Iron Maiden Can Save Your Soul
Iron Maiden. Aren't those guys head bangers and satanists? I guess the first answer is - so what if they were? But more importantly, their music isn't well understood by those who aren't fans. That may sound like a tautology. Isn't that true of most music? Perhaps, but at least with any other popular band, you can say most people have heard enough of their music to decide whether they like it or not. This is less true of Iron Maiden, which gets little radio air play. They get by with concerts and albums. You have to go looking for their music.
This is compounded by the fact that those songs which have gotten air play are among their worst. And the worst of the worst is their first number one hit, which they wrote as a joke. Let's go back to 1991. By that time Iron Maiden, which had been around since 1975, was sixteen years old. And yet they'd never had a number one radio hit in the United States. In that year, the producers of Nightmare On Elm Street 5 asked them to write a song. The band figured no one would care so they spent about 5 minutes writing the worst parody of a heavy metal song they could think of. It ended up being their answer to "Spring Time For Hitler". The intentionally bad song was called "Take Your Daughter To The Slaughter" and it's easily the single worst Iron Maiden song ever. It was also their first number one hit in this country. Some times you can't win.
A better place to start might be 1982, with the song "Hallowed Be Thy Name".
What the devil is saying here is that he's already condemned to Hell. He can't be saved. But his beloved humanity can be saved. So rather than hating each other, he volunteers to be their object of hate. He hopes that by directing all their negative feelings at him, they can flush away the negativity and turn towards hope. I'll venture to say that regardless of one's religious beliefs, that's a fair bit more sophisticated than chewing bat heads on stage. Not that there's anything wrong with that so long as you got your rabbies shot, Ozzy.
I've found the lyrical repertoire of the band impressive. There is of course a lot of stuff about history, due to lead singer Bruce Dickinson having been a history major. Their take on history ranges from a straight retelling of events to a more mythical note. A good example of the first is "Alexender The Great", where Dickinson seems to take pride in historical accuracy. It's just an ok song, honestly. This isn't School House Rock, after all. A better song is "Powerslave", about a Pharroh facing his mortality and, you guessed it, doubting his religion.
This is the tradition that the band is drawing on. For starters, they are British after all. And like any good gang of Brits, they have a love of everything that drips and oozes and watches you from the dark. I think that Steve Harris, who gave the band its name, was also evoking the way we view the world is not always quite accurate. Victorians embraced the iron maiden as a symbol of how far they'd come. The industrial revolution was supposed to bring modernity at all. Don't look at the polluted water or the poor children dying of dysentery - at least we're not as bad as our nit witted dark age ancestors, right? Perhaps the Lord of Light would have something to say about that.
This links together with their strain of social protest, which is where Iron Maiden channels some of their 70's punk rock influences. There are songs such as "Run To The Hills", about the massacre of native americans, and "2 Minutes To Mightnight", which is one of the angriest war protests songs ever written. This might be a little less kid friendly, if only because of their subject matter. The latter song after all talks about "the napalm screams of human flames", but if you're going to write a war protest song you might as well go big or go home. And they often go big in this department and have voice a strong opposition to needless conflict throughout their 43 year history.
Whatever they're reputation, Iron Maiden actually has a pretty solid message. For band that was demonized for its negative effect on the kids, their music is shockingly clean. There's hardly a curse word among their songs. There aren't really even song about sex, if you don't count "Take Your Daughter To The Slaughter". I'm not saying that those subjects are by definition bad things, but let's just say I'd have less of a problem with kids listening to Iron Maiden than I would with a lot of other groups that get prime time mainstream air play.
When it comes down to it, the band is super geeky and strike a more hopeful tone than a negative one. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that there are glimmers of light that can only be seen when we try get above the gloom that marks so much of humanity's inhumanity to its own kind:
This is compounded by the fact that those songs which have gotten air play are among their worst. And the worst of the worst is their first number one hit, which they wrote as a joke. Let's go back to 1991. By that time Iron Maiden, which had been around since 1975, was sixteen years old. And yet they'd never had a number one radio hit in the United States. In that year, the producers of Nightmare On Elm Street 5 asked them to write a song. The band figured no one would care so they spent about 5 minutes writing the worst parody of a heavy metal song they could think of. It ended up being their answer to "Spring Time For Hitler". The intentionally bad song was called "Take Your Daughter To The Slaughter" and it's easily the single worst Iron Maiden song ever. It was also their first number one hit in this country. Some times you can't win.
