Sophia Michaels
Rush took an unplanned five-year break in the late Nineties and early 2000s after their drummer suffered a pair unimaginable losses: the deaths of his daughter and common-law wife within the span less than a year. Peart later wrote that, at the time, he told his bandmates “consider me retired,” but after a long, cathartic motorcycle journey, he returned to the band. His first notes on record after his hiatus — a thrash-metal-worthy double-kick-drum barrage, topped off by nimble snare accents — showed that at age 50, he was still a seemingly superhuman force behind the kit, a sensation driven home by the song’s carpe diem lyrics. During the writing of “One Little Victory,” Peart initially had a subtler drumming approach in mind, but his bandmates encouraged him to come out swinging. “I’d been working on that tune and came up with that double bass part,” Peart told Modern Drummer. “I thought it worked perfectly for the end of the song. But Geddy said, ‘That’s a great part. You ought to open the song with it. That would just kill.’ Frankly, I wouldn’t have done it that way — I don’t think I would have been so assertive — but Geddy suggested it and I said, ‘OK, I’ll try it.’”
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