A Matter of Life and Death Dissection

A masterpiece. Filled with gargantuan riffs and some of the heaviest music ever recorded by Maiden. Triumphant sounding harmonies in songs such as FTGGoG, The Longest Day and TROBB (which also contains my favourite ever Davey solo). It's heavy, dark, cohesive and more addictive than good beer. Love it.
 
I never tire of it either and opposed to lots of fans - I loved it from the first listen. It's definitely the reunion era album I liked the most right from the start and I still do. For me it's the only one that stands among their stellar 80s albums and I say that as a fan of all their post-2000 output.
 
PlayClassics! said:
It is extremely overated IMO. Solid, but nowhere near their best works.
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I actually agree with this. It's a Solid album in so far that it's doesn't have any really awful songs, but I still find a lot of the songs to be a bit tedious. It's like that many songs have some brilliant parts, but also flawed with some parts that doesn't fit, too slow or to soft. Even my fav song of that album, which is Brighter than a thousands suns, have a part that is a little bit tedious (the first 2 minutes, although I guess the slow beginning might have an effect to enhance the increase in tempo later in the song). Same goes with The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, it's very slow in the intro, but I guess that is on purpose as it's meant to be a build up.

DW 5/10, TCDR 6/10, BTATS 9/10, TP 6/10, TLD 6/10 (lame chorus, overrated song), OOTS 5/10, TROBB 7/10, FTGGOG 6/10, LOL 6/10, TL 7/10.

A pretty average heavy metal album and one of Maidens worst. IMO.
 
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I said this over on the Lord of Light thread, but one of the huge themes of this album is religious iconography, and I think that the use of religious counterculture, specifically, is one of the reasons this album is so damned popular.

Pretty much each song is either directly about religion or has a clear reference to religion, and most of the time it's negative, but not viciously so - most of the time, it's in an exploratory manner.

Different World - what makes this song interesting is not so much what it is about, because the themes contained within aren't necessarily about religion, but they are about considering different points of view. "I thought I had it all/I had it all worked out/Just what the future held/That there would be no doubt" indicating that this was someone who was quite sure where they were going. The bridge quite literally is about listening to others "Tell me what you hear/And then tell me what you see/Everybody has a different way/To view the world." The band is basically saying, "OK, open your minds. There's different ways to view the world, and we're going to take you on a ride through some of them.

These Colours Don't Run - along with Different World, the only song that doesn't draw into the previously mentioned religious iconography in that it is primarily about mortal conflict and the role of bravery within said conflict.

...but then again, patriotism, the method by which people inspire others to die for their wars could be said to have the strength of religion. Let's look a little closer: "For the passion, for the glory, for the memories, for the money/You're a soldier for your country, what's the difference, all the same." What is Bruce saying here? He's saying it doesn't matter why someone fought, so it may not be an emphasis on patriotic nationalism. What about, "On the shores of tyranny you crashed a human wave/Paying for my freedom with a lonely unmarked grave." Interestingly enough, Bruce is making about as direct a reference as he can to the subject matter of a later song in the album, which really plays up to the interconnected nature of AMOLAD - there's really only one event in human history that the average person knows about that can be described as crashing a human wave on the shores of tyranny. But he's also using a phrase we hear often around Remembrance Day - "paid for our freedom". There's a sort of human ancestor worship going on in this song, referencing the deeds of previous generations as they forced their way inland from a beachhead, carrying Old Glory and the Union Jack and the Red Ensign deeper and deeper into the continent against fascist tides. It's not direct religious reference, but there's a lot of iconography in this that is very similar. Interestingly enough, the band is positive about this type of iconography.

Brighter Than a Thousand Suns - the song title is taken directly from a religious text. The text, of course, was quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer years after the first nuclear test when people asked him what he was thinking, but we now we're getting into the meat of the religious counterculture themes of the album.

