"The Trees"
Single by Rush
from the album Hemispheres
B-side"Circumstances"
Released
  • January 1979 (US)[1]
Genre
Length4:42
LabelAnthem
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
Rush singles chronology
"Cinderella Man"
(1977)		 "The Trees"
(1979)		 "Circumstances"
(1978)
Music video
"The Trees" on YouTube

"The Trees" is a song by Canadian rock band Rush, from its 1978 album Hemispheres. The song is also featured on many of Rush's compilation albums, and was long a staple of the band's live performances. On the live album Exit...Stage Left, the song features an extended acoustic guitar introduction titled "Broon's Bane."

Rolling Stone readers voted the song number 8 on the list of the 10 best Rush songs.[2]

Live365 ranked it the tenth best Rush song.[3]

Classic Rock readers voted "The Trees" the band's 11th best song.[4]

Lyrics

The lyrics relate a short story about a conflict between maple and oak trees in a forest. The maple trees want more sunlight, but the oak trees are too tall. In the end, "the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw."[5]

Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart was asked in the April/May 1980 issue of the magazine Modern Drummer if there was a message in the lyrics, to which he replied, "No. It was just a flash. I was working on an entirely different thing when I saw a cartoon picture of these trees carrying on like fools. I thought, 'What if trees acted like people?' So I saw it as a cartoon really, and wrote it that way. I think that's the image that it conjures up to a listener or a reader. A very simple statement."[6][7] However, in his 2007 book Roadshow: Landscape With Drums. A Concert Tour by Motorcycle, Peart clarified that the song was "a parable about collectivism".

In November 2023 Geddy Lee pondered that the song was "a comment on forced equality", and that "may have also been a little naive in [his] original intent. [...] There were a few things we sang about in our early twenties that seemed very important. But as time has gone on, you ameliorate those views because life has told you it’s not so simple. [...] You learn a lot about how much of life has lived in the gray areas as opposed to the black and white areas".[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Great Rock Discography. 1995. ISBN 9780862415419.
  2. ↑ Greene, Andy (2015-03-04). "Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Rush Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-12-26.
  3. ↑ "Top 10 Rush Songs". Live365.com. 2018-06-07. Retrieved 2020-12-26.
  4. ↑ "The 50 greatest Rush songs ever | Louder". Loudersound.com. 2015-06-11. Retrieved 2020-12-26.
  5. ↑ Rush. "The Trees Lyrics". Rush.com. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  6. ↑ Iero, Cheech (April 1980). "Neil Peart". Modern Drummer. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  7. ↑ "The Trees by Rush Songfacts". Songfacts.com. 2004-06-02. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
  8. ↑ Ivie, Devon (15 November 2023). "The Most Epic and Obsessive of Rush, According to Geddy Lee". Retrieved 7 January 2024.
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