120 Fun Facts About Rush

Rush formed in 1968 in which Canadian city?

Toronto was home turf, and its bars opened to the teenage trio in 1971, when Ontario lowered its drinking age from 21 to 18 and a high-school act could finally play clubs.

Which 1981 Rush song, co-written with Max Webster lyricist Pye Dubois, opens Moving Pictures?

Tom Sawyer began as a Pye Dubois lyric called "Louis the Warrior", a portrait of a modern-day rebel that Peart reworked by adding his own theme of reconciling the boy and the man in himself.

The instrumental "YYZ" takes its title from what?

An airport code: YYZ identifies Pearson International, and the opening riff taps out those three letters in Morse code, the same signal the airport's radio beacon sends to pilots.

What was Neil Peart's nickname within the band?

The Professor was no tribute to his reading, by Peart's own account: his bandmates were simply comparing his manner to the character of that name on the sitcom Gilligan's Island.

In the song series "Cygnus X-1", what kind of object does the explorer aboard the Rocinante fly into?

A black hole swallows the Rocinante, which shares its name with Don Quixote's horse, and the lyric sheet ends "to be continued": the explorer returns a year later on Hemispheres.

Which honour did the three members of Rush receive together in 1996?

Order of Canada: all three were made Officers, and their citation credits them with raising over a million dollars for food banks and the United Way.

Geddy Lee is famous for his devotion to which sport?

Baseball is his other obsession: Lee sang "O Canada" at the 1993 All-Star Game and later gave nearly 200 autographed balls from his collection to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

In the story of the "2112" suite, the priests of the Temples of Syrinx take their orders from what?

Banks of computers plan every part of life for the priests, so when the hero plays them the guitar he found in a cave, they destroy it and call music a waste of time.

"Rivendell", the ballad on Fly by Night, takes its name from the world of which author?

J. R. R. Tolkien's elven refuge named the ballad, but the album's other fantasy epic had humbler roots: By-Tor and the Snow Dog were nicknames for their manager's two dogs.

What is the name of the 2026-27 reunion tour Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson announced in October 2025?

Fifty Something marks 50-plus years of Rush music and honours Neil Peart; planned for a handful of North American cities, it grew with demand until South American and European dates were added for 2027.

Neil Peart died in January 2020 after a three-and-a-half-year battle with what?

Brain cancer, a glioblastoma, was a diagnosis Peart fought so quietly that it stayed a closely guarded secret within his inner circle until the news of his death.

Peart's lyrics for "Subdivisions" describe growing up where?

The suburbs raised all three members, and Peart called the song an exploration of the background from which the band, and probably most of its audience, had sprung.

Peart credited which writer in the liner notes of 2112, a nod to her novella Anthem?

Ayn Rand's credit had a cost: NME writer Barry Miles branded the band fascists over it, a charge that stung Lee most of all; he called the piece an anti-totalitarian story.

Alex Lifeson's whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech was which word, repeated over and over?

Blah, delivered in every tone of voice, was all Lifeson said; his bandmates were not in on the joke, and he recalled that they wanted to kill him afterwards.

"Limelight" borrows the line about all of us being "merely players" from which Shakespeare play?

As You Like It supplied the image of players on a stage, which Peart turned into a song about his own struggle with fame, autograph seekers and a sudden loss of privacy.

Which Rush album cover shows a Dalmatian sniffing a red fire hydrant?

Signals needed a Dalmatian that would sniff on command, so the photographer kept hiding dog biscuits under a rented hydrant on a strip of AstroTurf laid across her studio roof.

The black-and-white cover of Presto shows a hillside overrun by hundreds of which animals?

Rabbits roam the hill beneath a levitating magician's hat. Lifeson said the band feared the idea could look really stupid, then laughed hysterically at the finished design and called it perfect.

The Moving Pictures cover, with its movers carrying paintings, was photographed outside which building?

Queen's Park, home of Ontario's legislature, staged a three-way pun: movers carrying pictures, onlookers moved to tears by them and, on the back cover, a film crew shooting a moving picture.

"The Trees" tells of a forest dispute between which two kinds of tree?

Maples and oaks began as a flash of an image: Peart said in 1980 that he saw a cartoon picture of trees "carrying on like fools" and wondered what would happen if trees acted like people.

Which eleven-minute Rush epic was inspired by Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan"?

Xanadu went down in one complete take: after a partial run-through to set levels, the band played all eleven minutes from top to bottom, to the shock of the studio's engineer.

