Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times

Neil Peart decided to drive his BMW Z-8 automobile from L.A. to Big Bend National Park, in Southwest Texas. As he sped along “between the gas-gulping SUVs and asthmatic Japanese compacts clumping in the left lane, and the roaring, straining semis in the right,” he acted as his own DJ, lining up the CDs chronologically and according to his possible moods.

“Not only did the music I listened to accompany my journey, but it also took me on sidetrips, through memory and fractals of associations,...