Geddy Lee’s honest confession about the song that defined a band.
Geddy Lee nearly scrapped Rush’s signature track before the world ever heard it.
The bassist and singer now admits he fought to keep ‘Tom Sawyer’ off Moving Pictures, confessing he was “so sick of that fucking song.”
In a chat with Rick Beato, Lee reveals the recording process was a nightmare, every mix, every take, every step “beset with problems.”
Frustration boiled over in the studio, and Lee, exhausted and fed up, argued against including the track entirely.
“So, can you imagine how dumb that was?” he laughs now.
The song went on to become a radio and MTV juggernaut, later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Decades on, Lee holds his hands up: he nearly made one of rock’s biggest blunders.
Meanwhile, Rush has risen again with drummer Anika Nilles stepping in for the late Neil Peart, and a major 2027 world tour just announced.
Even legends misjudge their own magic, sometimes the song you hate becomes the one they never forget.