Aimee Mann sang guest vocals on which Rush single?

Time Stand Still had a high chorus part that Lee sang first and judged wrong for his voice, so the band went looking for a female singer and brought in Mann, then fronting 'Til Tuesday.

As of 2025, which 1982 single is Rush's only US Top 40 hit?

New World Man was an afterthought, written last and fastest because one side of the album had about four minutes to spare; it then reached No. 21 in the US and topped the Canadian chart.

Neil Peart played his first Rush concert in August 1974 at the Civic Arena in which Pennsylvania city?

Pittsburgh saw his debut before more than 11,000 people, about two weeks after he joined: the newcomer who had turned up to audition in shorts had lately been selling tractor parts.

Donna Halper broke Rush in the US by putting "Working Man" on the air at WMMS in which city?

Cleveland listeners flooded the station with calls, many taking the song for new Led Zeppelin, and the box of import copies sent down to a local record shop sold out within days.

Which drummer co-founded Rush and played on only one of their albums, the 1974 debut?

John Rutsey was meant to write the debut's lyrics as well, but he tore up the words he had written and never handed them in, so the album was recorded without them.

Who suggested the name "Rush" for the band's first gig?

The drummer's brother Bill offered it as the trio got ready for a paying gig in a church basement; Lifeson recalls him saying they needed something short and to the point, with energy to it.

Rockfield Studios, where Rush recorded A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, is in which country?

Wales gave them a farm studio with a cobbled courtyard, so the band set up microphones outdoors: the birdsong at the start of A Farewell to Kings is the real thing.

Rush recorded Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures at a residential studio in the mountains of which province?

Quebec's Laurentian Mountains hid Le Studio, built so that artists could live where they recorded; left to fall into disrepair, it burned in 2017 in a fire that investigators treated as suspicious.

The album title Grace Under Pressure echoes which American novelist's famous definition of courage?

Ernest Hemingway's phrase suited an album made under strain: the producer the band had lined up backed out two weeks before work was due to start, leaving them to scramble for a replacement.

The title track of Roll the Bones surprised fans with what kind of section?

A rap it was, voiced by Lee with his pitch dropped drastically; the band had sounded out Robbie Robertson for the part and even toyed with a joke version by John Cleese.

Which science-fiction author, known for his Dune prequels, co-wrote the Clockwork Angels novel with Neil Peart?

Kevin J. Anderson, a longtime friend of Peart, turned the album's steampunk story into a novel that grew into a trilogy; he finished the last volume, Clockwork Destiny, after the drummer's death.

The closing lines of "The Spirit of Radio" parody which Simon & Garfunkel song?

The Sound of Silence has its famous prophets rewritten as a jab at the salesmen of commercial radio; Peart said he thought the joke was either very stupid or very great.

Rush appeared as themselves in which 2009 comedy?

I Love You, Man has its two leads bond over their love of Rush, and Paul Rudd and Jason Segel later returned in character to pester the band in a video shown after concerts on the next tour.

Reunion-tour drummer Anika Nilles is from which country?

Germany's Anika Nilles had already taken on one famous drum stool: in 2022 she toured the US and Europe in Jeff Beck's band, playing more than 60 shows with the guitarist.

Canada Post's 2013 Rush stamp featured which emblem, first seen on the 2112 sleeve?

The Starman is the hero of the 2112 story, drawn naked to show the pureness of his creativity as he faces the red star of the Federation: to the band, one man against the masses.

Which Rush song grew out of the Road & Track short story "A Nice Morning Drive"?

Red Barchetta turns the story into a future where engines are outlawed: the hero slips away to his uncle's farm, takes a hidden sports car for a drive and outruns the gleaming air cars sent after him.

The live album Exit...Stage Left is named after the catchphrase of which cartoon character?

Snagglepuss, a pink cartoon lion, flees every spot of trouble with that cry; Lee added that the cover photo was taken from stage left, the way the lion usually runs.

In the 1990s Neil Peart produced two tribute albums to which big-band drummer?

Buddy Rich's music humbled him: unhappy with his own playing at a 1991 memorial concert, Peart made the tribute albums and then rebuilt his technique from scratch with teacher Freddie Gruber.

Which of Peart's books chronicles his 88,000 km motorcycle journey after losing his daughter and wife?

Ghost Rider follows Peart north to Alaska and then down through Mexico to Belize, a road he took after telling his bandmates to consider him retired.

"Red Sector A" was inspired by whose experience of the Nazi camps?

