of way of going about things. Like you’re asking yourself a question, you’re doing your best to answer it, but you’re never satisfied with the answer. I’m obsessed with making the perfect record, but it’s impossible to do that. But you still have to try. And with everything I do, I put my all into it. I want it to be, I want everything to be perfect. Even if it’s a stupid comedy film being shown on the rear screen of a concert, I want it to be as funny as it can be. When you’re making records, that’s all that matters is trying to get it as perfect as possible. But there’s an old saying that good is the enemy of perfect. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but I didn’t adhere to that philosophy. I chose to look for perfection. Every time we I got into different friend groups, to whom I would be introduced: “This is Geddy, he’s Jewish, but he’s OK.” Which I found incredibly offensive, but I didn’t say anything.
rebirth and becoming a zayde. How do you find the balance between honouring the past and living in the present? I never was a person who wanted to look backwards. And now I’ve done exactly that by writing a memoir—against everything I’d worked towards. I spent most of my life run- ning towards a musical ideal, running to live, trying to live as large as I could live because I think many things go into that decision. I felt the clock ticking. I lost my father when he was only 45. I always knew, because of the stories of the Holocaust I grew up with, how quickly time goes and what a short leash we all have on this planet. I wanted to make the most of it. So, it took a pandemic to get me to write this book. It took lockdowns—lockdown after lockdown—to get me into that mode. And some pretty powerful losses, too. The death of Neil Peart in January 2020 affected Alex Lifeson and me profoundly. I’m sure his family felt it in a much more deep and profound way. But we spent 45 years together, and the last few were exceedingly painful and difficult. We tried to be there for him as best we could. But being locked down with that grief a couple months later forces one to be reflective. At the same time, my mother was suffering from dementia. I was witnessing her slowly lose her grey cells and be un- aware of where she was and have memory conflicts. And I thought, OK, so will that happen to me? Am I now poised? I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs. maybe the best thing I can do for myself is to finally look back, examine my life, examine the other losses I’ve experienced and try to make some sense of this new loss, you know? Because when you lose someone, it’s like everyone you’ve lost happens all over again. You know, they’re all connected in some way. That’s the reason I dedicated a couple of years to the memoir. Parts of it were rollicking and fun and great to remember, and other parts were painful and delicate and had to be treated in a very thoughtful manner when I was writing. Now I’m in the portion where I’m promoting the book. It’s healthy to understand where you came from in order for you to move forward. But you can also start getting this bloated sense of your own importance if you spend too much time admiring your own accom- plishments. Once I finish this book tour, I’m ready to move on. Whether it’s another book, or whether it’s a musical project—which I certainly hope it will be—I’m ready for that. The memoir has helped me, it’s been cathartic for me. But now, enough is enough. n
Jewish ghetto we were living in. I’m really thankful that my mother spoke of all these things. She was so open with us and scared the shit out of us by telling us horrific stories like they were nothing. But why did she do that? She did that because that was the way she spent her childhood. She was 12 years old when she went into the camps, and a woman when she came out of them. Five years in that kind of horror. What else are you gonna tell your kids who ask: What did you do when you were a teenager, mom? “Oh, I almost starved in Auschwitz and then in Bergen-Belsen.” At the same time, we were not indoctrin- ated into the faith in the same way as other Jewish kids. We were breaking away, all three of us in our own way. My brother was sent to parochial school, after the failure that my mother felt with me and my sister. He rebelled anyway. It was impossible to contain us and our spirit. All of us siblings have that in common, we wanted a more creative and a more assimilated life. At the same time, we do have a healthy reverence for what they went through. And it brought us to be very dedicated children of my mom. She was the head of the family. We revered her, and we listened to her as much as we could. But there were lines we wouldn’t cross, and those related to the dogma of the faith. You write about your need for control, whether in the studio or being able to say to your wife, it’s time for me, it’s time for me to hit the road again. Going over masters and recordings, all those things. Do you see any link between this and your upbringing? I don’t know if you can say that’s an effect of a Jewish upbringing or if it’s just a person- ality flaw. It’s an insecurity when someone feels insecure, which I certainly did as a teen. I was a shy, insecure person. I felt I was goofy looking. That’s why I grew this hair that kind of covered my face. You tend to overcompen- sate as you grow older. And as you get more confident in your skillset, you utilize it, and you want control because you want to be heard. So I went from a kid that was never really heard to someone that finally found his voice. There’s a sense that you’re always searching for something. You get off a tour, you record an album. You hear flaws, you struggle to correct them, and then you get back on the road and you come back and record again, you’re trying to compen- sate for the things that didn’t go exactly right last time. It’s a Talmudic scholar kind
made a record, and I reviewed it, I would see what had bugged me about it. I would take that with me to the next project and try to correct it. But you’re always going to make a mistake. Sometimes the mistakes you make translate better for an outsider, for an object- ive listener. Maybe what you view as a flaw is a just bit of humanity on the tracks. In the last part of My Effin’ Life , you’re talking about people getting older, and friends and colleagues getting sick and passing away—including your mother, in July 2021. But you’re also talking about
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