Fly by Night
by Rush
- 139
- BPM
- B minor
- Key
- 10A
- Camelot
- 51
- Danceability
- 9
- Acousticness
The first time Rush put "Fly by Night" out as a single, in April 1975, it also became the first Rush single released outside the United States and Canada. It went out in the Netherlands and Australia that summer. In December 1976 it was released a second time, now as a live medley with "In the Mood" from the album All the World's a Stage. That version became the band's first single on the Billboard Hot 100, at No. 88.
Neil Peart wrote the lyrics about his first trip away from home. In 1971, at 18, he left his small-town Canadian life and flew to England. Geddy Lee wrote the music and sang the lead. On the middle eight his voice runs through a Leslie speaker. The song is the title track of the band's second studio album.
Lee has never been fond of it. In his 2023 memoir, My Effin' Life, he writes that it sounds kinda dinky to him. He felt that way from the first time he heard it on the radio after the album came out. He says the chorus was too sugary and too corny for his taste.
Fly by Night runs at 139 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.73 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 432 ms. It is in B minor, Camelot 10A, which shares its notes with D major and mixes cleanly with E minor and F# minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.