The Necromancer Rush

The Rank of the Ghost in the Shell is Major... with an M.
M=13
M is for Masonry.

"The Necromancer" by Rush from Caress of Steel released on September 24, 1975, by Mercury Records
I. "Into the Darkness" – 4:20
II. "Under the Shadow" – 4:25
III. "Return of the Prince" – 3:51

By-Tor, or in this case "Prince By-Tor", appears to battle for freedom and Slays his foes in part III, Return of the Prince. By-Tor made his debut in Rush's previous album Fly By Night in which he lost the battle with the Snowdog. Check out the Songfacts for "By-Tor And The Snow Dog."

Neil Peart explained: "I guess he's like all of us - sometimes good, and sometimes he's bad!"

“The Necromancer” is a song that was broken up into three parts as it focused on the tale of a necromancer. The first leg of this twelve-minute tune began with “Into the Darkness” as the character in the story began to practice divination as he summoned up the spirits of the deceased. In actual context, the lyrics talking about three travelers meeting in Willow Dale was a direct reference to Rush as a startup band that came out of Willowdale, a suburb in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The second part of the song was “Under the Shadow,” which was interpreted as an even further musical adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and one of its top villains, Sauron. When “The Necromancer” goes into the third and final stage of the song with “Return of the Prince,” the entire story behind this song comes full circle as the character of By-Tor from Fly by Night‘s “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” has made his way back home after experiencing his own adventure. In the song, By-Tor was a necromancer that came across as a hero, not a villain.

As a songwriter, Neil Peart was a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. This wasn’t the first time, nor the last, he would venture into lyrical material that swirled around the fantastical world of sorcery and its varying practices. As musical composers, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee excelled in their adaptation of Tolkien’s work as one of the world’s most influential novelists.

Inside the album, just below the lyrics to “The Necromancer” it reads “Terminat hora diem; terminat auctor opus.” When translated from its Latin-based dialect, it means “as the hour ends the day, the author ends his work.” This was a quote from the 1592 Doctor Faustus play, written by Christopher Marlowe.

Released in 1975, Rush’s Caress of Steel was the Canadian musical group’s third studio album. This was the recording that had the band shift from bluesy hard rock to progressive, a pattern that would dictate the rest of the careers of Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, and Alex Lifeson. Instead of a bunch of songs thrown together that had no relevance to each other, this new approach to using an entire album as a musical storybook had one song finish off in a manner that would allow the one behind it seemed to pick up where it left off.

When Caress of Steel didn’t quite measure up to commercial expectations at first, Rush came dangerously close to being dropped by their label, Mercury Records. Not only was the album not as well received by the public as hoped, but the musical direction was also much darker and more fantastical than Rush’s two previous albums.

However, over time, the popularity of this recording had it sell enough copies to become certified gold with Music Canada and the Recording Industry Association of America. Even though it took about twenty years to get there, a discerning fan base saw there was more to this album than simply a cluster of random songs thrown together.