“Fly By Night” By Rush

Last Tuesday we lost Neil Ellwood Peart. He was, from all accounts, one of the nice guys in the music business and considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. Like many of my friends growing up close to the Canadian border, I too grew up loving many Canadian bands, including Rush. 

One of the aspects of Peart’s brilliance was not his drumming, but his songwriting and moreover his ability as a lyricist. So many of Rush’s most popular songs, “Closer to The Heart,” “The Spirit of Radio,” “Freewill,” “Limelight,” “Subdivisions,” “New World Man,” and “Time Stand Still” were penned by him.
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Peart first appeared with Rush on their second album Fly by Night.  I chose the title track for this week’s song, not because it’s my favorite of his or theirs, but because it’s one of the first he wrote for the band, with lyrics that reflected upon his first trip away from home.