The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock

by David Weigel

Ayn Rand, and was utterly offended that Rush had written a paean to her with 2112. When the band met with Miles, Lee and Lifeson sat gobsmacked—“bystanders”—as Peart and Miles went multiple rounds over libertarianism. “The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today—in every sense,” Peart insisted. “If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis. Putting the individual as the first priority, everything can be made to work in a way that it can never be made to work under any other system.”32 When the interviewer started to raise his doubts, Peart tore into him. “You’re living in the best example,” he said. “Look at Britain and what socialism has done to Britain! It’s crippling! And what it’s done to the youth. What do you think The Sex Pistols and all the rest of ’em are really frustrated about? They’re frustrated because they’re growing up in a socialist society in which there’s no place for them as individuals. They either join the morass or they fight it with the only means left. They have literally no future and I lived and worked here and I know what it feels like and it’s not very nice.”33 Miles was dumbfounded. Was his subject, was this rock star, not being arch? Was he actually explaining to English readers that socialism was breaking their country? Was he putting the Sex Pistols in that context? “Yeah!” said Peart. “Why is ther...