“YYZ” by Rush

"YYZ" is Rush with the words stripped away, an instrumental off Moving Pictures in 1981 that takes its name from the airport code for Toronto Pearson, the landing strip nearest the band's hometown. Alex Lifeson was flying them in when the airport's radio beacon, which beams those three letters out in Morse code, got stuck in their heads, and it never came loose. So the intro taps out Y-Y-Z in dots and dashes, handed around the band in one disguise after another.

Geddy Lee and Neil Peart wrote it, and they cut it at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec, in the summer of 1980, with Terry Brown producing alongside the band and Paul Northfield engineering. It barrels in right after "Red Barchetta", Lifeson's guitar and Peart's drums tying themselves in odd-time knots. On stage it became Peart's launch pad: the live Exit... Stage Left folds a drum solo into its middle.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.