Rush and The Trees Revisited:

I would never have imagined it, but some don’t believe Rush’s “The Trees” is an anti-egalitarian anthem. Daniel Glick, for example, thinks I’ve misread the parable and is “pissed” that I am “trying to co-opt” a song he loves for a political view he “abhor[s].” Well, if Glick is going to be annoyed at anyone, it should be Rush lyricist Neil Peart, not me. Peart has long been an admirer of Ayn Rand, and her philosophy of objectivism heavily influenced his lyrics for Rush, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, as detailed in this article from Liberty by Scott Bullock.

Other readers get it, suggesting “The Trees” is Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” set to music in the forest. To another reader, “The Trees” recalls this quote by Milton Friedman: “I cannot understand the value of a system of equality that cuts down the tall trees to the level of the short ones.”