#10: Tom Sawyer by Rush

City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: June 1981
Peak Position in London ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube: “Tom Sawyer”
Lyrics: “Tom Sawyer”

Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in Toronto in 1968. The classic lineup  was comprised of Geddy Lee (vocals, bass guitar, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion). After Lee joined, the band went through a few line-up changes before arriving at its classic power trio line-up with the addition of drummer Neil Peart in July 1974.
Aleksandar Živojinović was born in Fernie, British Columbia, in 1953. His parents were Serbian immigrants from Yugoslavia. His stage surname, Lifeson, is a rough translation of the Serbian to English (which can literally be translated ‘son of life”). Lifeson was in a band in 1968 named The Projection. Geddy Lee joined the band. Geddy Lee Weinrib was born in North York, Ontario, in 1953. His parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland.

They were in their teens when they were initially imprisoned at Auschwitz. “It was kind of surreal pre-teen shit”, says Lee, describing how his father bribed guards to bring shoes to his mother. After a period, his mother was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and his father to Dachau. The pair eventually met again, got married and moved to Canada. Geddy Lee got his first guitar when he was 14 in 1967. Lifeson and Lee were in The Projection in 1968. By the end of the year the band became Rush. The lineup changed numbers of times in the following years. In 1974, Neil Peart joined Rush.

Peart was born in 1952 in Hamilton, Ontario. By the time he was 18, he was an accomplished drummer and had been in local bands Mumblin’ Sumpthin’, and the Majority. In 1970 he moved to London, England. While there, he became influenced by the writing’s of Objectivist Russian-born American author and philosopher, Ayn Rand. Some of his subsequent lyrics reflect her thinking.

This line-up remained unchanged for the remainder of the band’s career. Rush honed their skills with regular gigs, initially touring the Ontario high school circuit. In 1971, the legal drinking age was decreased from 21 to 18, allowing the band to play bars and clubs. Lee said it was at this point that Rush turned “from a basement garage band that played the occasional high school gig to a regular working band playing six days a week.”

Rush first achieved moderate success with their second album, Fly by Night (1975). The commercial failure of their next album Caress of Steel, released seven months after Fly by Night, resulted in the band nearly getting dropped from Mercury Records. Rush’s fourth album, 2112 (1976), reignited their popularity, becoming their first album to enter the top five on the RPM Top Albums Canadian Chart. Their next two albums, A Farewell to Kings (1977) and Hemispheres (1978), were also successful, with the former becoming Rush’s first to enter the UK Albums Chart.

In 1980, Rush had their first Top 30 hit across Canada titled “The Spirit of Radio”, from the Permanent Waves album. It climbed to #2 in Winnipeg (MB), and #3 in Halifax (NS) and #4 in Regina (SK). In the UK the single peaked at #13. Their next album, Moving Pictures, saw the release of “Limelight”. The single climbed to #18 on the RPM Top 100 Singles chart in Canada, and #4 in Ottawa. Another track from Moving Pictures was “Tom Sawyer”.

“Tom Sawyer” is a song written by Pye Dubois, born in Sarnia, Ontario. He wrote the words Kim Mitchell’s hit singles,  “All We Are”, “Go for Soda”, “Patio Lanterns”, “Easy to Tame”, “Rock n Roll Duty” and “Rocklandwonderland”.

“Tom Sawyer” came about during a summer rehearsal vacation that Rush spent at Ronnie Hawkins’ farm outside Toronto. Neil Peart was presented with a poem by Dubois – a poem was based on Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. Dubois’ poem was named “Louis the Lawyer.” Neil Peart modified and expanded on the poem, and Lee and Lifeson next helped set the poem to music.

In the December 1985 Rush Backstage Club newsletter, drummer and lyricist Neil Peart said:

Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois… 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.

“Tom Sawyer” peaked at #3 in London (ON), Grand Rapids (MI), and Washington DC, #5 in Oklahoma City, Chicago, Presque Isle (ME), Kansas City (MO), #7 in Houston, #8 in Providence (RI), #10 in Dallas, and Ottawa, #13 in Halifax, Montreal, and Windsor (ON), and #14 in Regina (SK) and Toronto.

The band saw their furthest commercial success throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with most albums charting highly in Canada, the US and the UK, including Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981), Signals  (1982), Grace Under Pressure (1984), Roll the Bones (1991), Counterparts (1993), and Test for Echo (1996).

Rush continued to record and perform until 1997, after which the band went on a four-year hiatus due to personal tragedies in Peart’s life. The trio regrouped in 2001 and released three more studio albums: Vapor Trails (2002), Snakes & Arrows (2007), and Clockwork Angels (2012).

In 2013, Rush was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rush performed their final concerts in 2015, with Peart retiring from music later that year. Lifeson later commented in January 2018 that the band decided not to resume activity following the 2015 R40 Tour.

Neil Peart died from gliobastoma, a type of brain cancer, in early January 2020, at the age of 67.

March 14, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Michael Hann, “Rush: a band who sparked the teenage imagination like few others,” Guardian, January 25, 2018.
Brian Hiatt, “Neil Peart, Rush Drummer Who Set A New Standard For Rock Virtuosity, Dead at 67,” Rolling Stone, January 10, 2020.
“Rush joins Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” CBC, April 18, 2013.
Paul Elliott, “‘For a while, it was the worst song on the album…’ The story behind Rush’s Tom Sawyer,” Classic Rock, June 20, 2023.
“Pye Dubois,” Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2021.

CJBK 1290-AM London (ON) Top Ten | July 3, 1981