Tom Sawyer
The synth hits.
You know exactly what song this is. You knew before the drums came in. Before Geddy Lee’s voice cut through. Before the guitar riff that every fourteen-year-old with a Les Paul has tried and failed to nail.
One second of synthesizer. That’s all it takes.
Neil Peart wrote the lyrics with Pye Dubois, an external collaborator—rare for Rush. They were sketching a portrait of the modern individual. Someone who doesn’t bend. Someone who keeps their own counsel. Someone the world tries to categorize and fails.
“No, his mind is not for rent to any god or government.”
- Reagan just took office. The Moral Majority was telling everyone how to live. Punk was spitting on prog rock, calling it bloated and irrelevant. And three guys from Canada released a song about refusing to be defined by anyone else’s rules.
The drum fill at 2:48. You know the one. If you’ve ever sat in a car drumming on the steering wheel, you’ve tried it. You’ve failed. Neil Peart made it sound inevitable, like that’s just how drums work, like anyone could do it.
No one else could do it.
Geddy Lee’s bass isn’t playing root notes—it’s having its own conversation with the guitar and synths, weaving through the arrangement like it’s got somewhere else to be. Alex Lifeson’s guitar crunch on the verse is controlled violence, held back just enough to explode when it needs to.
“What you say about his company is what you say about society.”
Rush fans are a specific breed. Obsessive. Technical. Often dismissed. But the band never cared about cool. They cared about being good. About pushing themselves further than made commercial sense. About three guys making more sound than should be possible.
Neil’s gone now. 2020. The cruelest year took one of the greatest drummers who ever lived.
But the synth still hits. The fill still lands. The song still doesn’t apologize for being exactly what it is.
A modern-day warrior. Mean, mean stride.
Today’s Tom Sawyer. Mean, mean pride.
