10 Greatest Hard Rock Songs (Without Vocals)
5. YYZ - Rush
When making a song, inspiration can come from all sorts of places. From the sappy ballads to the power rock anthems, a lot of songs come from the composers delving through their own life experiences to come through with a piece of their soul in the form of music. Other times though, you can just find the same kind of muse through air travel.
As Rush were in route back home to their native Canada, the Morse Code for their area code YYZ stuck in Neil Peart's mind when they landed. Arriving at the studio a few days later, the beginnings of what would be YYZ started from Peart and bassist Geddy Lee jamming in the rehearsal studio.
Once they started to take the song seriously, it blossomed into a prog rock extravaganza, with drum and bass breaks, an Eastern-tinged solo from Alex Lifeson, and even a synthesizer break down towards the end of the song.
Though most of this just reeks of prog flexing, there's an undeniable hookiness to every single section of the track, with most Rush fans singing along to just the melodies whenever they used to perform the song in concert. As opposed to other prog acts that carry you for literal hours with no payoff, this is one of the few virtuosic feats that still has a pop groove holding it together.