlikely road and needed to put up barriers just to keep himself sane. Although he appreciated the adulation from the fans, the more rabid fans tended to make him uncomfortable. The more famous he got the more the ferocity of fandom increased. The key line in the song comes in the second verse, where Lee intones, “I can’t pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend.” No matter how much fans might love Rush, his natural introversion gets in the way of Peart opening up.
Lifeson also mentioned having to keep their egos in check when they started to become famous, saying, “We were very, very careful not to let it get the best of us. That sudden success can really change you, and you become lazy, and you constantly have other people doing things for you, and you lose perspective on why you’re there and really what you’re doing”.
Peart’s uneasy demeanour only got worse when the band went from niche artists to global superstars, becoming one of the biggest bands of 1981 and selling lorry loads of albums. As the years went by, Peart got a better handle on his fame, albeit on his own terms. While he may have played like a madman in his prime, most of his public appearances were reserved for the stage.
After each show, he would ride off on his motorcycle to the next gig without doing any of the meet-and-greets. Whereas most artists would have relished their time in the spotlight, Peart wrote this song to know what he was getting himself into, saying, “Success puts a strain on the friendship, and it puts the strains on your day-to-day relationship, and it’s something that we did go through, you know, we’re not immune to it. But we were able to overcome it just through our closeness, and we were able to help each other with difficulties like that”.
Rush was meant to be the world’s most popular cult band, and Peart was using this song as advice for himself before the huge crowds started rolling in.
