The “lousy” Rush song that makes Geddy Lee “cringe” when he hears it
Rush frontman and bassist Geddy Lee has always been realistic about the oscillating nature of his career. While his group are undoubtedly one of the most influential and commercially successful of their generation, they produced their fair share of misfires in their time. Some of them were so bad or unfit for their era that they rank amongst the most famous flops in rock.
For all of the contentious albums that Rush have released, none are as significant as 1975’s Caress of Steel. The record marked their movement into an increasingly fantastical lyrical area with a more defined prog-rock sound, and it was a complete disaster when it was released to the extent that the band’s label, Mercury, seriously considered dropping them. Things looked so bleak for the band that they seriously considered breaking up.
However, as any great act does, they reacted decisively to the negativity and put all their anger and frustration into its follow-up, a record deemed one of their finest, 2112. Explaining how this reaction materialised, the band’s late drummer, Neil Peart, said: “They were leaning on us at our weakest. So when we went into the next album, we decided to stick to our principles. We liked what we did, and if it fails, then fine. Back to the farming business for me. It was all a big no. No, we’re not going along with this. No, you can’t tell us what to do. And no, we don’t care.”
It turned out to be a masterstroke, and Rush went headfirst into one of their most fruitful periods. Years later, when speaking to RAW in 1993, Geddy Lee discussed the band’s most recent album, Counterparts, and described the difference in heaviness between it and the significant 2112.
“There are moments on Counterparts that are heavier than anything we have ever done in a long time,” he said. “But even if we became really heavy again, it wouldn’t be like the way we were on ‘2112’. Those records were made in a certain time and place, and the only way we’d be able to recreate it would be accidentally. If we did it on purpose, it would sound like bullshit.”
Following this, Lee revealed that he deems 2112 as the start of Rush’s quality period, saying that he can’t listen to anything that came before it, an era which, of course, includes the widely-derided Caress of Steel. Whilst he maintained that he doesn’t regret any of his music, he did pick out one particular moment from the 1975 record that irks him. This is ‘Lakeside Park’, which he called a “lousy” song that makes him cringe.
“A lot of the early stuff I’m really proud of,” Lee explained. “Some of it sounds really goofy, but some of it stands up better than I gave it credit for. As weird as my voice sounds when I listen back, I certainly dig some of the arrangements. I can’t go back beyond 2112 really, because that starts to get a bit hairy for me, and if I hear ‘Lakeside Park’ on the radio, I cringe. What a lousy song! Still, I don’t regret anything that I’ve done!”
That’s a good way to be. Why should you regret creating anything that people love, no matter how much it makes you cringe. Especially considering how personal it was to another member of the band in Neil Peart.
“Another important setting in my childhood and early teens was Lakeside Park, in Port Dalhousie,” Peart explained of the song’s origin. “When I was 14 and 15, I worked summers at Lakeside Park as a barker (‘Catch a bubble, prize every time,’ all day and night), and there was music: some of the kids brought transistor radios to work, and the music of that summer of 1966 played up and down the midway. At night, when the midway closed, we gathered around a fire on the beach, singing. Lakeside Park resonated in my life in so many deep ways, especially those fundamental exposures to music that would be forever important. It’s all gone now. All that’s left, apart from memories, is the old merry-go-round.”
It just goes to show that one man’s “lousy” is another man’s precious childhood moment.
