A True Legend Always Extends His Limits
We recently found a clip that made all sense but at the same made us respect Neil Peart more. Back in 2012, Neil was interviewed on Canadian TV and he explained why “Tom Sawyer” is difficult to play on the drums. He talked about his very specific process in slowly achieving in mastering the song by heart. We were surprised at how fans responded to his revelation by saying ‘it was like listening to Einstein.”
Tom Sawyer is one of Rush’s best songs ever. Geddy Lee even calls it the “defining piece … from the early ’80s”.
Back in 1985, Neil Peart described it as:
Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be—namely me, I guess.
With that explanation let’s watch his process with the video below: