It just turned into one of our classic songs, I think.

He was new to our music and I remember him, after one run-through of the mix, saying, ‘This is a nasty little tune, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Well, maybe a little…’ But yeah, it was great fun to do that song.

I remember mixing it at Trident Studios, and the engineer was a lovely guy. “We were surrounded by all that nature at Rockfield and it just made sense. “That song was one of the most fun that we were working on at that time, for sure,” Lee says. (Spoiler alert: the oaks get chopped down to size.) A deceptively spiky tale, this disquieting fantasy about oaks and maples competing for the sunlight is an unlikely anthem, particularly given its rather unpleasant denouement. Strangely, the song that became one of Rush’s biggest ever hits, both on the radio and within their enormous fan base, was Hemispheres’ skewed, side-two curio The Trees. Working on a side-long piece is so draining on many levels, you feel like you’re a slave to this concept, so anything that’s not like that feels way more fun!” So we decided that we needed one more song for Hemispheres, Neil had these Circumstances lyrics, and it became a great opportunity to do something different. We famously have no hidden tracks because every song took maximum effort and we didn’t see the point in putting in maximum effort for a song we had doubts about. If, along the way, a song doesn’t cut it, we just kick it out. “The truth is, we don’t write more than we can use. “Yeah, that song was a bit of a holiday for us at that time, like, ‘Let’s do something short…!’” Lee laughs. The sub-four-minute splendour of Circumstances, in particular, hinted strongly at another possible direction for these young masters to pursue, while giving them a much-needed break from the arduous longform songwriting process. But at a time when Rush were significant figures in the rock world and increasingly in demand on US rock radio, Hemispheres also managed to conjure two of the band’s most succinct and enduring songs. Hemispheres is best known for its two magnificent bookends: the sprawling, joyously intricate title track and the instrumental, showboating blitzkrieg of La Villa Strangiato.

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