This song is about the atomic bomb and directly references the religious conflict many people encountered with the potential devastation of this unheralded weapon. The beginning verse, said quietly during a soft intro, is a prayer. "We are not the sons of God/We are not his chosen people now/We have crossed the paths he trod/we will feel the pain of his beginning." Let's get a little deeper into this verse. The chosen people of God are the Jews, and they have always considered themselves by that unique title, and for those who are unaware, there are a metric ton of Jews who worked on the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, James Franck, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Bruno Rossi, Emeilo Segre, Louis Slotin, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, and Eugene Wigner were all Jewish, of Jewish descent, or married to Jewish people - and the vast majority of them were from central Europe, which they left for some strange reason, and decided to help the USA. This line is a prayer about so many people of Jewish descent turning against god by the act of detonating the first nuclear device - something that they describe as "his beginning" - literally harnessing the primal forces of nature. The stuff that makes the sun burn and the stars twinkle. Oppenheimer thought of the Hindu tradition - We are become Death, destroyer of worlds. The power of the atomic bomb made many of these men and women question religion, and question if what they were doing was right. It should be noted this last line is deliver as the music swells suddenly in intensity, and this has always very powerfully given me the image of being in New Mexico on that day, watching, waiting, praying, before the sun was suddenly made meaningless by the brightness before me.

Yet the rabbit hole goes deeper. "Yellow sun it's evil twin/In the black wings deliver him/We will split our souls within/Atom seed to nuclear dust is riven" This isn't about the people directly killed by the first nuclear device delivered in anger. This line could have very easily "We will split their souls within". It's not about the deaths being caused, though we are told that this bomb is evil. It's about the men who created the bomb losing their souls. These scientists weren't soldiers, they didn't bayonet or shoot or blow people up - until the moment that the bomb detonated over Hiroshima, at which point they gained blood on their hands. You can argue over whether or not that blood was necessary, but the fact of the matter is that these fellows were stained by this work, and some felt it for the rest of their lives. Leo Szilard, for example, turned away from weapons development and found a way to turn radiation to good use by inventing radiation therapy - which later saved his life from bladder cancer. Albert Einstein, who co-wrote the letter that started the Manhattan Project, considered the bomb to be an affront to humanity, which explains why he did not work on the Manhattan Project. These scientists gave up a part of their very humanity for this explosion.

Once again, religious counterculture is used, or, I suppose, I should say, taken advantage of. It's always been interesting to me that the name Trinity was used for a nuclear test, and I've often wondered if it was selected in ignorance, or in arrogance, or a little of each, but in the bridge Bruce points out this irony - "Out of the universe, a strange love is born/Unholy union, trinity reformed". The Holy Trinity is Christian iconography, about the concept that there is a three part god - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The term "strange love" refers to the union of technology that created this device, and we are directly told it is evil, using religious themes purposefully against themselves.

It should be noted that we've now dragged Christianity into this, making it the third religion directly referenced in this song. This scientific device is truly the bane of all the world's religion, isn't it? And although they are suggesting that this particular use is evil, they are making us think, aren't they? Technology vs religion, the old battle.

We come back to Oppenheimer, as perhaps we should, as the most public face of the Manhattan Project and the fellow wearing forever the title Father of the Atomic Bomb. "Whatever would Robert have said to his God/About how he made war with the sun". Again, look at the phrasing here. It's not "whatever would Robert have said to OUR God". It specifically references his own religion, which gives us the idea that we are looking from the aspect of men with steeped religious tradition, not necessarily endorsing those viewpoints. Bruce here is showcasing how people must have felt after this terrible creation was used terribly. "E=MC squared you can relate/How we made God with our hands". E=MC squared has literally been called "the God equation", which is a very interesting feeling. It is also a direct reference to Albert Einstein, and taken in context in the song, it's like Robert Oppenheimer is begging for forgiveness. "Einstein, you understand what it is like to create God. You understand what it's like to tap into these primordial forces. The difference is you did it with your mind, and we did it with our hands." Doing, though, is far worse than thinking.

As the song comes to a close, we are treated to a few last (new) pieces of symbolism. "Divide and conquer while ye may/Others preach and others fall and pray/In the bunker's where we'll die/There the executioners they lie." Look at the first line, and Bruce specifically says "ye". He's giving us a clue here - think Biblically. Think about Revelations. Think about Ragnarok. Think about how all the Bronze Age religions that prophecy an apocalypse. Notice he doesn't use the term "Priests preach" or "Rabbis preach". He says "Others." Others preach and others pray. That's because, once again, we aren't talking about a specific religion or the victims. This song is about the creators of the weapon. They're back in the bunker, watching the Trinity Test. And as they split those atoms, part of their humanity died. There the executioners lie, watching their creation, preparing the next wave to strike. Praying is useless, because of their power.

"Holy father, we have sinned." Indeed.

