The Members of Rush Talk About Their Instrumental ‘YYZ’ Which Was Inspired by the Toronto Airport

In a clip from the Moving Pictures Deluxe Edition DVD, music legends Geddy Lee, Neal Peart, and Alex Lifeson of Rush separately talk about the inspiration behind their iconic 1981 instrumental “YYZ”. Lee spoke about the origins of the song as a bass and drum piece, Lifeson spoke about how the song is a constant challenge to play and Peart talked about how the Toronto Pearson Airport (call letters YYZ) truly inspired the composition of the song. Lee stated that it was about coming home.

Pretty much it’s about coming back home. It’s that call to home. Being a band that spends so much time on the road, whenever we would check-in for that flight home, we’d see that YYZ on our ticketed bags and it was always really exciting. We’re coming home. We wanted to put together a song about that. Even though it’s instrumental, it’s about our town, kinda where we came from. Good to come home.