Far Cry: Background

“Far Cry,” about the surprising turn the world’s taken over the years, is the first piece on Snakes & Arrows, although it was one of the later pieces written. The song emerged almost spontaneously, with the main riff coming out of a jam between Alex and Geddy shortly after their return to the studio after a break.

“‘Far Cry’ was a really good day. We had just taken a break for the summer, and we got back together in the fall, and Al and I were fired up to start writing again. So we got into the studio and had this awesome jam. We were just roasting. It was so much fun. Then Alex took his normal position on the couch and went to sleep and I just took the bits and pieces and started playing with them. And at the same time Neil had dropped off some lyrics that we just loved. They were just so right. We loved the sentiment in them. And they seemed to match perfectly with this jam we had just done. It was one of those magic songs that just came together. My friend Ben Mink [collaborator with Geddy on his solo album My Favorite Headache] has this phrase: ‘All you really need is a good six minutes,’ and that jam was an example of a good six minutes.”—Geddy in The Game of Snakes & Arrows DVD

Neil in his essay on the album describes the piece, along with a few others like “Faithless,” as having a blend of spirituality and raw sophistication.

“It was almost like we already knew the song when we wrote it. We just played it. And that was realy cool. That doesn’t happen very often. We were high-fiving and the whole thing, because it’s a relief when something like that happens, for sure.”—Alex in The Game of Snakes & Arrows

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