A better place to start might be 1982, with the song "Hallowed Be Thy Name".
When you know that your time is close at hand
Maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down here is just a strange illusion
Maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down here is just a strange illusion
With a melody that sounds a bit like Led Zepplin crossed with AC/DC and lyrics that sound a bit like Pink Floyd, this is a song about a man facing execution and questioning the meaning of life as a world full of human delusions fades away and reality comes into focus. At the end of the song he is given his last rights and he yells, "Hallowed Be Thy Name". Given that a few lines before he was signing, "Somebody cries from a cell god be with you / If there is a god, then why does it let me go?", I'm guessing the final words of the Lord's prayer are not entirely sincere. I've been there, buddy.
Iron Maiden definitely has a history of bucking religious belief (even though their drummer's actually a devote Christian). Sometimes that has taken the form of embracing satanic or pagan symbols. Some times this is just a result of regular old counter cultural fervor. You can't be a rock band without planting your flag in some sort of controversy after all. However, there is often something much more intellectual going on.
Take for example, "Lord of Light". This is a sympathetic song about Lucifer written from his point of view. In this song, the fallen angel was punished by an oppressive god for the crime of trying to show humanity the truth. Lucifer is painted as an almost messianic figure who dared defied authority because he cared about setting man free from the delusion of religion. Now he sees the cruelty that people show to each other and pleads for them to stop. He volunteers to be their bad guy.
Iron Maiden definitely has a history of bucking religious belief (even though their drummer's actually a devote Christian). Sometimes that has taken the form of embracing satanic or pagan symbols. Some times this is just a result of regular old counter cultural fervor. You can't be a rock band without planting your flag in some sort of controversy after all. However, there is often something much more intellectual going on.
Take for example, "Lord of Light". This is a sympathetic song about Lucifer written from his point of view. In this song, the fallen angel was punished by an oppressive god for the crime of trying to show humanity the truth. Lucifer is painted as an almost messianic figure who dared defied authority because he cared about setting man free from the delusion of religion. Now he sees the cruelty that people show to each other and pleads for them to stop. He volunteers to be their bad guy.
You don't see this strange world
Quite the same as me
Don't deny me what I am
Nothing hidden still you fail to see the truth
These are things you can't reveal
Others wait their turn
Their lives were meant to last
Use yours wisely as the light is fading fast
Free your soul and let it fly
Mine was caught I couldn't try
Time returns again to punish all of us
Their lives were meant to last
Use yours wisely as the light is fading fast
Free your soul and let it fly
Mine was caught I couldn't try
Time returns again to punish all of us
What the devil is saying here is that he's already condemned to Hell. He can't be saved. But his beloved humanity can be saved. So rather than hating each other, he volunteers to be their object of hate. He hopes that by directing all their negative feelings at him, they can flush away the negativity and turn towards hope. I'll venture to say that regardless of one's religious beliefs, that's a fair bit more sophisticated than chewing bat heads on stage. Not that there's anything wrong with that so long as you got your rabbies shot, Ozzy.
But I get it. The band has art like this:
That dude is Eddie, the band's mascot. He appears on all their album covers and his full name is Eddie the Head, which is a joke. In cockney English, Ed and Head are the same word so he's Ed the 'ed. I didn't say it was a good joke. That of course is the point. Iron Maiden is populated by a bunch of geeks who felt that their own sorry faces weren't quite epic enough to justify putting on the album covers - and besides, they weren't all that interested in fame and wanted to be able to go to the grocery store without being recognized. So they basically created a fictional character to be their Bono and act as the face of the music. They then proceeded to give him a kind of dopey name. Because why they hell not? It's all just a strange illusion.
I've found the lyrical repertoire of the band impressive. There is of course a lot of stuff about history, due to lead singer Bruce Dickinson having been a history major. Their take on history ranges from a straight retelling of events to a more mythical note. A good example of the first is "Alexender The Great", where Dickinson seems to take pride in historical accuracy. It's just an ok song, honestly. This isn't School House Rock, after all. A better song is "Powerslave", about a Pharroh facing his mortality and, you guessed it, doubting his religion.
