Rush's Neil Peart and Ayn Rand: Libertarian Themes in the Music

Recently while listening to Rush's 2112 album, I stumbled across this is the liner notes.

"dedicated to the genius of Ayn Rand"

Ayn Rand of course is the amazing author who wrote Atlas Shrugged, a novel about how big government and its regulations destroys the individual's will to produce. I had not realized until today Rush's Neil Peart was heavily influenced by Rand despite realizing the libertarian themes in Rush's music on many occasions.

It turns out Rush produced an entire album that was influenced by the great author Rand.

Rock'n'Roll Comics actually noted the Rand/Rush connection in a 1992 rock biography of Rush.

That's what Neil's "rock novel" 2112 is about, individuality. The power of the one dwarfing the stumbling, archaic machinations of groups...whether they be governments, peers, movements, or what have you. Organizations are oppressive according to the author of Anthem, Ayn Rand, and that philosophy is shared to some extent by Neil Peart and his musical partners. Rand's basic theology, dubbed Objectivism, forms the skeletal structure for Neil's lyrical epic of a totalitarian society where music has become a forgotten, forbidden alchemy.

So here's Neil Peart's dedication to the genius of Ayn Rand, 2112:



Of course, Peart's libertarian visions go beyond 2112. Take for instance the chilling "Red Barchetta" where cars have been ruled illegal (motor law). Today that doesn't seem so far fetched considering the war against the combustible engine and man-made global warming rhetoric. Peart's lyrics describe a young man who finds his uncles Ferrari and takes it out to the highway.

 My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm
Before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the eyes
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire
Where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine
For fifty odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
I fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime