Can Someone Explain Iron Maiden To Me?

[OrdinaryTa]

The rock group Iron Maiden played New York yesterday, and I saw hundreds of their enthusiastic fans arriving at Madison Square Garden. I don't know why there's such a fascination with death and cruelty - is this a sign of the times? Maybe somebody here can explain why this group is - apparently - very popular.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

1. I used to love Iron Maiden as a teenager

Most people never really get over the bands they loved in high school.
They are one generation past Black Sabbath.


Here is a great anti-war song. A little gruesome but effective nonetheless:

2 Minutes to Midnight

Kill for gain or shoot to maim
But we don't need a reason
The Golden Goose is on the loose
And never out of season
Some blackened pride still burns inside
This shell of bloody treason
Here's my gun for a barrel of fun
For the love of living death.

CHORUS
The killer's breed or the demon's seed,
The glamour, the fortune, the pain,
Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain,
But don't you pray for my soul anymore.
2 minutes to midnight
The hands that threaten doom.
2 minutes to midnight
To kill the unborn in the womb.

The blind men shout let the creatures out
We'll show the unbelievers
The napalm screams of human flames
Of a prime time Belsen feast...YEAH!
As the reasons for the carnage cut their meat and lick the gravy,
We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies.

CHORUS

The body bags and little rags of children torn in two
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you.
As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song,
To the tune of starving millions to make a better kind of gun.

CHORUS

Midnight...all night...

[AnnabelLee]

5. I loved them as a teenager, too

My favorite was The Prisoner

Not a prisoner I'm a free man
And my blood is my own now
Don't care where the past was
I know where I'm going ... out...

I'm not a number I'm a free man
I'll live my life how I want to
You'd better scratch me from your black book
Cos I'll run rings round you

My mother hated the art work on their album covers.:evilgrin:

[ThorsteinVeblen]

6. Female Iron Maiden fans

were pretty rare in my day. You must have had really good taste!

:)

[jus_the_facts]

12. Girl Maiden Fan *raises fist and YELLS*

.....I've stared a few lyric threads all about them 'round here too! :evilgrin:

Run To The Hills

White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
Killed our tribes killed our creed
Took our game for his own need

We fought him hard, we fought him well
Out on the plains we gave him hell
But many came to much for Cree
Oh will we ever be set free

Riding through dustclouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom a stab in the back
Women and children and cowards attack

Run to the hills run for your lives
Run to the hills run for your lives

Soldier blue in the barren wastes
Hunting and killing for game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good Indians are tame
Selling them whisky and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old

Run to the hills run for your lives

~Iron Maiden from Number Of The Beast~

......now these Scotish boys singin' about American History impressed the hell outta me....always loved 'em....even back before Bruce Dickinson was the lead singer.....Oh the song STRANGE WORLD :loveya:

[opiate69]

2. Actually...

Iron Maiden's popularity peaked almost 20 years ago... granted, their album covers are a little macabre, but not all of their lyrics are about death and cruelty. Just good, old-fashioned, two-guitar heavy metal.

[newyawker99]

17. Congrats opiate69!! 200 posts

:toast:

[opiate69]

18. Cool!

I hadn't noticed that! Thanks for the beer, and could you pass me the ashtray, please? ;)

[kixot]

3. It's not really about death and cruelty.

It's more of an outward expression of societal angst, self hate, and dark thoughts. They appeal to a motif in many way to angry young (and not so young any more) fans. As to why the possible recent surgence, there's plenty to be angry or frustrated about, wouldn't you say?

[BigMcLargehuge]

4. Iron Maiden

doesn't really sing about death and cruelty... They tend to focus on history and literature for the basis of their music.

Their first album with vocalist (and best vocalist of the three they've had) Bruce Dickinson, The Number of the Beast, offered several excellent tracks including:

The Number of the Beast, which was based on Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"
Invaders: About the Viking invasion of Southern Europe
Run to the Hills: About the American extermination of the indigenous peoples of North America.
The Prisoner: about the theme of the British spy/sci fi TV show.
Children of the Damned: About Johh Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoo's

Other tracks from other albums include:

The Trooper: About the Charge of the Light Briggade
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: about Coleridge's poem
Somewhere in Time: about time travel
A song about Frank Herbert's Dune (whose title I can't bring immedately to mind)
Die with your boots on: About not surrendering to bad luck framed against WW1

So to suggest that they are somehow glorifying death and torture is a little uninformed.

The reason that fans, like myself, get all excited when they come to town is because they put on a fantastic show, and their music is both operatic in scope and cathartic in intensity.

I love Iron Maiden.

[arcane1]

10. Piece of Mind was my favorite...

Where Eagles Dare
Flight of Icarus
Still Life
Revelations
The Trooper
Die With Your Boots on

ahh... those were the days...


that said, I haven't bought a Maiden cd since probably 1987

and yes, their CD covers were more gruesome than the music, it was like a thing that took off with them and their fans as a trademark of sorts. Rare indeed was the heavy metal band that did material like theirs... you'll notice no misogyny in their music, unlike many many from that period

[jus_the_facts]

19. They had a couple tunes to pushed that envelope.....

....like say Charlotte The Harlot and 22 Acacia Avenue....both about prostitution....excerpts:

Charlotte The Harlot

Giving a swish with your arse in the air
Don't you know what they're saying
Charlotte you're so refined
When you take all the love that they're giving

Charlotte the harlot
Show me your leg
Charlotte the harlot
Take me to bed
Charlotte the harlot
Let me see blood
Charlotte the harlot
Set me see love

