Rush songs are hard to sing. Rush songs are also hard to play on bass. Geddy Lee can do both at the same time because he is not of this world, though there's one song that always gave him trouble. In an interview with The Metal Voice, Lee cited the 2012 track "The Anarchist" as the one song that he wrote and realized he couldn't pull off at first time.
"The hardest song to play and sing that I've ever written was 'The Anarchist' from Clockwork Angels. Because I wrote that song on bass first, obviously, and when we put the kind of bed track together in the demo stage, I wrote this melody without thinking about what the bass part was.
"And it wasn't till after we finished production of the record and I was in rehearsal where I realized they're so completely different rhythmically — there was no meeting in the middle. Usually my bass part would follow a pattern and the voice sort of slips into it, but that one was just impossible.
"So I spent weeks, literally, playing the one song, just on bass, didn't try singing it, until I didn't have to think about the bass part at all. And then I would have to really concentrate, and then I could do it. I figured out a way I could do it.
"So when I started playing it live, it's the one song I have to sort of split myself like a drummer does. Drummers have independence. Bass players not always have independence, so it was a real challenge."
Who knows – maybe we'll see Lee and Alex Lifeson bust out "The Anarchist" at some point?
