Force Ten (song) worked with Rush on their song "Tom Sawyer", had sent Neil Peart some lyrics for the song, and Peart would add more verses to it. Lyrically, the song describes the "storms of life," making a reference to a very high level of the Beaufort scale ("force ten" is defined as a 'storm', being near the scale's maximum of 12) as an analogy, according to the book "Rush and Philosophy: Heart and Mind United". Musically, "Force Ten" is composed in A minor, with changes into A major scale occurring in the song. The song is set in common time at a
Great Lakes Storm of 1913 indicating a storm warning with northwesterly winds. By late afternoon, the storm signal flags were replaced with a vertical sequence of red, white, and red lanterns, indicating that a hurricane with winds over 74 mph (119 km/h) was coming. (The word "hurricane" here does not refer to a tropical cyclone, but to Force 12 winds on the Beaufort scale.) The winds on Lake Superior had already reached 50 mph (80 km/h), and an accompanying blizzard was moving toward Lake Huron. By Saturday, the storm's status had been upgraded to "severe". The storm was centered over eastern Lake Superior, covering the