This song is specifically about men who rejected religion for science, and who, in doing so, did great harm. But it does not condemn the act of rejecting religion, nor does it condemn the act of pursuing science. It's about one specific event, where a group of men took theory and made it reality, a reality that later consumed hundreds of thousands in atomic fire and has kept the world on the razor's edge ever since, creeping ever closer to midnight. More than any other act, it was the detonation of the Gadget at the Trinity Test that defined the next 70 years. We should remember this, and be afraid.

Furthermore, this song is about the inability of religion to comprehend the greater secrets that science has discovered. That's why we have references to three major religions within the song. Appropriate religions, but they're there, all the same, and presented on equal footing. It doesn't matter who issues the prayers, after all, or who listens to them. The nuclear bomb has made all people, everywhere, truly equal, for it will vaporize whoever it is aimed at. The artificial lines religion draws are easy enough to turn to ash now, and these men who committed a great sin are going to be forever haunted by it. Well, they were, anyway.

Finally, notice the placement on the album, third in. This contrasts to For the Greater Good of God, which deals with the hypocrisy of murdering in the name of religion, which is third from the end. The band specifically wanted you to think of this theme early, and then come back to a similar, yet opposite feeling later. Rejecting religion in order to kill is just as bad as embracing it in the name of murder.

The Pilgrim - At first, you think, "OK, this is about the Mayflower." And then you tap your foot along and you don't really ponder how that fits in to the counter-religious themes of the album. But when you look into it a bit more, you realize that the lyrics in particular are exceptionally aggressive from a religious stance. Indeed, Iron Maiden has never been particularly a pro-Christian band, specializing in non-Jehovan mythology. So why is this song fairly strong in its stances?

Because the Pilgrims were, in fact, religious iconoclasts that rejected the primary religious interpretations of their day. The Pilgrims were Puritans, people so dickish about hating the Catholics that England eventually threw them out. Until Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, but that's another story. This song is about the physical journey that these counterreligious rebels took to separate themselves from their roots, and this is song is very much about that revolution.

The very first lines refer to the failing Church of England, a faith that Puritans reviled as incomplete in its goal of rejecting Catholicism. "The keys to death and hell/The ailing kingdom, doomed to fall/The bonds of sin and heart will break/The pilgrim's course will take." This is discussing the intrinsic link of 17th c. Anglicism to what the Puritans considered the downfall of society. "Aching limbs and fainting soul/Holy battles take their toll." Now we are clearly referencing the battles of religion and the difficulties of maintaining one's Puritanism in Anglican England.

The chorus tells about the goals of this group. "Now give us our holy sign/Changing our water into wine/So to you we bid farewell/Kingdom of heaven to hell." They are looking for divine inspiration as they depart Europe, supposed to be where the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is founded (see Jerusalem by Bruce Dickinson), that has fallen to hell. "Spirit holy, life eternal/Raise me up and take me home/Pilgrim sunrise, pagan sunset/Onward journey begun." Again, we get the symbol of a true believer commending their lives to their god before partaking in a risky action, followed by a simple statement - the sunrise (West, America) is for the Pilgrims, but that which we leave behind, the sunset (east, Europe) is nothing but paganism.

Notice that dismissal of the various Christian faiths. Paganism is what the Puritans call it, regardless of the denomination. Truly a group of people that want to slice themselves off of their forebears and, thus, are part of a religious counterculture.

The Longest Day - Like the second song on the album, this one is the furthest from the theme of religious counterculture. It's not a concept album, just an album that has a very strong running theme, so that's OK. There are a few religious references, "gates of hell" "pray to God", etc. But those are intended more as metaphors for the event occurring, rather than as methods of explaining what is against or for religion.

There is a neat bit where an older religion is dredged up: "Valhalla waits, valkyries rise and fall/The warrior tombs lie open for us all." Not particularly noteable, I think, except for the lovely contrast to the "Pray to God I survive" line. Most of the men who hit the five Normandy beaches were Christian, so tossing in some pagan elements makes for a combination of a neat turn of a phrase and a direct prod at the members of the Nazi party who indulged in their unique brand of quasi-paganism. Again, this song doesn't slot in nicely, but that's OK.