Geddy Lee's mother told him that when Bergen-Belsen was liberated in 1945, the prisoners had assumed no one was left alive to save them; Peart built the lyric on that thought.

Alex Lifeson's stage surname is an English translation of his family name from which language?

Serbian was his parents' language: born Aleksandar Živojinović to immigrants from Yugoslavia, he put the surname, which means "son of life", into English for the stage.

Geddy Lee guested on the 1981 comedy hit "Take Off" by which duo?

Bob and Doug McKenzie were Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas; Lee, who went to elementary school with Moranis, jokes on the record that he only turned up because "ten bucks is ten bucks".

Geddy Lee's signature Fender bass recreates which model, a pawn-shop find he played on Moving Pictures?

Jazz Bass: Lee paid $200 for it in a pawn shop, set it aside for years in favour of other basses, then made it his main instrument from Counterparts onward.

What was the title of Rush's 2004 covers EP marking their 30th anniversary?

Feedback let the band have fun with the music they grew up on, songs by The Who, The Yardbirds and Cream, a band whose numbers they were already playing at their very first gigs in 1968.

Rush's biggest headlining crowd before the 2015 farewell tour, 60,000, was in which city?

The 2002 Vapor Trails tour was their first in Brazil; the Rio show at the Maracanã became the Rush in Rio live album.

What time does the clock on the Clockwork Angels cover show?

9:12 becomes 21:12 on a 24-hour clock, the cover designer's wink at the band's 1976 breakthrough album, 2112.

Which famous newspaper headline had to be removed from the Permanent Waves cover?

Dewey Defeats Truman, the Chicago Tribune's 1948 blunder, still embarrassed the paper three decades later, so it refused to let the band show the front page.

Carl Stalling's cartoon scores made "Powerhouse" famous, but who wrote the tune "La Villa Strangiato" borrows?

Raymond Scott's publisher complained too late for any legal claim, yet the band's management still paid a one-time sum out of respect for the composer and his wife.

Vapor Trails was the first Rush album since Caress of Steel to leave out what?

Keyboards gave way to stacked guitars and voices: Lifeson built the textures on guitar, and Lee layered his vocals to supply the shadings that synthesizers once had.

Rush's very first single, released in 1973, was a cover of which Buddy Holly song?

Not Fade Away came out on Moon Records, a label their manager invented because no record company would sign the band, with an original song on the B-side.

Rush's "Countdown" was inspired by the band watching the first launch of which Space Shuttle in 1981?

Columbia lifted off with the band watching as guests of NASA from a viewing area called Red Sector A, and recordings of the astronauts talking to mission control run through the track.

Which producer worked on every Rush album from the 1974 debut through 1982?

Terry Brown, "Broon" to the band, has a guitar piece named after him, "Broon's Bane"; the partnership ended in 1983, when he had grown uneasy with their move toward synthesizers.

"Distant Early Warning" takes its title from a Cold War line of what across Canada's Arctic?

Radar stations strung across the Arctic to spot Soviet bombers lent their name to a song about the fears of 1984, from nuclear fallout to acid rain.

Which Rush documentary won the Audience Award at Tribeca?

Beyond the Lighted Stage topped the audience vote at the New York festival where it premiered, then lost the Grammy for best long-form video to a film about The Doors.

Which artist created every Rush album cover from 1975 onward?

Hugh Syme is in the music as well as on the sleeves: he played the synthesizer that opens 2112, Mellotron on "Tears" and piano on "Different Strings".

The "Overture" of 2112 briefly quotes which composer's overture marking Russia's defeat of Napoleon?

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture gets a brief salute at the start of 2112, the album Rush made after its predecessor flopped and the band had nicknamed their tour "Down the Tubes".

Which band's "Behind My Camel" beat Rush's "YYZ" to a 1982 Grammy?

The Police won with a track their own singer could not stand: Sting did not play on it and, by his own account, once buried the tape in the studio garden.

What was Geddy Lee's given first name at birth?

Gary came out as "Geddy" in his mother's heavy accent; his school friends picked the sound up, and the nickname never left him.

In September 2022 Lee and Lifeson played "YYZ" at tribute concerts for which late drummer?

Taylor Hawkins got a three-song Rush set at both shows; in Los Angeles a different star sat in on drums for each song, with Tool's Danny Carey taking "YYZ".

"A Passage to Bangkok" from 2112 is, in Lee's words, a travelogue of places that grow the best what?

Marijuana is the quarry on this imaginary journey through Colombia, Jamaica and Morocco, and Lifeson said the music took its exotic, off-kilter sway from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir".

