Not many fans of the rock band Rush recognized drummer Neil Peart behind his dark motorcycle helmet and evasive personality during his 55,000-mile solo motorcycle trek.
In 1998, Peart began riding across North America and into Central America, throttled by paralyzing grief. He had just lost his teenage daughter in a car accident and then his wife to cancer, both within one year’s time. Their deaths devastated him, forcing him into seclusion and even deeper into his famously complex thoughts about life, death and the quest for meaning between the two.
“This is life enough for me,” Peart said in the 2010 documentary film, “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage,” reflecting on his solo odyssey from intense mourning to profound healing.
I watched the documentary after Peart’s death from brain cancer Jan. 7. He battled his illness for more than three years. Peart, a native Canadian who died in Santa Monica, California, was 67.
Until his death, I had never realized that he found no solace or escape through his immense fame and fortune. He was a poet hiding within a progressive rock band, a philosopher sitting behind a drum kit. His written words revealed a brilliant yet underrated lyricist. He used metaphors like most rock stars used groupies.
“There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance, a host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance,” Peart wrote in “Free Will” from the band’s 1980 album “Permanent Waves.”
While watching the surprisingly engrossing documentary film, I immediately jotted down what I thought to be its most profound takeaway: “This is life enough for me.”
How many of us can say the same about our life? At any age. Is it enough for us?
Peart wasn’t talking about his legions of fans around the world. Or his millions of dollars in the bank. Or the overwhelming celebrity that comes with being a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll superstar for four decades. No, he was talking about being alone with his thoughts, mile after mile, straddling both his beloved BMV motorcycle and his emotional conflicts.
“If I’m traveling alone, I have my notebook, bring something to read, and I’m happy with my own company,” Peart told American Motorcyclist magazine in 2009.
Peart’s 2002 book, “Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road,” chronicles his long-distance journey across a continent to eventually find a deeper version of himself.
Peart enjoyed riding his motorcycle from gig to gig, across the country, any country, as his bandmates used a tour bus or airplane. He didn’t want to fly over a town or city or experience. He wanted to immerse himself into it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to live it. And then share his musings through lyrics or books or his personal website.
Peart not only played drums on a stage, which made him famous in the rock world. He kept a trusty beat on our evolving world for anyone else paying attention. In hindsight, I’m more of a fan of Peart’s lyrics than of Rush’s music. Through rhyming prose, he pounded home his quest for truth, meaning and resonance.
“A planet of play things, we dance on the strings, of powers we cannot perceive. The stars aren’t aligned, or the gods are malign … blame is better to give than receive,” he wrote in “Free Will.”
In a life illuminated by the glare of stage lights for 40-plus years, Peart found comfort and sanity in the shadows of his solitude. Millions of adoring fans never found their way into his heart, nor into his healing process throughout that solo bike trek. He was known for keeping fans at arm’s length from his personal feelings, except the ones revealed in his song lyrics.
They reflected his exploration of life’s cacophony through philosophy, fantasy, politics, social commentary and Great Literature. Fondly nicknamed “The Professor,” Peart devoured books as if they were candy bars, unwrapping them with his curiosity. His search for wisdom infiltrated his songwriting. This was obvious for rabid fans as well as casual listeners such as myself.
“All preordained, a prisoner in chains. A victim of venomous fate, kicked in the face. You can’t pray for a place, in heaven’s unearthly estate,” Peart wrote in “Free Will.”
When that song came out, I was an 18-year-old knucklehead. I never took the time to dissect or appreciate its lyrics. I just embraced the song’s rock ’n’ roll power, kept to the sturdy beat of Peart’s staccato percussion. To this day, when I listen to this song, I can
I feel the same way about their other hits, such as “Tom Sawyer,” which defined the band’s soundscape in the early ’80s. And also Peart’s penchant for individuality.
“No, his mind is not for rent, to any god or government, always hopeful, yet discontent. He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is,” the song insists.
Even as a younger man, Peart knew this truism. As he aged, so did his writing, and his perspective. He continually chose free will as the vessel to navigate his world. He continually wondered as he wandered, my favorite trait of his.
“When we are young, wandering the face of the earth, wondering what our dreams might be worth. Learning that we’re only immortal for a limited time,” Peart wrote in the 1991 song “Dreamline.”
How many of us have come to a similar conclusion about our lives, at whatever age we timestamp these feelings of reconciliation with mortality?
After the deaths of his daughter and wife, Peart retired and retreated, but only long enough to find himself and to find meaning again. Life without purpose is like music without a beat.
Peart, the poet, left us a meaningful message: This is life enough for me, too.
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