Rush: A 40 year album Retrospective

By Luis Santana / Columnist

As the self-proclaimed world’s biggest Rush fan I’m constantly asked by people, “Luis, how do I get into Rush?”

With a career spanning forty years, I don’t blame them for asking me this question as anyone would be daunted with trying to get into a band where you have music ranging from hard rock, to prog-rock, to prog-metal.

Rush is a band whose music is all their own, mixing a blend of intelligent lyrics with virtuoso instrument playing. A band who talks about being the feeling of alienation in high school to the fountain of youth all while making each of these topics relatable. A band who for me has been there at almost every point of my life no matter what direction I’ve gone in. It’s an honor and a privilege for me to set out now to once and for all assist anyone out there who wants to get into what I believe is the greatest band of all time.

​Rush began in the neighborhood of Willowdale in Toronto, Canada. The two childhood friends Gary “Geddy” Lee, Alex Lifeson used to play music together while they were growing up in the hopes that they’d make music one day. Alex Lifeson is even recorded in an unreleased Candian documentary of Canadian school children who weren’t adhering to the ideas of their parents which was to “stay in school and just get a regular job.” Eventually Alex Lifeson  joined a band alongside Jeff Jones and John Rutsey initially forming what was known as Rush.

Just before their second show, Jeff Jones left the group and Geddy Lee picked up the bass and frontman position alongside Alex and John. They started their career by playing covers of songs by Cream, the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin in high school dances and other under 21 places where they could find a gig. Rush picked up Ray Danniels as their manager as he was a regular at their shows. Soon they recorded their initial two singles a cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” and the original song “You Can’t Fight It.” The record labels that they submitted these songs to weren’t impressed and rejected the tapes. Rush decided to make their own independent label known as Moon Records and released their self-titled first album: Rush.

The album gained it’s initial popularity in the states thanks to Donna Halper, a DJ of the Cleveland, Ohio radio station: WMMS. The album’s single, “Working Man” resonated with the factory workers of Cleveland and the radio station was bombarded with calls asking when the new Led Zeppelin single was going to be released. She would tell them, “Not Zep, it’s a Canadian band known as Rush.” Shipments of the album were sent to Cleveland and the album sold out faster than the shipments could arrive.

​The album may have Geddy Lee’s higher-than-Robert-Plant falsetto and Alex Lifeson’s swift guitar playing, but other than that this album has nothing of what Rush would become. The album is very much what you would hear in 70’s style rock: distorted vocals and guitar, basic drumming patterns, lyrics pertaining to girls and beer, the music is definitely something cranked about by young fans of 70’s rock. It’s not a bad album by any stretch, and it’s really fun to listen to if you feel young and powerful and in need of some energy. The first song , “Finding my Way,” starts off with an awesome guitar riff while Geddy announces the band’s auditory presence with a high pitched “YEAH OHH YEAH!”  “What You’re Doing” is another great song talking about authority figures and Geddy asking them “Tell me something mister, why do you have to make us so uptight?”Rutsey’s drumming here is fantastic and the blast he throws in at the end of the song just solidifies the rebellious anger. But the main track on this song, the one that brought Rush into the limelight, is “Working Man,” a song that anybody with a job can relate to. “It seems to me, I could live my life a lot better than I think I am. I guess that’s why they call me, the working man,” definitely the best lyrics on this album by far. Lifeson’s guitar playing is smooth and powerful and the 3 minute bridge in the middle of the song is just awesome. The song ends with a face-melting solo and Rutsey just wailing on the guitars. What an awesome end to their first album!

Rush was on the map and ready to start their career, but not without some initial problems.

Drummer John Rutsey would have to leave the band because of his diabetes and due to his condition touring on the road for lengthy periods of time would be impossibility. With this reality Rush had only a few weeks to recruit a new drummer for their upcoming tour. Who would fill the role of John Rutsey and where would this new drummer take the band as a whole?

-luis.santana@fiusm.com