The 10 best Alex Lifeson guitar moments
It doesn’t seem possible in a group as beloved as Rush, but Alex Lifeson might truly be underrated. The guitarist has spent the better part of 50 years crafting indelible and immediately identifiable guitar lines, mixing pure technical skill with unhinged spontaneity and imaginative exploration. But the fact that he was in a band with two of the most distinctive musicians of all time meant that Lifeson didn’t always get the proper attention he deserved.
As opposed to most lead guitarists, Lifeson’s role in Rush was to keep things together. While Neil Peart and Geddy Lee would go off exploring the outer regions of their instruments, Lifeson was often smack bang in the middle of things, holding down the main chord progression or central for a song. He certainly got his moments to shine as a soloist, but the novelty of seeing a drummer and a bass player who could match a guitarist’s shredding ability occasionally worked against Lifeson when it came to acclaim and attention.
Lifeson’s progression as a musician was probably the most complete of any member of Rush. While Peart and Lee added new skills to their technique (Lee found solace in keyboards during the 1980s while Peart gravitated towards jazz rhythms in the 1990s), Lifeson went from a Jimmy Page acolyte to a player with a completely unique sound in a little over a decade. By the time Rush entered the 1980s, Lifeson wasn’t just a great guitar player, but he had carved out a singular identity on the instrument. There are millions of guitar players all over the world, but the second that he plugs in, you know exactly when Alex Lifeson is playing.
Here, we’ve compiled ten of Lifeson’s greatest moments from across his storied career. Some obvious picks will show up, but we’ve gone into the Rush catalogue (and beyond) to try and find the songs that make Lifeson stand out the most. This list could have been twice as long, so apologies to ‘YYZ’, ‘Xanadu’, ‘Bastille Day’, ‘Closer to the Heart’, and a whole host of fantastic guitar performances that just missed the cut.
Alex Lifeson’s greatest guitar moments:
10. ‘Working Man’
Compared to the rest of Rush’s discography, their first album is a bit of an odd beast. Without having Neil Peart in the band yet, their brand of blues-infused rock and roll tends to veer towards derivative Led Zeppelin knockoffs rather than prog-rock pioneers. Although their sound wasn’t fully dialled in yet, Lifeson absolutely nailed the sound of rock and roll fury on the closer ‘Working Man’.
Known for the most simplistic lyrics of the group’s career, Lifeson goes on an extended solo for the ages, blending different sonic textures until he’s practically squeezing the life out of every single note towards the end. Rush may have been cribbing a few too many notes from Led Zeppelin, but in just a few minutes, Lifeson proved that he was a good enough guitarist to compete with Jimmy Page.
9. ‘Start Today’
Lifeson will forever be best remembered for his time in Rush, but just a few months before the release of Test for Echo in 1996, Lifeson put out his one and only studio album, Victor. With the help of some famous friends, including Primus leader Les Claypool and I Mother Earth vocalist Edwin, Lifeson laid down an album’s worth of hard rock tracks that proved he could be autonomous when he wanted to be.
‘Start Today’ is probably the most Rush-like track on the album, largely thanks to the piercing vocals of Dalbello throughout the track. But ‘Start Today’ also features some of Lifeson’s heaviest and most innovative riffing. Alternating between light verses and sledgehammer choruses, ‘Start Today’ also features one of Lifeson’s most open and abstract solos, with the guitarist playing with space and feedback in fascinating ways.
8. ‘Kid Gloves’
Even during Rush’s synth-heavy phase, Lifeson still found time to lay down a series of incredible guitar lines. With less of an emphasis on driving progressive metal, ‘Kid Gloves’ allowed Lifeson to get looser and less serious, which fit rights into his famously playful attitude. Without ever going into full-on goofiness, the ‘Kid Gloves’ solo is still a winking nod to Lifeson’s established style.
‘Kid Gloves’ was a personal favourite of Lifeson. “When I play it, I feel a certain confidence, almost like a prankster, which is not the way I am in real life at all,” he told MusicRadar. “What’s funny about it, too, is that it has a plot to it, and I only realized that after I recorded it for the first time – I never have a plot in mind when I’m recording solos; I always just kind of wing them. The ‘Kid Gloves’ solo guided me; it’s like it knew what it wanted to be and I just had to allow myself to follow.”
7. ‘The Analog Kid’
For a specific contingency of Rush fans, Signals marked the first time the band started going wrong. Even though there were a handful of great tunes on the album, like ‘Subdivisions’, most of the project became dominated by Lee’s keyboards, which would become a sticking point with Lifeson once the band moved away from traditional rock. Even in a keyboard-soaked song like ‘The Analog Kid’, Lifeson wouldn’t let anything get in the way of his solo.
Compared to the stuttering rhythms and squelchy sounds of the time, Lifeson’s take on the solo is almost bluesy, going through different modes before shredding with the force of any hair metal guitarist at the time. Regardless of the band’s penchant for keyboard melodies, this would be enough to win over any passive fan of guitar-focused music. Although Lifeson would make greater strides to tone down his sound on the group’s next handful of albums, a solo like this can only come from having a fire in one’s soul.