Out of the Shadows - This song, however, does. Both lyrically and musically this song looks towards Starblind, it's stronger and more direct descendant, but it's still pretty clear. This is a track about being born outside of the shadows of religion. As I will eventually correct on my writing on Starblind, this song isn't about individual faith - Bruce respects your right to believe what you want. It is about the dangerous trappings of organized religion, and how that has restricted humanity since the spread of that scourge, Jehovah-centric religions.

The song starts right off attacking powerful, religious symbolism. "Hold a halo 'round the world, golden is the day/Princes of the universe your burden is the way/So there is no better time who will be born today/A gypsy child at daybreak, a king for a day." Halos, of course, are often considered the sign of an angel, but in this case, he is referring to the fact that we can literally hold halos around the world now. Humanity has advanced to this point, where we can orbit this planet, and that is a good thing. Again, he steals religious iconography with the next stanza, referring to princes of the universe. This isn't a little tongue in cheek reference to the Queen song, either - go read the lyrics. While Freddie was writing about Highlander, the theory is the same. These princes (the Prince of Peace being but one) have one way - burdens. While the day is golden and ripe, the princes of the past linger on their cumbersome ways. Yet, despite all this, today is the best time there has ever been for a child to be born. That child has the best chance of living, education, luxury, and all the things humans need to thrive.

The chorus comes next, and it's very important to this song. "Out of the shadows and into the sun/Dreams of the past as the old ways are done/Oh there is beauty and surely there is pain/But we must endure it to live again." It's interesting that this could be seen both as a metaphor for childbirth and as a metaphor for escaping obfuscation. The segment "old ways are done" is interesting, but certainly points us towards the use of light as a metaphor for knowledge as well. This feels like a Steve lyric in a lot of ways, and the ending bit is very neat as well. Basically we are born into the light, a life of beauty and pain, but we must endure it to live - and at the same time, there are multiple ways to live. Some of them have beauty, and some have pain. But we must get through it to live again.

What does live again mean? Maverick, on the Commentary, has often noted that Steve writes lyrics that hint towards reincarnation, and that might be what he's talking about - counter to Christian religion, certainly. But it also means the continuation of what we know through the next generation. This is a song that focuses on death (the second verse is entirely about death) as well as birth. Potential. Dreams that flicker away. But we can live again through the shared experiences and passing on of our knowledge. Or perhaps through reincarnation. It's not really specific.

The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg - Does anyone else remember how crazy this song made people when it came out? Theories being tossed around left and right. Who was Benjamin Breeg? Why did he die and/or live again? What is the song actually about? There was even a website, benjaminbreeg.co.uk that purported to tell the tale of Benjamin Breeg. I don't think anyone ever figured out if it was a fan who made it or if it was viral advertising.

Once again, this song challenges Western religious norms, by explicitly referencing reincarnation, a very Eastern thing. There's also been a discussion of this song as a description of someone living with serious mental issues. I think it leans a little closer to the themes of Hallowed Be Thy Name, about someone who is wracked with guilt over crimes committed, though those crimes are never explicitly examined.

What is truly interesting is the way that the hints of a mental illness are linked to religion. Now, I don't think religion is a mental illness, as some hardcore atheists will say - I find that to be truly an offensive comparison towards people that have mental illnesses. What I do find interesting is the link between voices in one's head and the break with religion. Let's take a look.

The opening intro is pretty much a repeated plea to someone to listen. "Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you." But what I find neat are the lines "Let me tell you about the things that happen/always real to me." It very much sounds like someone who has things happening that they can't explain - or perhaps that aren't real outside of his head. This is repeated later on, "Demons are trapped all inside of my head" and "I'm able to see things, things I don't want to see."

What we do know about Mr. Breeg is that he is steeped in Christian tradition. He makes explicit references to heaven and hell. He indicates the sky, heaven, as his goal. He concerns himself about sin. The chorus discusses exorcism. It's tough to tell if that makes this a discussion of someone who practices the occult, or someone who merely thinks he does. It's a very interesting collusion, and enough to fit into our recurring theme of counter-religion. Can we truly believe anything said by prophets and witches, if we can't judge if someone is ill or a wizard?

Part 2 - will come later.
 
@LooseCannon- thank you for taking the time to type such a thoughtful analysis of these songs. It certainly is very interesting and has made me enjoy this album and these songs even more!
 
