New York: HarperCollins, 2023
512 pp. $40 (paperback)
In a world where I feel so small, I can’t stop thinking big. —Rush.1
How did a self-described “loner” grow up to front one of the most successful progressive rock bands of all time? That fascinating story is the subject of Geddy Lee’s engrossing new autobiography, My Effin’ Life.
The book is far more than a history of the Rush front man’s career. Rather, it is a beautifully honest exploration of how he reacted to the many challenges and successes he’s encountered. Through Lee’s interesting and inspiring stories, two of his virtues shine: his unwavering integrity in the face of pressure to compromise and a consistently positive attitude about life even in the darkest of times.
Lee had a difficult childhood. The son of Jewish immigrants in 1960s Toronto, he was subject to frequent anti-Semitic abuse, and he struggled to connect with other children. “I was something of a loner, a quiet kid who rarely got into trouble,” he recalls (20). Alongside his own stinging experiences of anti-Semitism, he was pained by his mother’s stories of living through the Holocaust, during which she was imprisoned in Auschwitz and several other concentration camps. To make matters worse, Lee’s father (who also survived the camps but preferred not to talk about such experiences) died when he was a teenager.
Lee’s strongly religious mother initially rejected his choice to become a musician, leading to a “cold war” between them, but his mind was set. “I was scared, but resolute,” he relays. “I had to conjure a proper living now from nothing but a dream and a band” (119). But as he continued to develop his musical career, his mother came somewhat to accept his choice.
Although his parents raised him to practice Judaism, he struggled to accept the religion. When he saw his father break kosher rules by eating bacon and eggs, it helped him realize that “these religious rules are all bullshit.” In time, he adopted what he calls a “humanistic philosophy,” rejecting belief in God (31).
Lee describes his changing attitude toward his Jewish heritage as a young man, from initially hiding his background to gain acceptance from his peers to later taking a renewed interest in Jewish culture and history. Decades later, he accompanied his mother on a tour of her Polish homeland and the remains of several concentration camps.2
Although he doesn’t believe in God, he considers himself “a cultural Jew,” meaning he accepts certain practices that help him while rejecting mystical beliefs. For example, he adopted the Jewish process of mourning the loss of loved ones, which designates a specific period for focused mourning after which one continues with normal life. He found that this helped him grieve fully and then move on.
Lee’s approach to philosophy—integrating various ideas and influences into his own unique view—would likewise become his approach to music. When he and his bandmates started out, they had a hard time booking shows because they wanted to write and perform original material, but most venues wanted cover bands. They solved this problem by creating their own versions of other bands’ songs and playing them alongside originals. Lee’s approach to developing his voice and bass playing was similar. Rather than emulate a particular performer, he created a distinctive style suited to his vocal range and bass technique by integrating influences from a variety of singers and bassists, including Robert Plant, Jon Anderson, Jack Bruce, and John Entwistle.
Rush’s early music was classic rock, similar in style to Led Zeppelin, but Lee and bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart soon decided to experiment with more complex music, mixing elements of different styles to make their songs “more interesting.” Their label, however, pressured them to stick to shorter songs and a more familiar, radio-friendly rock sound. Unwilling to compromise, which Lee remarks “was a dirty word for us,” they continued experimenting, writing long songs laden with changes of tempo, key, and time signature (130, 199). He relays how the conflict peaked when an angry record executive told Peart, “‘Compromise is what the world functions on!’ . . . Neil retorted simply but firmly that in art or music there can be no room for compromise; it was not a word in his vocabulary” (199). This fight would later inspire the song “Spirit of the Radio,” which includes the lines,
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
shatter the illusion of integrity
In a word of advice to budding musicians, Lee imparts a lesson he learned from these experiences:
A young artist’s greatest asset is the word “no.” It’s an immensely valuable word. There will always be pressure on you to compromise, pressure to sell your dreams short, and there will always be people who want you to be something you’re not, but none of those things can happen without your permission. My most urgent advice to aspiring artists is always “Be true to yourself and just say ‘no.’” (224)
Rush’s commitment to artistic integrity would eventually be rewarded by the success of their breakthrough album 2112, which made Lee and the band “proud of our victory over those who would’ve had us conform and sell out” (151). 2112’s title track is a twenty-minute, seven-movement rock opera based on Ayn Rand’s dystopian novella Anthem. Lee describes how meeting Peart, a devoted bookworm who brought stacks of books on tour, led him to discover a wealth of literary influences that would inspire his songwriting. These ranged from J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land to Voltaire’s Candide and Rand’s The Fountainhead. This last reinforced Lee’s commitment to artistic integrity through its portrayal of the fiercely independent architect Howard Roark. Acknowledging Rand’s influence and “genius” in 2112’s liner notes got the band into hot water; one journalist even accused them of peddling “proto-fascism,” a charge Lee still finds baffling. In “a rock opera whose protagonist stands up against totalitarian rule,” he says, “we reckoned it shouldn’t be too confusing who the good guy was . . . should it?” (251).
