Rush – Tom Sawyer

The influence of this song came from the year 1876. The book was  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

My cousin had many of their albums including this one. He told me back in 1981 or so…hey you have to listen to this…he called it “science rock.” I thought how exciting can “science rock” be? This was one of the first songs he played for me by them. I was impressed…I was just beginning to play bass and I liked the song right off the bat.

When the track was finished, Geddy Lee didn’t like the track, he said: “I remember being disappointed in the studio, thinking we really didn’t capture the spirit of the song. We thought it was the worst song on the record at the time – but it all came together in the mix. Sometimes you don’t have the objectivity to know when you’re doing your best work.” 

This was on their album Moving Pictures released in 1981. The band just got off a 10-month-long tour. They were going to release their second live album but Neil Peart was excited about the new ideas of songs developed at sound checks throughout the tour. They canceled plans for the live album and started to focus on making this one.

They were helping another Canadian band Max Webster by playing a song called Battlescar on their album Universal Juveniles. A lyricist named Pye Dubois was working with Max Webster on their songs and suggested some lyrics to Rush that were developed into Tom Sawyer. The track is credited to Rush and Pye Dubois.

Their intro to the song live on their 2007 tour was the animated South Park characters singing the song with Cartman making up words in their band Lil Rush. I’ll have the video above the studio version.

The song peaked at #24 in Canada, #44 on the Billboard 100, and #8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts in 1981. The album Moving Pictures peaked at #1 in Canada, #3 on the Billboard Charts, and #3 in the UK.

This song became one of Rush’s most popular songs and received a lot of radio play. Its success helped the Moving Pictures album achieve widespread acclaim and commercial success. This is about the time I found out about Rush.

Neil Peart: “Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be – namely me I guess.”

Geddy Lee: “The one song that we have to play for the rest of our lives. When we wrote it, we had no idea that it would touch such a nerve with people. In many ways, it’s the quintessential Rush song.”

Tom Sawyer

A modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today’s Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride

Though his mind is not for rent
Don’t put him down as arrogant
His reserve a quiet defense
Riding out the day’s events
The river

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist
Catch the myth
Catch the mystery
Catch the drift

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today’s Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you
And the space he invades, he gets by on you

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

And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness
Catch the wit
Catch the spirit
Catch the spit

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide

Exit the warrior
Today’s Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

19 thoughts on “Rush – Tom Sawyer”

  1. We both discovered RUSH the same year on the same album. Tbone my buddy was the first to get it on 8 track haha… for Xmas that year I received both Moving Pictures and Exit Stage Left… good times

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  2. This was my introduction to Rush too! I’ll never forget hearing it for the first time and being completely awestruck!

    Shortly thereafter on my 13th birthday, my older cousin drove me down to the local record shop on the back of his motorcycle and told me to pick out whatever album I wanted – OF COUSE it was Moving Pictures! I felt like the coolest kid alive!!

    And thus began a 40+ year love affair with the band… Nothing else like them, before or since!

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    1. They were really unique…I will give that to them. I always listened to the bass very closely in these. He got a great sound.
      I never got to see them live though… I do regret that now. They have a nice doc of them…they were really nice guys.

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    1. Yea, Rush was very different. Here is what I found… “the song paints a modern-day, more mature portrait of the same rebellious free spirit that defines the song and the story’s titular character.”

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  4. Definitely a great song, from their best album. Unlike some bands, their sound benefitted from adding in a synth. I’d forgotten Pye had a role in it- he was a fine lyricist. I agree with Jim though, how’s it tie in to Tom S? I guess imagining what Tom would be if living in the 80s…

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    1. I actually like the synth in this…I don’t like the use of them with Rush around 3 years later….even Lifeson had problems with that.
      Yea a modern version

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      1. science rock is a pretty good term. I think they were kind of like Moody blues – they didn’t SOUND like them but both were basically prog rock outfits that were very good players who became more and more geared towards catchy, pop-pish songs in the ’80s. Which I approved of, LOL. Lyrically this song reminds me of ‘New world Man’, kind of a sequel piece

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      2. Yea some of their songs sound like anthems for one thing or another…very likeable though…I do like this period of them.

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