What was the fastest song Neil Peart could play?
Canadian progressive hard rock trio Rush was an example of a band that never followed any trend, never tried to be anyone else, and existed on a musical island unto their own. Prog but far too much wry awareness to be lumped in with Yes or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, hard rock but lost in boyish escapism of science fiction and fantasy that left half the metalheads cold. Even their commercial trajectory is inside out, gaining traction right as punk was lighting a fire underneath the stadium monsters Rush aspired to rub shoulders with.
They hit their commercial zenith in the early 1980s. Adding big phat synthesizers to their power virtuosity and embracing the MTV age, Rush condensed their prior complex arrangements into terser, more radio-friendly cuts while retaining their eccentric appeal.
Releasing the fan favourite Moving Pictures in 1981, its third single, ‘Tom Sawyer’, proved to be the band’s signature song and a further development in Rush’s growing fascination with synths with its opening Oberheim OB-X snarls.
“‘Tom Sawyer’ was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster,” drummer and principal songwriter Neil Peart told the Rush Backstage Club in 1985. “His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern-day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be—namely me, I guess.”
Such a stridently insurgent lyrical ambition required a suitably beefy songcraft befitting Mark Twain’s adventurous literary creation. Lucky for Peart, master bassist Geddy Lee and legato guitarist Alex Lifeson were in the gang and combined set about crafting their opus single. Backed with a funky 4/4 rhythm and its celebrated instrumental 7/8 rideout, Peart has stated that despite his artistic satisfaction with writing and performing ‘Tom Sawyer’, it’s a punishing ordeal every time he’s behind the kit to play it.
“Tom Sawyer remains so difficult to play. Although it seems a slow tempo my right hand most of the time is going about as fast as it’ll go and every beat is full force foot,” Peart confessed on The Hour in 2011. “My feet and hands are playing full force for that whole song so just to execute it with strength and smoothness, and I mentioned that duality before is something that I’ve worked all these years in drumming.”
While Peart poured blood and sweat into his complex drum pattern, Lifeson revealed his much breezier time in the studio to Guitar World in 2007: “I winged it. Honest! I came in, did five takes, then went off and had a cigarette. I’m at my best for the first two takes; after that, I overthink everything and I lose the spark.”
Forged in idiosyncratic thematic foundations and given life the only way Rush can, ‘Tom Sawyer’ was a key piece of work for the band, pushing them to the next strata of global prog stardom.