LooseCannon said:
"Spirit holy, life eternal/Raise me up and take me home/Pilgrim sunrise, pagan sunset/Onward journey begun." Again, we get the symbol of a true believer commending their lives to their god before partaking in a risky action, followed by a simple statement - the sunrise (West, America) is for the Pilgrims, but that which we leave behind, the sunset (east, Europe) is nothing but paganism.
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But the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
 
Hey. New member here. I think that AMOLAD is a spectacular album. It's just so incredibly solid from top to bottom. While it don't think it quite hits the same highs as BNW, I think it's just as solid. BTATS is probably my favorite track off of it.
 
LooseCannon said:
I said this over on the Lord of Light thread, but one of the huge themes of this album is religious iconography, and I think that the use of religious counterculture, specifically, is one of the reasons this album is so damned popular.

Pretty much each song is either directly about religion or has a clear reference to religion, and most of the time it's negative, but not viciously so - most of the time, it's in an exploratory manner.

Different World - what makes this song interesting is not so much what it is about, because the themes contained within aren't necessarily about religion, but they are about considering different points of view. "I thought I had it all/I had it all worked out/Just what the future held/That there would be no doubt" indicating that this was someone who was quite sure where they were going. The bridge quite literally is about listening to others "Tell me what you hear/And then tell me what you see/Everybody has a different way/To view the world." The band is basically saying, "OK, open your minds. There's different ways to view the world, and we're going to take you on a ride through some of them.

These Colours Don't Run - along with Different World, the only song that doesn't draw into the previously mentioned religious iconography in that it is primarily about mortal conflict and the role of bravery within said conflict.

...but then again, patriotism, the method by which people inspire others to die for their wars could be said to have the strength of religion. Let's look a little closer: "For the passion, for the glory, for the memories, for the money/You're a soldier for your country, what's the difference, all the same." What is Bruce saying here? He's saying it doesn't matter why someone fought, so it may not be an emphasis on patriotic nationalism. What about, "On the shores of tyranny you crashed a human wave/Paying for my freedom with a lonely unmarked grave." Interestingly enough, Bruce is making about as direct a reference as he can to the subject matter of a later song in the album, which really plays up to the interconnected nature of AMOLAD - there's really only one event in human history that the average person knows about that can be described as crashing a human wave on the shores of tyranny. But he's also using a phrase we hear often around Remembrance Day - "paid for our freedom". There's a sort of human ancestor worship going on in this song, referencing the deeds of previous generations as they forced their way inland from a beachhead, carrying Old Glory and the Union Jack and the Red Ensign deeper and deeper into the continent against fascist tides. It's not direct religious reference, but there's a lot of iconography in this that is very similar. Interestingly enough, the band is positive about this type of iconography.

Brighter Than a Thousand Suns - the song title is taken directly from a religious text. The text, of course, was quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer years after the first nuclear test when people asked him what he was thinking, but we now we're getting into the meat of the religious counterculture themes of the album.

This song is about the atomic bomb and directly references the religious conflict many people encountered with the potential devastation of this unheralded weapon. The beginning verse, said quietly during a soft intro, is a prayer. "We are not the sons of God/We are not his chosen people now/We have crossed the paths he trod/we will feel the pain of his beginning." Let's get a little deeper into this verse. The chosen people of God are the Jews, and they have always considered themselves by that unique title, and for those who are unaware, there are a metric ton of Jews who worked on the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, James Franck, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Bruno Rossi, Emeilo Segre, Louis Slotin, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, and Eugene Wigner were all Jewish, of Jewish descent, or married to Jewish people - and the vast majority of them were from central Europe, which they left for some strange reason, and decided to help the USA. This line is a prayer about so many people of Jewish descent turning against god by the act of detonating the first nuclear device - something that they describe as "his beginning" - literally harnessing the primal forces of nature. The stuff that makes the sun burn and the stars twinkle. Oppenheimer thought of the Hindu tradition - We are become Death, destroyer of worlds. The power of the atomic bomb made many of these men and women question religion, and question if what they were doing was right. It should be noted this last line is deliver as the music swells suddenly in intensity, and this has always very powerfully given me the image of being in New Mexico on that day, watching, waiting, praying, before the sun was suddenly made meaningless by the brightness before me.

