Lakeside Park

The "Lakeside Park" is St. Catharine's, on Lake Ontario in Canada. Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart lived very near Lakeside Park and spent summers as a child working and playing there. This song details his memories, his time spent there, and of how it used to be before they changed it.

The lyrics mention the "24th of May" - This is Victoria Day, commemorating Queen Victoria's birthday.

Neil Peart (from Traveling Music): "Another important setting in my childhood and early teens was Lakeside Park, in Port Dalhousie. When I was 14 and 15, I worked summers at Lakeside Park as a barker ('Catch a bubble, prize every time,' all day and night), and there was music: some of the kids brought transistor radios to work, and the music of that summer of 1966 played up and down the midway. At night, when the midway closed, we gathered around a fire on the beach, singing. Lakeside Park resonated in my life in so many deep ways, especially those fundamental exposures to music that would be forever important. It's all gone now. All that's left, apart from memories, is the old merry-go-round."