Fly By Night

Alex Lifeson - Electric Guitars, six and twelve string acoustic guitars. "Snow Dog"
Neil Peart - Percussion
Geddy Lee - Bass guitars, classical guitars, all vocals. "By-Tor"

Produced by Rush and Terry Brown
Executive Production by Moon Records, owned and operated by SRO Productions Ltd.
Management by Ray Danniels, SRO Management Inc., Toronto

Engineered by: Terry Brown
Assistant Engineer: John Woloschuk
Arrangements: RUSH and Terry Brown
Recorded and Mixed at: Toronto Sound Studios, Toronto, Canada
Road Master: Howard "Herns" Ungerleider
Road Crew: Ian Grandy, Liam Birt, J.D. Johnson
Mastered at: Masterdisk, New York
(Remastered at: Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, Maine)
Mastering: Gilbert Kong
(Remastering: Bob Ludwig and Brian Lee)
Cover Concept: RUSH
Cover Painting: Eraldo Carugati
Art Direction: Jim Ladwig/AGI Chicago
Design: Joe Kotleba
Photography: Richard Fegley
By-Tor Characters inspired by: Herns
Belated Mention: Mr. O. Scar
Continuing Thanks to: Cliff Burnstein, Donna Halper, Don Shafer, and to all who have helped

All lyrics © 1975 Core Music Publishing (SOCAN)
Used by permission, all rights reserved.

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Notes

  • Mercury/Polygram, February 15, 1975
  • Highest Billboard Chart Position: 113 - Certified Gold by RIAA: December 1, 1993 - Certified Platinum: December 1, 1993
  • "Best I Can" was written and performed before Neil Peart joined the band; it was performed during the Laura Secord Secondary School concert filmed for Canadian Bandstand in early 1974. "In The End" was likely written before Peart joined as well; it was performed in Cleveland on August 26, 1974, less than a month after he joined.
  • The original hand penned lyrics for both "Anthem" and "Fly By Night" include alternate lyrics not heard in the final recordings.
  • On the original vinyl, the chimes at the end of "By-Tor and the Snowdog" were pressed into the fadeout groove of side one, which meant that on older turntables the chimes would play FOREVER until the stylus was phycially lifted from the vinyl. On the Archives version, "By-Tor" is 28 seconds longer as additional chimes were included.
  • Reissued January 27, 2015 by Universal Music Enterprises on 200-gram, heavyweight vinyl with a download code for a 320kbps MP4 vinyl ripped Digital Audio album as well as high resolution Digital Audio editions in DSD (2.8mHz), 192khz / 24-bit, 96kHz / 24-bit; and an additional Blu-Ray Pure Audio version with 96kHz / 24-bit 5.1 surround sound and stereo.

In Their Own Words

"The first day we ever played together, the basis of the song 'Anthem' was one of the things that we sort of jammed on....the whole being greater than the parts was apparent right there and that was the birth of a song on day one." - Neil Peart, "Rockline", December 2, 1991
"'Best I Can' is an earlier song from the old days" - Alex Lifeson, Contents Under Pressure
"[Howard Ungerleider] moved on to crashing at Ray [Danniel's] house, where he had to suffer Ray's dogs - a German shepherd, 'which used to look at me and growl, it was always pissed off,' and a 'little, white, fluffy thing, like a snowball, which just jumped up and down,' he explains. One day it all got too much - for Howard. 'I was in Ray's back yard, the fucking snowdog thing was jumping up, and the German shepherd was biting me...' Of course when he recounted it to the guys, they thought it was hilarious. 'A biter, and the Snow Dog,' they laughed. 'Sounds like an epic song!'" - Chemistry
"My friend's Dad always said 'colder than the Tobes of Hell,' that's all. I don't know what it means." Neil Peart, Backstage Club Newsletter, March 1990
"Most of the songs we've ever written have lasted longer than five minutes, so any vaguely catchy shorter tune has invariably been chosen as the single... From our second album Mercury chose 'Fly by Night,' though we never composed it with that in mind. Indeed, just because a song is released as a single doesn't mean it's going be a hit, or even get played-and Top 40 radio has always had a strong aversion to playing Rush. Even without its help, our album would eventually make platinum, but the best the single did on release in America was number 186. I know it's well-loved now, but it's always been one of my least favourite Rush songs. It sounds kinda dinky to me! The first time I heard it on the radio I went, 'Ugh.' To my taste there was something too sugary, too corny about the chorus. I must have liked it somewhat when we finished it, or it wouldn’t have made the record, but it’s never wrapped its arms around me." - Geddy Lee, My Effin' Life

Promos

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This is a collection of transcripts of magazine and newspaper articles and other media related to this release or coinciding with the time frame surrounding it. This is an ongoing work in progress; feel free to email any suggested additions.