You can tell me that I got no class,
Look around you’ll see who’s laughin’ last.
Don’t give me speeches ’cause they’re oh so droll,
Leave me alone, let me rock and roll.
My gosh, is it June already? I feel like I didn’t get to really experience May at all (mostly because I was sick for half of it, heh). Ah well. Time rattles on, I suppose, whether or not I’m on board the train. (Don’t forget that you can check all our previous tunes in the Archive!)
“Best I Can,” off Fly By Night, preserves that old-school bar jam feel from the subtitled album (it was written in those days, so it makes sense), but it sounds and feels a lot more like Rush, with Neil elevating the rhythm section like a spider monkey on speed. Still, Ged’s got that growly affect to his voice, Alex’s solos are manic and explosive, and Neil even uses some cowbell here and there.
For comparison’s sake, here’s the original version, as it was workshopped in the pre-Peart days. I don’t know if I’ll give this recording its own day this year, but it’s cool to compare what Neil added to the track (particularly that opening riff).
One of Alex’s signature musical tics is this endearing little tweet-tweet he plays at the end of the first lines of a chorus. He grew out of it, mostly, but you can hear it a lot in these early songs. It shows up in “Fly By Night,” and of course here as well. Once you hear it, you’ll start to hear it everywhere in their back catalogue, so keep your ears open!