Before joining Rush, Neil Peart left Canada at 18 to try his luck as a drummer in which city?

London was hard on him: he ended up behind the counter of a Carnaby Street shop, then came home disillusioned and gave up on drumming for a living, until Rush came calling.

"Closer to the Heart" gave Rush their first hit single in which country?

United Kingdom record buyers took it to No. 36 in February 1978. Its title and first verse were not Peart's own: they came from a friend, Peter Talbot.

Who was Rush's original bassist and singer, replaced by Geddy Lee in 1968?

Jeff Jones found fame long before his old band did: he joined the gospel-rock group Ocean, which had a big hit in 1971 with "Put Your Hand in the Hand", three years before Rush released an album.

Rush formed in 1968 in which neighbourhood, where Alex Lifeson grew up?

Willowdale is written into the band's own lyrics: the three travellers who set out in "The Necromancer" are "men of Willow Dale", a nod to the streets where Lee and Lifeson were raised.

Which 1976 double album, recorded over three nights at Massey Hall, was Rush's first live release?

All the World's a Stage was meant as a kind of greatest hits: its liner notes call it an anthology of the band's high points so far and a milestone to mark "the close of chapter one".

Which rock frontman inducted Rush onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010?

Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins called Rush "the best of the best" at the ceremony, which Neil Peart missed because he was already riding his motorcycle to Albuquerque for the tour's first show.

Which producer made the synth-heavy albums Power Windows (1985) and Hold Your Fire (1987) with Rush?

Peter Collins was a British pop producer with hits for Nik Kershaw and Musical Youth before he took on Rush, who nicknamed him "Mr. Big" and brought him back for Counterparts and Test for Echo.

What make of motorcycle did Neil Peart ride across North America during the band's late-1990s hiatus?

BMW was the make: Peart covered about 55,000 miles on it, through Mexico to Belize and back, after telling his bandmates to consider him retired.

By 2010, RIAA figures placed Rush third for consecutive gold or platinum studio albums, behind the Beatles and which band?

The Rolling Stones and the Beatles were the only bands ahead, and Rush had built that streak with a single US top-40 hit to their name.

Which song from their 1974 debut did the reunited Rush play in a surprise performance at the 2026 Juno Awards?

Finding My Way was management's pick: Lee said the band had too many songs to choose just one, so they asked and were told "first song, first album".

Which rock star, who says hearing 2112 at age eight made him a drummer, inducted Rush into the Rock Hall?

Dave Grohl taught himself to drum by playing along to Rush and punk records, years before he joined Nirvana.

Critics dismissed Rush's 1974 debut album as derivative of which British hard rock band?

Led Zeppelin's first album was the template for the record's bluesy hard rock, and Geddy Lee's high wail drew constant comparisons with Robert Plant.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson first played live after Neil Peart's death at a 2022 concert for which animated series?

South Park was marking its 25th anniversary at Red Rocks, and co-creator Matt Stone sat in on drums for "Closer to the Heart" alongside members of Primus.

Which British band did Neil Peart credit as the first group that inspired him to write songs and play drums?

The Who's Keith Moon was the wild model for Peart's early style, decades before he took lessons from a jazz teacher and reinvented his playing in the 1990s.

Rush's first American television appearance in over 30 years came in 2008 on which late-night show?

The Colbert Report sat the trio down for an interview with Stephen Colbert before they played a song, near the end of the Snakes & Arrows tour.

Neil Peart arranged and recorded a new version of the theme tune for Canadian TV broadcasts of which sport?

Hockey fans know the tune as Canada's unofficial second national anthem, and Peart's arrangement of it was played during NHL games on TSN and RDS.

Rush played their debut concert in 1968 at the Coff-Inn, a youth centre in the basement of what?

A church was the unlikely launch pad: St. Theodore of Canterbury Anglican paid the trio CA$25 for the night, and they had no band name when the booking was made.

Rush spent the first half of 1975 as the opening act for Aerosmith and which other American rock band?

Kiss and Aerosmith were the headliners as Rush crossed more than 70 cities from January to June 1975, promoting their first album made with Neil Peart.

Neil Peart produced two 1990s tribute albums honouring which late big-band drummer and bandleader?

Buddy Rich's own big band backed every guest drummer on the albums. Peart had first played with it at a 1991 memorial concert, invited by Rich's daughter Cathy.

Which Hollywood actor narrated the 2016 documentary about Rush's farewell R40 tour?

