9/25: Sir Gawain & The Green Knight

Let's take a look at the song that-might-have-been

Every band has a drawer full of failed songs: scrapped melodies, half-written lyrics sheets, even completed cut songs. Rush is no different.

Over the years, the band has delighted fans by releasing some of these failed attempts and first drafts. Some (like “You Can’t Fight It”) are pretty great. Some… not so much.

And some live only in rumors or stories told in passing. That’s the case for “Sir Gawain & The Green Knight,” a song that was supposed to appear on Permanent Waves but which was later replaced by “Natural Science.”

The song “started out as a very Genesis-style, proggy, fantasy-lit lyric, and Al and I were not feeling it, so Neil let it go,” writes Geddy in his memoir, My Effin’ Life.

“[Neil] understood that since I was the person who had to sing the words and emote the feelings behind them, he had to be flexible, even if it meant dropping something he’d written,” continues Ged. “He’d just say, ‘I’m just happy to have written it.’ He was a better man than me.”

Although Alex and Geddy couldn’t get behind “Sir Gawain & The Green Knight,” that hasn’t stopped fans from wondering what might have been. Rush: Wandering the Face of the Earth: The Official Touring History printed Neil’s lyrics sheet for the song (see below):

Source: Rush: Wandering the Face of the Earth: The Official Touring History

Meanwhile, in My Effin’ Life, Geddy posts parody lyrics—also written by Neil—of the song that hit the cutting-room floor:

Source: My Effin’ Life.

Personally, I’m grateful for the peek into how the sausage gets made, but just judging by the lyrics alone… I think they might have made the right call to cut.