THE TREES

Ah, 'The Trees'... One of my favourite RUSH songs! Taken from Hemispheres (1978), which I probably would pick up as my favourite Rush album. This is simply a perfect prog rock song of under five minutes. Energetic and catchy but not too straight-forward or an ear-worm; it keeps on playing in your memory if you want it to, because it has really powerful melodies. The metaphoric story written by Peart was originally inspired by a cartoon drawing, if I remember right. When each participant in a conflict is blindly driven by greed, there are no winners, only losers. The trees are kept equal "by hatchet, axe, and saw." The music perfectly follows the drama.

'Circumstances' is in my opinion the weakest track of Hemispheres. Too bad Rush didn't much make non-album tracks for their single releases. The lyrics of this heavier and more straight-forward song deal with Peart's disappointing time in London before joining Rush.

Quite a logical and functionable pair of songs for a single, but fans must naturally have the whole album. 3½ stars rounded down for the uninteresting cover design.