1/18/24: I've Been Runnin'

Imagine having Rush play at your high school assembly. These kids did.

Ooh, I want your love
Gotta have it,
Gotta have it.

My husband really won birthdays for life when he got me the R40 box set, which includes six discs of concerts, from Rush in Rio to the R40 tour. The set also features a ton of bonus material, including some footage of the band in its earliest years.

Performed but never released, “I’ve Been Runnin’” is one of Rush’s first attempts at writing original songs. And oh. Oh.

The below video was filmed in 1974 at the Laura Secord Secondary School in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, when the guys were barely older than the children clapping along in the audience.

Still, their earnestness is genuinely endearing. They might as well be playing the Molson Ampitheatre, for how hard they’re rocking this high school assembly hall. And I think you can already see flashes of brilliance, particular in the short guitar solo (starting at 1:50), and how Lee and Lifeson play off each other live.

The video features John Rutsey, Rush’s original drummer and lyricist, who was decent at both pursuits but who had the bad luck to be followed by Neil Peart. From everything I know about the band’s history, Rutsey sounds like he was a real pain in the ass, but his drumming was fine and his lyrics no more or less inane than anything off Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut from five years earlier. (Maybe you can already tell but I have a real soft spot for Rush’s earliest works, even if they don’t sound a whole lot like the Rush I originally fell in love with.)

I hope you enjoy this archival footage and get a kick out of watching Geddy wail about how he’s “gotta have your love” to an audience of sixteen year-olds half-heartedly clapping to a beat that may or may not resemble the actual beat of the song.