But these books also influenced Lee in more fundamental ways. He describes how Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness empowered him to deal with moments of “existential dread,” helping him come to terms with the facts that “existence exists” and that he is “an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes” (107).
This exemplifies the other main theme that shines throughout My Effin’ Life: fortitude and positivity in the face of adversity. It describes, sometimes in tear-jerking detail, the many personal losses Lee has endured. In addition to losing his father, he lost numerous close friends, including Rush’s recording engineer Robbie Whelan, whose passing is the subject of their song “Afterimage.” In the 1990s, Peart’s daughter and wife died mere months apart, which affected Lee gravely. Peart himself died in 2020 after battling a brain tumor for several years. That was followed by Lee’s loss of his mother in 2021, after he had been unable to see her for many months during Canada’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns. Most recently, he lost his friend Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins at the relatively young age of fifty.
But through all these losses and other hardships, Lee retained a positive and often jovial attitude, a characteristic his bandmates shared. He notes that Peart often took a “mustn’t grumble” attitude to challenges, which rubbed off on the other members and helped the band stay together through disagreements and hard times.
In many respects, the book is a testament to the close friendship among the three men and their respect for each other’s views and artistic expression. Lee describes how the band members developed their own humorous terminology, giving each other nicknames (Lee was “Dirk,” Lifeson “Lerxst,” and Peart “Pratt”) and coining terms such as “boge” to refer to “any person of any age who acted old, straight and grumpy before their time” (125). Their positivity spilled into their live performances in the form of goofy videos, antics, and stage design elements, such as spinning clothes dryers in place of stacks of amps (made redundant by modern sound systems).
That positive sense of life shines through in Lee’s writing, into which he weaves jokes and wry asides. Some readers may struggle with his casual profanity, but it’s always in service either of humor or of communicating appropriate gravity about something serious. Although he occasionally names and shames individuals who acted unjustly toward him and the band, many targets of his lighthearted ire remain anonymous. When discussing Rush’s final tour, he notes that they avoided using the phrase “farewell tour” because they didn’t want to be one of the bands that abuse fans’ trust by saying farewell only to soon return. “You know who you are,” he quips, likely referring to bands such as The Who and Kiss, which play successive “farewell” tours, claiming each to be their last (480).
The book also describes, integrated with the discussion of personal challenges and philosophic topics, the backstory behind each of Rush’s nineteen studio albums. Without getting bogged down in detail, Lee describes enough of the production process to make any creative-minded reader eager to jump into his own next project.
My Effin’ Life’s positive sense of life, inspirational stories, and amusing anecdotes make it a rewarding read. Geddy Lee leaves readers with a strong sense that no matter how bad things get, it’s always worth staying positive and producing beautiful art. Whether you’re a budding musician, artist, or simply struggling to stay happy in the face of life’s many challenges, this book is sure to inspire you.
Click To Tweet
You might also like
1. Rush, “Caravan,” Clockwork Angels, Roadrunner Records, June 12, 2012.
2. “Rush Frontman Geddy Lee—‘Any Extreme Religious Behavior Is Bad, Whether It Be Middle East or the Middle West,’” Brave Words, July 9, 2007, https://bravewords.com/news/rush-frontman-geddy-lee-any-extreme-religious-behavior-is-bad-whether-it-be-middle-east-or-the-middle-west.
