According to
Peart, the song describes the "storms of life," using storm level in the
Beaufort wind scale as an analogy. Peart, a self described "weather fanatic", makes references to "the eye of the storm" and circling hurricanes in the lyrics. He also "express[es] appreciation" for the disproportionally small number of female fans at Rush shows "singing along, or air-drumming, or even dancing" in the lyric "cool and remote like dancing girls". "Force Ten" was written in three hours on December 14, 1986, the last day of pre-production for
Hold Your Fire. 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 fast rock tempo. Peart has said that
Geddy Lee and
Alex Lifeson were "trying to explore some musical areas that we hadn't covered yet," when writing the music for the song. Lee performed bass chords in the song, inspired to do so by his friend
Jeff Berlin. The song was described by
The Cavalier Daily as "intense". ==Release and reception==