Geddy Lee on the Last Time He Saw Neil Peart

Geddy Lee is not afraid to dig deep during his book tour, which kicked off on Monday (Nov. 13) in New York and hosted by Paul Rudd.

Per Blabbermouth, the Q&A portion of the event had Lee answering questions from fans in attendance. It was during this moment where he talked about the last time he saw Rush drummer Neil Peart, who died in January 2020. He said toward the end of his life, Peart started to relisten to the Rush catalog.

Lee recalled sitting with Peart on the balcony of his house during his final visit. Lee said, "The last time I saw him ... he wanted to tell me how proud he was of the music we have done together ... He went on to talk about these songs and what they meant to him and he thought it was very important for me to know that, that our life as a rhythm section together was important to him."

Lee's book, My Effin' Life, is out now and available at HarperCollins.com. His remaining book tour dates are as follows:

11/15 - Philadelphia, PA - The Met Philadelphia
11/17 - National Harbor, MD - The Theater at MGM National Harbor
11/18 - Boston, MA - Orpheum Theatre presented by Citizens
11/19 - Cleveland, OH - State Theatre at Playhouse Square
11/21 - Montréal, QC - Théâtre Maisonneuve
11/23 - Vancouver, BC - The Centre in Vancouver
11/24 - Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre
11/26 - San Francisco, CA - The Masonic
11/28 - Los Angeles, CA - Orpheum Theatre
11/30 - Denver, CO - Paramount Theatre
12/03 - Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theatre
12/04 - Detroit, MI - The Fillmore Detroit
12/07 - Toronto, ON - Massey Hall

In the lead-up to the release of My Effin' Life, Geddy Lee did a number of interviews to promote the book. During two of those interviews, he mentioned maybe working with Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson again.

First, Lee touched on performing with Lifeson again under the Rush name. He shared with The Washington Post how Paul McCartney told the surviving Rush members to hit the road again at an after-party for the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert.

Lee said of performing as Rush following the death of drummer Neil Peart, "It had been a taboo subject, and playing those songs again with a third person was the elephant in the room, and that kind of disappeared."

He added, "It was nice to know that if we decide to go out, Alex and I, whether we went out as part of a new thing, or whether we just wanted to go out and play Rush as Rush, we could do that now."

Lee then shared in an interview with Long Island Weekly about possibly making new music with Lifeson. He touched on finding some leftover songs from his 2000 solo album, My Favourite Headache, how much fun he has in the recording studio and that he has some ideas he wants to "flesh out on my own."

"So, of course, my lifelong buddy and bandmate Alex and I would like to get back into the studio together and see what might happen," said Lee. " ... Once I finish all this crazy crap that I agreed to do — the book tour and the TV show and find some space for myself — I'd certainly like to start playing something."

Few bands have enjoyed legendary decades-spanning career like Rush. Fewer still have been able to take their final bow on their own terms. Once Rush reached arena-headlining status, they never had to "downsize," or even go on package tours. They rarely played multi-act festivals and towards the end of their career, even stopped using opening acts on their tours, so that they could play longer shows. They also were always able to play a lot of new music at their shows, and fans responded. They've had classic songs on every album, starting with their self-titled debut in 1974, up through their final album, 2012's Clockwork Angels. Of course, that made it difficult to narrow down this list to just 50 songs -- and of course so many of you will disagree with the songs we included, the songs we didn't include, and the order. That's part of the fun of lists, though.