6. ‘Tom Sawyer’
Hey, it’s arguably Rush’s most famous song. What do you think of when someone says ‘Tom Sawyer’? The iconic opening synth bass drop? Neil Peart’s instant classic of a drum solo? Geddy Lee’s haunting lead vocal? Well, that’s all fine, but sitting right at the heart of ‘Tom Sawyer’ is one of Alex Lifeson’s most impressive guitar performances.
Lifeson spends most of ‘Tom Sawyer’ in support mode. But don’t let that fool you: he’s just waiting for everyone else to get their kicks in before he comes bursting out of the background with a truly mind-melting solo. With some killer harmonic licks and his love of shredding kept intact, Lifeson lays down a true representation of his personality on ‘Tom Sawyer’: intense, driven, and kind of goofy, all in one astonishing package.
5. ‘Cut to the Chase’
By the time the 1990s rolled around, Lifeson was still very much interested in taking in new sounds. The drop-tuned style that grunge and metal bands of the era clung to was incredibly attractive to Lifeson, who found a new way to cut through the mix and stand out. Counterparts was a much-needed return to heaviness for Rush after a long dalliance with synth-rock, and Lifeson is clearly in the driver’s seat with his guitar at the forefront of the album.
While tracks like ‘Animate’ and ‘Leave That Thing Alone’ show a revived Lifeson at the peak of his powers, it’s his guitar work on ‘Cut to the Chase’ that truly shines. His love of changing dynamics can be heard loud and clear, but it’s when he launches into his solo that Lifeson becomes a man on fire. 20 years into his career, Lifeson produces what still might be his highest-flying “guitar hero” moment.
4. ‘Limelight’
Coming out of the 1970s, Rush had decided that they were going to write more straightforward songs. Starting with the album Permanent Waves, the trio had the idea of pairing down their complex side into a more streamlined sound, preferring to make bite-sized songs than their epics. While they may have struck gold with Moving Pictures, ‘Limelight’ is as close to perfect as Lifeson ever got in the band.
Storming in with the signature riff of the song, Lifeson delicately dances around the chord changes even when the band is changing time signatures, never feeling like he’s lost and returning to the same motif over and over again. Once he does decide to shred, everything drops out for his whammy-bar-dominated solo, which evokes a certain loneliness that pairs perfectly with Peart’s lyrics of alienation. Considering how much emotion is put into this one section of music, it’s no surprise why Lifeson counts ‘Limelight’ among his favourite solos.
3. ‘2112’
It’s almost impossible to imagine what Rush were thinking when they put down the grandiose title track to 2112. Maybe they were angry that they were being forced to change. Maybe they just didn’t give a damn anymore. Or maybe they knew that they had something truly special on their hands. No amount of outside pressure from their management or record company could compel them to simplify things: Rush were going out in a blaze of glory with 2112.
‘2112’ earns its place on this list just by sheer stamina and variety alone. Lifeson pulls out every trick in his arsenal, from shredding lead guitar to delicate acoustic work and everything in between. It might be a bit of a cheat to include the entire 20-minute song here, so if you need just one example of Lifeson’s prowess, bask in the glory that is the ‘2112: Overture’, a monumental moment for progressive rock guitar.
2. ‘La Villa Strangiato’
There’s a case to be made that Rush started to lose the plot with Hemispheres. Although they may have earned their freedom to deliver massive sales with their ambitious album 2112, the amount of mind-melting complexity on this record turned off fans who preferred the classic progressive sound. Rush may have been disappearing up their own ass, but ‘La Villa Strangiato’ could be the most inventive solo that Lifeson would ever compose.
Coming at the very end of the album, this “exercise in self-indulgence” is worth every second of a prog fan’s time, with Lifeson going through different moods throughout his solo. Even though his performance only has a short timeframe, the way he builds the solo up comes from years of practice, initially playing sparsely and gradually speeding up until the guitar sounds like it’s crying out in pain. Even though Rush had no desire to make a record like this again, this song alone has left its mark on everyone from Kirk Hammett to Mike Portnoy.
1. ‘Freewill’
At the start of the 1980s, Rush could do the impossible: have consistent hits. Although the group saw a handful of their singles reach the charts like ‘Closer to The Heart’, the radio juggernaut ‘The Spirit of Radio’ put them on the right track for rock dominance, especially when blending genres like reggae with their classic sound. Just because the band were toning down their melodies didn’t mean they forgot how to write a great tune.
Coming right after ‘The Spirit of Radio’, ‘Freewill’ is one of the most forceful solos that Lifeson would ever write. While sticking to intricate chords throughout the verse and chorus, Lifeson sounds like a man possessed when tearing through his solo, blending elements of jazz, classical, and blues into a sonic avalanche before crashing into the final breakdown to close out the song. Lifeson might not be the most vocal guitar hero in the world, but this solo alone should earn him a spot alongside fretboard masters like Eddie Van Halen.