Paul Rudd voiced the film, directed by Dale Heslip, which follows the band's preparations for the R40 shows and their experiences on the road.

Rush's original drummer left the band in 1974 partly over health concerns related to which condition?

Diabetes made long tours a risk for him, and he preferred straight-ahead rock to his bandmates' progressive ambitions. His last gig with the band came in July 1974.

Just before joining Rush, Neil Peart worked for his father in St. Catharines, selling parts for what?

Tractors and other farm machinery were the family trade at Dalziel Equipment, where Peart went to work after 18 discouraging months trying to make it as a musician overseas.

Neil Peart's first book describes a month he spent crossing Cameroon in 1988 by which means of transport?

Bicycle trips came years before Peart's famous motorcycle journeys, and his 1996 debut as an author carried the subtitle Cycling in West Africa.

Alex Lifeson appears as himself in "Closer to the Heart", an episode of which Canadian comedy series?

Trailer Park Boys liked the joke enough to bring it back: its Live in Dublin special revived Lifeson's running feud with the character Ricky.

Neil Peart turned up to his 1974 Rush audition in shorts, driving a battered example of which Ford model?

Pinto, shorts and drums stuffed into bags made for a comic entrance, and Peart thought the audition a disaster. He was hired anyway on 29 July 1974.

Rush played their last concert with Neil Peart on 1 August 2015 at which arena near Los Angeles?

The Forum in Inglewood closed the R40 tour, and the surviving members chose the same arena to open their reunion tour in June 2026.

Rush in Rio, the band's 2003 live album and DVD, was recorded at which Brazilian football stadium?

Maracanã Stadium hosted the final night of the Vapor Trails tour, and the DVD of the show was certified seven times platinum in America.

Rush gave which gloomy nickname to their poorly attended 1975–76 tour for Caress of Steel?

Down the Tubes summed up the mood as crowds shrank and the band struggled to pay themselves $125 a week, while their label came close to dropping them.

The human-shaped stone figure on the cover of Rush's 1996 album Test for Echo is known as what?

An inuksuk is built by the Inuit of the Arctic to mark a food cache, a hunting ground or a place where someone lost their life.

Unable to find a label, Rush and their management created which company to release their 1974 debut album?

Moon Records put the album out in Canada through a distribution deal, then stopped being a label once an American contract arrived later that year.

Which American label signed Rush within 24 hours of hearing their self-released debut album in 1974?

Mercury Records' Cliff Burnstein was sent a copy and offered a two-album, $200,000 deal within a day. The band stayed with the label until 1989.

Which Rush tour was the first to feature the album Moving Pictures played live in its entirety?

The Time Machine Tour also previewed two songs from Clockwork Angels, an album the band would not release until two years after the tour began.

Which celebrated portrait photographer shot the black-and-white band picture on the back of Rush's Grace Under Pressure?

Yousuf Karsh was Geddy Lee's suggestion after Lifeson proposed a black-and-white band photograph, which the trio had never put on an album before.

Which one-word title, borrowed from a W. H. Auden poem, did Alex Lifeson give his 1996 solo album?

Victor was credited as both the artist and the album title, a deliberate way of keeping Lifeson's own name off the cover. His wife and son both contributed.

Which band did Alex Lifeson form in 2021 with bassist Andy Curran and singer Maiah Wynne?

Envy of None closed their debut album with "Western Sunset", an instrumental tribute to Neil Peart inspired by a sunset Lifeson watched from the ailing drummer's balcony.

On the Clockwork Angels tour, Rush were joined for the second set of every show by what?

A string ensemble came on for the second set of each show, which was built around songs from the album the tour was promoting.

Which jazz drum teacher took on Neil Peart as a pupil in 1994, leading him to rebuild his playing style?

Freddie Gruber had already transformed Journey's Steve Smith, whose improvement so struck Peart that he asked for the secret. Peart even switched to traditional grip.

Neil Peart was drumming for which Ontario bar band when a mutual acquaintance urged him to audition for Rush?

Hush worked the Southern Ontario bar circuit, a comedown for Peart after a spell abroad trying to make it as a professional musician.

Besides music, painting and acting, Alex Lifeson has also qualified as a licensed what?

Aircraft pilot is one of several sidelines: Lifeson was also part-owner of a bar and restaurant called The Orbit Room, which closed in 2020.

In Rush's "2112" suite, the protagonist finds which forgotten object in a cave and plays it for the priests?

A guitar lets him rediscover the lost art of music, but the priests destroy it in front of him and declare music a waste of time.

