Geddy Lee Releases Archived Demo About Neil Peart’s Family Tragedy
Geddy Lee continues his sharing ways as of late with the release of two archived demos that were part of the recording session of his 2000 solo album My Favorite Headache.
The two demos are “I Am… You Are” and “Gone.” The latter demo was inspired by two tragic deaths Neil Peart experienced in the late ’90s. The first was in August 1997, when Peart’s 19-year-old daughter died in a car accident. The second was in June 1998, when Peart’s wife died of cancer.
Lee said about “Gone” in a new interview, “It was the first song we wrote for ‘My Favourite Headache,’ and we demoed it, but it just felt… it was beautiful, but I felt it was too raw … I didn’t think it was appropriate to release it, out of respect for Neil and the way he was.”
Both demos can be heard below.
“Gone”
“I Am… You Are”
Geddy Lee on the Last Time He Saw Neil Peart
Lee recently shared a very personal moment of the last time he saw Peart before his death in January 2020.
During the Nov. 13 stop in New York on his book tour to promote his memoir My Effin’ Life, Lee went into detail about the emotional last visit with his longtime friend and bandmate. Lee said toward the end of his life, Peart started to relisten to the Rush catalog.
Lee recalled sitting with Peart on the balcony of his house during his final visit. He said, “The last time I saw him … he wanted to tell me how proud he was of the music we have done together … He went on to talk about these songs and what they meant to him and he thought it was very important for me to know that, that our life as a rhythm section together was important to him.”
