10 Musical Left Turns NOBODY Saw Coming

Rush has stood up as one of the greatest bands to come out of the 70's, but they started out as your typical blues-rock jam band. Then when drummer Neil Peart joined the band's rankings, the group's focus suddenly shifted.

While fans could still groove to songs on Fly By Night, the band took a different approach to song arranging at this juncture.

These tunes were no longer blues-soaked romps, and across the track listing, these songs took strange departures into multiple key and time signature changes. The lyrics of some of these tracks (written by Peart) changed considerably as well, taking on topics like one's sense of individuality, the American Dream, and even the works of JRR Tolkien.

This album also began Rush's tendency to write lengthy, story-driven songs. The song "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" is the first song the band wrote that takes the listener on a harrowing journey through a battle in the winter tundra.

Instead of continuing down the bluesy direction of their debut, Rush knew they had something special between their three musical minds. This led them to become prog rock trailblazers that rewrote the rock rulebook with each subsequent release.