Yet the rabbit hole goes deeper. "Yellow sun it's evil twin/In the black wings deliver him/We will split our souls within/Atom seed to nuclear dust is riven" This isn't about the people directly killed by the first nuclear device delivered in anger. This line could have very easily "We will split their souls within". It's not about the deaths being caused, though we are told that this bomb is evil. It's about the men who created the bomb losing their souls. These scientists weren't soldiers, they didn't bayonet or shoot or blow people up - until the moment that the bomb detonated over Hiroshima, at which point they gained blood on their hands. You can argue over whether or not that blood was necessary, but the fact of the matter is that these fellows were stained by this work, and some felt it for the rest of their lives. Leo Szilard, for example, turned away from weapons development and found a way to turn radiation to good use by inventing radiation therapy - which later saved his life from bladder cancer. Albert Einstein, who co-wrote the letter that started the Manhattan Project, considered the bomb to be an affront to humanity, which explains why he did not work on the Manhattan Project. These scientists gave up a part of their very humanity for this explosion.

Once again, religious counterculture is used, or, I suppose, I should say, taken advantage of. It's always been interesting to me that the name Trinity was used for a nuclear test, and I've often wondered if it was selected in ignorance, or in arrogance, or a little of each, but in the bridge Bruce points out this irony - "Out of the universe, a strange love is born/Unholy union, trinity reformed". The Holy Trinity is Christian iconography, about the concept that there is a three part god - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The term "strange love" refers to the union of technology that created this device, and we are directly told it is evil, using religious themes purposefully against themselves.

It should be noted that we've now dragged Christianity into this, making it the third religion directly referenced in this song. This scientific device is truly the bane of all the world's religion, isn't it? And although they are suggesting that this particular use is evil, they are making us think, aren't they? Technology vs religion, the old battle.

We come back to Oppenheimer, as perhaps we should, as the most public face of the Manhattan Project and the fellow wearing forever the title Father of the Atomic Bomb. "Whatever would Robert have said to his God/About how he made war with the sun". Again, look at the phrasing here. It's not "whatever would Robert have said to OUR God". It specifically references his own religion, which gives us the idea that we are looking from the aspect of men with steeped religious tradition, not necessarily endorsing those viewpoints. Bruce here is showcasing how people must have felt after this terrible creation was used terribly. "E=MC squared you can relate/How we made God with our hands". E=MC squared has literally been called "the God equation", which is a very interesting feeling. It is also a direct reference to Albert Einstein, and taken in context in the song, it's like Robert Oppenheimer is begging for forgiveness. "Einstein, you understand what it is like to create God. You understand what it's like to tap into these primordial forces. The difference is you did it with your mind, and we did it with our hands." Doing, though, is far worse than thinking.

As the song comes to a close, we are treated to a few last (new) pieces of symbolism. "Divide and conquer while ye may/Others preach and others fall and pray/In the bunker's where we'll die/There the executioners they lie." Look at the first line, and Bruce specifically says "ye". He's giving us a clue here - think Biblically. Think about Revelations. Think about Ragnarok. Think about how all the Bronze Age religions that prophecy an apocalypse. Notice he doesn't use the term "Priests preach" or "Rabbis preach". He says "Others." Others preach and others pray. That's because, once again, we aren't talking about a specific religion or the victims. This song is about the creators of the weapon. They're back in the bunker, watching the Trinity Test. And as they split those atoms, part of their humanity died. There the executioners lie, watching their creation, preparing the next wave to strike. Praying is useless, because of their power.

"Holy father, we have sinned." Indeed.

This song is specifically about men who rejected religion for science, and who, in doing so, did great harm. But it does not condemn the act of rejecting religion, nor does it condemn the act of pursuing science. It's about one specific event, where a group of men took theory and made it reality, a reality that later consumed hundreds of thousands in atomic fire and has kept the world on the razor's edge ever since, creeping ever closer to midnight. More than any other act, it was the detonation of the Gadget at the Trinity Test that defined the next 70 years. We should remember this, and be afraid.

Furthermore, this song is about the inability of religion to comprehend the greater secrets that science has discovered. That's why we have references to three major religions within the song. Appropriate religions, but they're there, all the same, and presented on equal footing. It doesn't matter who issues the prayers, after all, or who listens to them. The nuclear bomb has made all people, everywhere, truly equal, for it will vaporize whoever it is aimed at. The artificial lines religion draws are easy enough to turn to ash now, and these men who committed a great sin are going to be forever haunted by it. Well, they were, anyway.