Tell me why I had to be a power slave
I don't want to die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?
When the Life Giver dies, all around is laid to waste.
And in my last hour,I'm a slave to the power of death
I don't want to die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?
When the Life Giver dies, all around is laid to waste.
And in my last hour,I'm a slave to the power of death
Pharroh reflects back on his life as an absolute monarch and appears to come to terms with the common thread of all humanity, which is their mortality. Then there's a guitar solo and when the song comes back, it's thousands of years later and the Parroh is still singing as ghost in the grave. It's a really weird song, but marked by power chords and the influences of middle eastern tonal structure. It's catchy, but atypical.
Other historical subjects include the first World War and the crash of the R101, a British airship that met its demise in France in 1930. It's sometimes regarded as the Titanic of the sky, considering some similarities in the way this marvel of engineering carried aristocrats to their doom after succumbing to human error and the ultimate power of nature. I suppose you could consider "Tears of a Clown" a historical rumination of sorts too. One of their more recent songs, it's a poignant tribute to Robin Williams after his death.
What about that name? Yes, Iron Maiden is the most metal name for a band ever. And yet even this comes with subtlety once you understand the history. You see, the iron maiden never existed. That is, it wasn't a real medieval device. Rather, it's mostly a creation of Victorian British gothic horror. The first iron maiden turned up in Germany in the 1700's as a faux medieval tourist attraction, but it wasn't until the following century that the British turned it into a cultural phenomenon, popularized by none other than Bram Stoker. All of the iron maidens you see today actually date from this era and were built as a part of carnival shows, along with other fake horrors from the middle ages such as the chastity belt.
This is the tradition that the band is drawing on. For starters, they are British after all. And like any good gang of Brits, they have a love of everything that drips and oozes and watches you from the dark. I think that Steve Harris, who gave the band its name, was also evoking the way we view the world is not always quite accurate. Victorians embraced the iron maiden as a symbol of how far they'd come. The industrial revolution was supposed to bring modernity at all. Don't look at the polluted water or the poor children dying of dysentery - at least we're not as bad as our nit witted dark age ancestors, right? Perhaps the Lord of Light would have something to say about that.
This links together with their strain of social protest, which is where Iron Maiden channels some of their 70's punk rock influences. There are songs such as "Run To The Hills", about the massacre of native americans, and "2 Minutes To Mightnight", which is one of the angriest war protests songs ever written. This might be a little less kid friendly, if only because of their subject matter. The latter song after all talks about "the napalm screams of human flames", but if you're going to write a war protest song you might as well go big or go home. And they often go big in this department and have voice a strong opposition to needless conflict throughout their 43 year history.
Whatever they're reputation, Iron Maiden actually has a pretty solid message. For band that was demonized for its negative effect on the kids, their music is shockingly clean. There's hardly a curse word among their songs. There aren't really even song about sex, if you don't count "Take Your Daughter To The Slaughter". I'm not saying that those subjects are by definition bad things, but let's just say I'd have less of a problem with kids listening to Iron Maiden than I would with a lot of other groups that get prime time mainstream air play.
When it comes down to it, the band is super geeky and strike a more hopeful tone than a negative one. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that there are glimmers of light that can only be seen when we try get above the gloom that marks so much of humanity's inhumanity to its own kind:
There are times when I feel I'm afraid for the world
There are times I'm ashamed of us all
When you're floating on all the emotion you feel
And reflecting the good and the bad
Will we ever know what the answer to life really is?
Can you really tell me what life is?
Maybe all the things that you know that are precious to you
Could be swept away by fate's own hand
There are times I'm ashamed of us all
When you're floating on all the emotion you feel
And reflecting the good and the bad
Will we ever know what the answer to life really is?
Can you really tell me what life is?
Maybe all the things that you know that are precious to you
Could be swept away by fate's own hand
That's from the song "Blood Brothers", which Bruce Dickinson wrote after the death of his father. The meaning of the title is that if you are like him, if you are able to see the meaninglessness of all of our petty squabbles and wish to embrace a better way of living, then you and Bruce are like blood brothers. Yep, sounds like the lyrics of baby eating occultists or dumb head bangers to me.
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