Far and Away (Far and Away, 1)

Neil Peart

4.3

745 ratings by Goodreads

9781511392839: Far and Away (Far and Away, 1)

ISBN 10: 1511392835 ISBN 13: 9781511392839

Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio, 2016

Following in the tradition of Ghost Rider and Traveling Music, Rush drummer Neil Peart relates nearly four years of band tours, road trips, and personal discoveries in this introspective travelogue. From the ups and downs of a professional artist to the birth of a child, this revealing narrative recounts 22 adventures from rock’s foremost drummer, biker enthusiast, husband, and father. Both playful and insightful, Peart’s love of drumming and the open road weaves throughout the stories as Neil explores horizons that are both physical and spiritual, sharing his observations about nature, society, and the self. This tour of the open road will resonate with Rush fans and motorcycle enthusiasts alike.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Neil Peart is an internationally acclaimed, bestselling, and award-nominated author, and for more than thirty-five years has been the celebrated drummer and lyricist for Rush, the most successful band in the history of Canadian rock music. Defying categorization, his books have earned a devoted, ever-growing readership by combining elements of memoir, travel writing, and social commentary with a thoughtful, musical sense of self-discovery. His previous books include ROADSHOW: Landscape With Drums, A Concert Tour by Motorcycle (2006), the story of Peart’s two-wheeled travels on Rush’s 30th Anniversary tour in 2004; TRAVELING MUSIC: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times (2004), a unique triple memoir of a man, a musician, and a traveler; and THE MASKED RIDER: Cycling in West Africa (1996), a richly textured account of bicycle touring in “the continent where both life and art began.” The relentlessly soul-searching GHOST RIDER: Travels on the Healing Road (2002) was chosen by The Writers’ Trust of Canada as a Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize finalist for its “exceptional merit” as one of the five best biographies of the year. For their achievements, Peart and his Rush bandmates have been appointed Officers of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honor.

JULY 2007

With only a few days at home after the first leg of the Snakes and Arrows tour (sixteen shows, 7,257 miles of motorcycling), this will definitely be the “short version.” Still, I wanted to try to put up something new.

Photographs of the performances are plentifully available elsewhere (my view of the audience this tour is studded with innumerable cell–phone cameras, sticking up like periscopes), so I thought I might just display a couple of motorcycling photos. On this tour Michael and I haven’t even carried cameras with us on the bikes, let alone bothered to ease our steady pace to take photos, but recently we had a camerahappy “guest rider,” Richard S. Foster. The name might ring a bell to dedicated readers of album credits—our song “Red Barchetta” had a note on the lyric sheet: “Inspired by ‘A Nice Morning Drive’ by Richard S. Foster.”

Rick (as he is known to his friends, among whom I now number myself) tells our long story in another forum, and it’s quite an amazing sequence of coincidences and synchronicities. (See photo credits for details.)

The short version (I keep saying that) is that despite my attempts back in 1980 to contact the author of the short story that had inspired “Red Barchetta”—a story I had read in a 1973 issue of Road & Track— we only recently managed to actually make contact.

Rick rode with Michael and me through the back roads (the very back roads) of West Virginia for a couple of days between shows in near– D.C. and near–Pittsburgh (so many of those amphitheaters are in the exurbs), and then he attended his first Rush concert in (or near) Boston.

But that’s his story, and I’ll leave it to him to tell. Michael only left Rick with one request, from the movie Almost Famous, when the singer says to the young journalist, “Just make us look cool.”

(How well Rick succeeded with that challenge, the reader may judge by his story.)

For Michael and me, it was great just to have some photographs of us riding—something we do every day, after all, so it is nice to have it documented like that. After last tour, when I was constantly so intent on note–gathering for the book that became Roadshow, this time I have been feeling a real sense of freedom—the freedom of not having to document anything. I can simply experience it, think about it or not, and let the day flow by me as it will.

That being said, so far this tour has certainly been worthy of a book, too, in its way. I kind of wish someone else was writing one about it, but I don’t think it will be me. My journal notes consist only of our daily mileages—though I couldn’t resist noting a couple of church signs: “GIVE SATAN AN INCH, SOON HE’LL BE A RULER,” and one I just love: “TO ERR IS HUMAN, BUT IT CAN BE OVERDONE.” So good. And I admire it not only for the worthy sentiment, but for the perfect phrasing, too.

Another church sign caught my eye because of the word “faithless,” as in our song on Snakes and Arrows. This one seemed kind of mean, though: “AND JESUS REPLIED, SAYING, ‘YOU ARE A FAITHLESS AND PERVERSE GENERATION.’” I assured Michael that he was the only one of us who was both.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.