WCSX Classic Cuts : Tom Sawyer
WCSX Classic Cuts
Rush: “Tom Sawyer”
The Hook: The song’s enduring success all over the world surprised them.
Album: Moving Pictures
Year: 1981
Writers: Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson and Pye Dubois
Stats: Peaked at number-44 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number-eight on the Mainstream Rock chart.
Background: “Tom Sawyer” is probably Rush’s best-known song. Geddy Lee says that was a real surprise to the band.
Rush singer-bassist Geddy Lee on how the lasting success of “Tom Sawyer” took the band by surprise. OC:…that song. :29
“It was just one of those songs that when we made it had no idea it was going to have the impact that it had. Over time it’s kind of shown to be the quintessential Rush song for some reason. Wherever we go in the world, people identify us with that song. At the time we were making Moving Pictures, with that on it, it was just another song and mixing it as we would any other song, without any special feeling for it one way or the other. So it surprised me, the universality of that song.”