There was a time when you left me standing there
Picking up the pieces of love from the floor
Well Charlotte you left me alone in there
To make your ends as a bloody whore

~off Iron Maiden...Iron Maiden~

~22 Acacia Avenue~
Charlotte isn't it time you stopped all this mad life
Don't you ever think about the bad times
Why do you have to live this way
do you enjoy the lay or is it the pay

Beat her, mistreat her do anything that you please
Bite her excite her make her get down on her knees
Abuse her, misuse her, she can take alll you've got
Caress her, molest her, she always does what you want

22, the avenue, that's the place where we all go
you will find it's warm inside

~off Number Of The Beast~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

:hi: Sexy Jesus! :evilgrin:

[OrdinaryTa]

11. Glorifying Torture

So to suggest that they are somehow glorifying death and torture is a little uninformed

I know what an "iron maiden" is - it's a gruesome torture device used in the Middle Ages. Perhaps there's deep meaning to this group's songs, but the tee-shirts and the album covers are full of skulls and death and cruelty. I acknowledge being uninformed ... I'm just judging them by how they and their fans present themselves.

[frylock]

13. their name was derived from the nick of then PM mags thatcher..

not the actual torture device. Most of the music, as was pointed out in an earlier thread, was written by bassist Steve "'arry" Harris who is huge into classic lit and film. BTW.. I've seen Maiden four (4) times. Always a great show. Second row, right in front of Harris for the Powerslave tour.

[BigMcLargehuge]

14. I envy you

I had tickets to the 7th Son of a 7th Son tour but ended up with a badass case of food poisoning the day before the show.

I hear my brother's had a great time while I was driving the porcelain bus.

Ever check out Dickinson's solo stuff? Accident of Birth is a stellar record.

[Kat45]

22. I liked one of Dickinson's solo albums, and I was surprised

because I hate Iron Maiden. His vocals in that band annoy me so much--I hate that type of overly-bombastic singing. Can't stand Dio or Queensryche for the same reasons. I'm not saying those guys don't have good voices, technically speaking; I just can't stand that style of singing. On Dickinson's solo album (that I heard), I thought he sounded good NOT using that style of vocals.

BTW, I was doing some music journalism at the time, and I interviewed Bruce Dickinson.

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. I didn't mean it as a slight

it's just a common misconception about the band is all.

[sweetheart]

7. megadeath, scorpions... ministry.. etc.

Watching some beavis and butthead will help you reverse engineer the mindset... :-)

I used to like that music when i felt like a repressed wage slave with no hope of ever being free... and somehow at high volume while stoned to the gills, i became silent violence against authority... silent in a hurricane of sound... rock you like a hurricaine.. (scorpions).

For every taliban-bush supporter in a bible-hate club at the whitehouse is a black-tshirted inner city youth with an anti-authority- vibe... the harder they push, the harder the spirit pushes back... iron maiden is only natural for those who have not power... futiiity music.

As i've aged and left the criminal states of slavery, the music left me too... seems that in my own experience, once the nazi's were gone, the need to be intensely un-nazi went away...

I still have a lotta albums of that sort of music, and back in black is kickin rock... though methinks without the experience of being a slave in a hate world, the sentiment is lost.

[Runesong]

8. An explaination.

They were a very underrated heavy metal band back in the 80's.

Their album covers feature a death-defying character named "Eddie". There could be some deep, philisophical meaning behind the predicaments Eddie finds himself in. He is a survivor that transcends all torments and pain. But like me, I think the artist just likes drawing really cool pictures of skulls, and curvy babes with bat wings. :)

The song writers of Iron Maiden are very well read, and base their tunes on classic fantasy and sci-fi, and epic poems such as "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner"

Listen to a few Iron Maiden tunes. I think you will find many of the lyrics a bit deeper than their album covers. (I admit some of their tunes just kick ass, and have no other redeeming value :)

[uberotto]

9. During the decade of hair bands and bubblegum rock....

there were a few bands that gained success doing something different and Iron Maiden was aguably one of the best in the group.

They had considerable musical talent, and their songs were well written, intelligent and a hell of a lot of fun to sing along to in the car while shaking your head back and fourth.

Back in the 80's I was a big fan of the hair bands and the bubblegum rockers, i.e. Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Van Halen, Judas Priest, etc...

But I never considered these groups to be in the same league as groups such as Iron Maiden, Rush, Motorhead or Queensriche. These were the 80's rock gods.


Running to the Hills

White man came across the sea,
He brought us pain and misery.

He killed our tribes, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own needs

We fought him hard, we fought him well,
Out on the plains we gave him hell...

But when it came to much to (something)
Oh, Will we ever be set free?

Running through dustlands and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains

Chasing the Redskins back to their homes,
Fighting the battle games

Murder for freedom a stab in the back
Women and children and cowards, attack...

[thermodynamic]

16. It's been that way since the 80s

Amusing, isn't it? The 60s and 70s were about love. Then came Reagan and everything turned dark and icky. Alternative rock was then born and started out rather nicely. Then came Bill Clinton, nothing much happened in the industry and things got dull and machinist in quality - very boring and all the same blah. Then came Bush and the 80s are making a revival.

[trof]

20. 1 picture=1000 words

The first written reference to the Maiden used for execution was in 1515. The Maiden, however had been in use for several decades before that date. The infamous Iron Maiden of Nuremberg, which is the style shown was destroyed in 1944 during an air raid.
;-)

[sangha]

21. No! No one can explain it

Some will try, but none will succeed. It's inexplicable