When Rush ended their legendary run in 2015 with a final performance at The Forum in Los Angeles, a monumental chapter in progressive rock history closed. The R40 tour had celebrated four decades since Neil Peart joined the band, cementing a legacy that will be talked about for centuries to come. But the true finality came five years later, when Peart lost his battle with brain cancer.
In a recent interview, Lifeson shared how his time with Peart in Santa Monica became the seed for a tribute. The guitarist admitted that after Peart’s passing, he couldn’t pick up an instrument for a year. It wasn’t until he began working on Envy Of None that he found a way forward, channeling his grief into the track “Western Sunset.”
“That song came about around the time we all found out that Neil was ill,” Lifeson reflected (via Ultimate Guitar). “I was visiting with him, and I was sitting on his balcony in Santa Monica. He had a little balcony off his office, and he’d go out there every so often and have a smoke. There were times in the afternoon when the sun was setting, and there was this particular time when the sun was setting through the trees, filtering through the branches and the leaves, and far off we could see the ocean and the hills of Malibu.”
The scene carried more weight than just a quiet evening. Lifeson explained: “It really struck me that there’s this closure in a sunset. It’s the end of the day, and sure, tomorrow a new day begins. But the sunset marks the end of one day, and that day is not going to be there anymore.”
The reflection deepened during a time of inevitable loss: “That thought occupied me for some time. And I just thought it was such a serene, peaceful moment, at a time when we were dealing with something very painful and difficult. That really stayed with me.”
As “Western Sunset” took shape, Lifeson aimed to recreate the calmness he felt with Peart on those afternoons. “When I started working on the song, I thought about the whole idea of a western sunset, being there in California with Neil and watching the sun set. I wanted to try to re-create the serenity, calmness, and peace that I felt in that moment. As the song developed, that was the key thing in my mind.”
To capture that feeling, Lifeson turned to an instrument made specifically for him. “They made me a few with different woods and various depths and body styles. I miked it with, I believe, an Earthworks SR25 microphone, which is great, and that went through a Neve 1073 preamp/EQ into the Universal Audio 1176, and from there into my Universal Audio Apollo x4 interface, and into Apple Logic Pro, which is my main recording platform.”