The title phrase of Rush's 1991 song "Roll the Bones" is a slang term for throwing what?

Dice suit an album about chance and fate. Peart had met the phrase 15 years earlier in the title of a Fritz Leiber science-fiction story and kept it in his notebook.

The opening song on Rush's 1975 album Caress of Steel describes a famous event from which historical upheaval?

The French Revolution gave Peart the song "Bastille Day", about the storming of the Paris prison, and the track became a staple of the band's live setlists.

Which television series, a favourite of the band, gave Rush the title and stories for a song on 2112?

The Twilight Zone and its host Rod Serling were band favourites, and the song was written and recorded in a single day when side two needed one more track.

Rush's 1987 single "Force Ten" takes its title from a scale that is used to measure what?

Wind speed on the Beaufort scale reaches storm level at force ten, and Peart, a self-described weather fanatic, used it as an image for the storms of life.

Rush's "Tai Shan", a song Geddy Lee later called an error, takes its title from a mountain in which country?

China's Mount Tai, in Shandong province, inspired a track built on classical Chinese music. Lifeson later ranked it among the worst songs the band ever recorded.

The title track of Rush's Fly by Night recalls Neil Peart's move from Canada, as a young musician, to which city?

London was hard going: Peart played in several bands and picked up session work, but had to support himself by selling jewellery in a shop on Carnaby Street.

Which Rush song's lyrics were misprinted on US copies of Permanent Waves, fuelling arguments over what Geddy Lee sings?

Freewill, a song about freedom of choice that one critic called explicitly atheistic, was printed correctly only on the Canadian sleeve.

Which Rush song from Counterparts was inspired by a gay friend of Neil Peart who died of AIDS?

Nobody's Hero honours a former workmate whom Peart saw as a role model and credited with keeping him from ever being homophobic.

Which Rush song about teenage suicide did Neil Peart name as the lyric he had worked hardest on?

The Pass grew out of a conversation with a friend and became a band favourite, the song Peart cited as the reason he would gladly re-record its parent album.

In Rush's side-long "Hemispheres" suite, which two Greek gods struggle between the forces of mind and heart?

Apollo and Dionysus represent reason and emotion, and their fight ends only when a lost space explorer arrives and is named Cygnus, the god of balance.

The subtitle of Rush's wordplay song "Anagram (for Mongo)" refers to a character in which 1974 film?

Blazing Saddles supplied the name Mongo for fun: Lifeson said the lyric means nothing, though every line hides words built from the letters of other words in it.

Neil Peart wrote the lyrics of Rush's "The Larger Bowl" in which strict verse form built on repeated lines?

A pantoum is named in the song's full title. Peart took the main title from a dream about a ballad that did not exist, and put words to it in the early 1990s.

Neil Peart based the plot of Rush's Clockwork Angels mainly on a novel by which 18th-century Enlightenment writer?

Voltaire's Candide gave the album its outline, with nods to John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor and to writers including Joseph Conrad and Daphne du Maurier.

Which Rush song from Grace Under Pressure was written about Robbie Whelan, a tape operator killed in a car accident?

Afterimage mourns a friend who had worked at the studio where the band recorded, and the whole album was dedicated to his memory.

Geddy Lee based his lyrics for "Cinderella Man" on which Frank Capra film, one of his favourites?

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town appealed to Lee, a self-described film buff who once had secret hopes of becoming a director himself.

Rush's 1991 song "Heresy" was inspired by which world event, which angered Neil Peart more than it cheered him?

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe made Peart think of generations who had paid for a mistaken ideology, a waste of life he called the ultimate heresy.

Neilpeartia, a genus that scientists named after Neil Peart in 2020, is an extinct kind of what?

Frogfish were not his only honour that year: the Percussive Arts Society also inducted him into its Hall of Fame in the year of his death.

Rush's 2012 studio album Clockwork Angels was released in America by which label known mainly for heavy metal?

Roadrunner Records took over the band's American distribution from Atlantic in 2011, while Anthem carried on releasing their music at home.

The lyrics of Rush's "Jacob's Ladder" are built around a vision of which natural sight?

Sunbeams through storm clouds are the phenomenon known as Jacob's ladder, itself named after the biblical ladder to heaven on which Jacob saw angels.

Rush's "Witch Hunt", "The Weapon" and "The Enemy Within" are parts of a song series named after which emotion?

Fear came out back to front, part three first on Moving Pictures, and a fourth part, "Freeze", followed two decades later on Vapor Trails.