RIP Neil Peart, and thank you for all the pleasure
your recorded music, your live shows with Rush and your travel writing have
brought me for nearly 40 years since I first discovered the band via Permanent
Waves. How dreadful to find myself writing these words about an all time
musical hero who has cruelly succumbed to cancer at the age of only 67.
What else can I add to the thousands of tributes that
already have been written? Here goes: a musical anecdote, a travel anecdote
upon which I was able to expand, and a lyrical excerpt.
The appearance of Rush in 2003 at the Toronto open air
SARS benefit concert, headlined by the Rolling Stones, was a rare exception to
their aversion to stadium shows. All the more so when they had to play a
curtailed set, and when the constant message running through Neil’s mind when
faced with the band’s home town audience was “just don’t suck”. Let’s take up
the story from “Traveling Music” when Neil is only too aware of the attention
of strangers and the pointing of cameras when they are waiting to take to the
stage…
‘Normally that would have driven me mental, but under
the circumstances I hardly noticed.
‘A short, older man stepped up to me, sticking out his
hand and saying something I couldn’t hear. Thinking “now who’s this?”, I
took out one of my ear monitors and said “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
‘He spoke again, smiling. “Hello, I’m Charlie Watts.”
‘”Oh”, I said, taken aback. “Hello”, and I shook his
hand.
‘He asked if we were going on soon, and I said yes,
any minute, and he said, with a twinkle, “I’m going to watch you!”
‘I suppose if I could have felt more pressured, that
might have done it, but I was already at maximum intensity – there was no time
to think of Charlie Watts and the Rolling Stones, watching them on The T.A.M.I
Show or on “Ed Sullivan” when I was twelve and a half, hearing “Satisfaction”
snarling down the midway at Lakeside Park, Gimme Shelter at the cinema in
London, listening to Charlie’s beautiful solo album Warm and Tenderso
many times late at night in Quebec, or any of the other million times Charlie
Watts and his band had been part of my life.
‘Geddy emailed me later and mentioned that scene: “BTW,
I will never forget that moment before we went onstage when Charlie Watts came
over to shake your hand (at the worst possible moment!) and watching your face
go through all the motions of …a. who is this old guy? b. what does he want? c.
oh, for god’s sakes it’s Charlie Watts!’
Now for travel. In 2013, the US National Parks were
subjected to a shutdown in consequence of a political squabble when the
government ran out of money. Neil was part way through a motorcycle trip in
Utah. Having narrowly avoided the worst of the shutdown, he takes up the story via
his daily journals, speaking for every foreign tourist who was similarly put at
risk of having a Parks visit ruined: -
“But
what did these foreigners think of a country in which a few mean-spirited
creeps could hold the entire country hostage—all for the principle of denying
mercy to the suffering (because it might be “their own fault”—hardly a Christian objection),
while also denying its citizens (and “resident aliens,” as this Canadian is
classified) access to their property? (A flashing sign inside Bryce Canyon National
Park put it nicely: “Welcome to Bryce. Enjoy Your Park.”) These foreign visitors, like the American seniors who also
visit the national parks outside the summer months, might have waited all their
lives for this one opportunity. And there are tens of thousands of Americans,
especially in the West, whose livelihoods are tied to the national parks.”
As I went on to
describe in one of my own blog entries from late 2013: -
“Expanding his theme, NP goes on to suggest that
those “few, miserable damaged egos” who caused the Parks shutdown and displayed
such disregard for its consequential effect on intending visitors ought to wear
T-shirts bearing a slogan otherwise only fit for renegade bikers and surly
rednecks, namely “Do I Look Like I Give A Fornication?” How neat to see this
“expression of pure evil” producing the eminently pronounceable acronym
“DILLIGAF”.
So as I think back
to how my own recent USA trip was almost ruined, and then reflect in turn on
the way that we are governed here in the UK by a political class and an
administrative machine that all too often appears to have little regard to the
practical impact of its conduct on those who have to pay for it, may I suggest
that the acronym is upgraded to a noun?
“Dilligaf”: a
politician or official who, having acted quite unreasonably, reacts with
deliberate indifference or hostility to the plight of someone suffering
materially as a result of that act.
Finally, to lyrics.
Having posted an excerpt from “The Garden” on my Facebook page, consciously
choosing the last song on Clockwork Angels, the last Rush studio album, I will
end with an excerpt from “Anthem”, the first song on Fly By Night, Neil’s first
album with the band: -
“Know your place in
life is where you want to be
Don't let them tell you that you owe it all to me
Keep on looking forward, no use in looking round
Hold your head above the crowd and they won't bring you down
Anthem of the heart
and anthem of the mind
A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind
We marvel after those who sought
The wonders in the world, wonders in the world
Wonders in the world they wrought…”
Neil Peart, 12.9.52
– 7.1.20.
