“It’s the worst thing you can imagine – a song written by the rhythm section. I have to fit a guitar part over this?” How Rush made Grammy-nominated instrumental YYZ

LONDON - NOVEMBER 04: Photo of RUSH, L-R: Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee performing live onstage on Exit...Stage Left tour at Wembley Arena in London on November 04 1981. (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns).

In 2022 Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee of Rush told Prog how they’d come up with YYZ, the instrumental track from 1981 album Moving Pictures that won them a Grammy nomination.

In 1980, following the success of that year’s album Permanent Waves, Rush very suddenly made a change of course. “We were scheduled to do this big live album,” Alex Lifeson recalls.“And at the last minute we said, ‘You know what? Fuck this – we’re not going to do a live album. We’re going to go back into the studio and do our next album.’