Finally, notice the placement on the album, third in. This contrasts to For the Greater Good of God, which deals with the hypocrisy of murdering in the name of religion, which is third from the end. The band specifically wanted you to think of this theme early, and then come back to a similar, yet opposite feeling later. Rejecting religion in order to kill is just as bad as embracing it in the name of murder.

The Pilgrim - At first, you think, "OK, this is about the Mayflower." And then you tap your foot along and you don't really ponder how that fits in to the counter-religious themes of the album. But when you look into it a bit more, you realize that the lyrics in particular are exceptionally aggressive from a religious stance. Indeed, Iron Maiden has never been particularly a pro-Christian band, specializing in non-Jehovan mythology. So why is this song fairly strong in its stances?

Because the Pilgrims were, in fact, religious iconoclasts that rejected the primary religious interpretations of their day. The Pilgrims were Puritans, people so dickish about hating the Catholics that England eventually threw them out. Until Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, but that's another story. This song is about the physical journey that these counterreligious rebels took to separate themselves from their roots, and this is song is very much about that revolution.

The very first lines refer to the failing Church of England, a faith that Puritans reviled as incomplete in its goal of rejecting Catholicism. "The keys to death and hell/The ailing kingdom, doomed to fall/The bonds of sin and heart will break/The pilgrim's course will take." This is discussing the intrinsic link of 17th c. Anglicism to what the Puritans considered the downfall of society. "Aching limbs and fainting soul/Holy battles take their toll." Now we are clearly referencing the battles of religion and the difficulties of maintaining one's Puritanism in Anglican England.

The chorus tells about the goals of this group. "Now give us our holy sign/Changing our water into wine/So to you we bid farewell/Kingdom of heaven to hell." They are looking for divine inspiration as they depart Europe, supposed to be where the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is founded (see Jerusalem by Bruce Dickinson), that has fallen to hell. "Spirit holy, life eternal/Raise me up and take me home/Pilgrim sunrise, pagan sunset/Onward journey begun." Again, we get the symbol of a true believer commending their lives to their god before partaking in a risky action, followed by a simple statement - the sunrise (West, America) is for the Pilgrims, but that which we leave behind, the sunset (east, Europe) is nothing but paganism.

Notice that dismissal of the various Christian faiths. Paganism is what the Puritans call it, regardless of the denomination. Truly a group of people that want to slice themselves off of their forebears and, thus, are part of a religious counterculture.

The Longest Day - Like the second song on the album, this one is the furthest from the theme of religious counterculture. It's not a concept album, just an album that has a very strong running theme, so that's OK. There are a few religious references, "gates of hell" "pray to God", etc. But those are intended more as metaphors for the event occurring, rather than as methods of explaining what is against or for religion.

There is a neat bit where an older religion is dredged up: "Valhalla waits, valkyries rise and fall/The warrior tombs lie open for us all." Not particularly noteable, I think, except for the lovely contrast to the "Pray to God I survive" line. Most of the men who hit the five Normandy beaches were Christian, so tossing in some pagan elements makes for a combination of a neat turn of a phrase and a direct prod at the members of the Nazi party who indulged in their unique brand of quasi-paganism. Again, this song doesn't slot in nicely, but that's OK.

Out of the Shadows - This song, however, does. Both lyrically and musically this song looks towards Starblind, it's stronger and more direct descendant, but it's still pretty clear. This is a track about being born outside of the shadows of religion. As I will eventually correct on my writing on Starblind, this song isn't about individual faith - Bruce respects your right to believe what you want. It is about the dangerous trappings of organized religion, and how that has restricted humanity since the spread of that scourge, Jehovah-centric religions.

The song starts right off attacking powerful, religious symbolism. "Hold a halo 'round the world, golden is the day/Princes of the universe your burden is the way/So there is no better time who will be born today/A gypsy child at daybreak, a king for a day." Halos, of course, are often considered the sign of an angel, but in this case, he is referring to the fact that we can literally hold halos around the world now. Humanity has advanced to this point, where we can orbit this planet, and that is a good thing. Again, he steals religious iconography with the next stanza, referring to princes of the universe. This isn't a little tongue in cheek reference to the Queen song, either - go read the lyrics. While Freddie was writing about Highlander, the theory is the same. These princes (the Prince of Peace being but one) have one way - burdens. While the day is golden and ripe, the princes of the past linger on their cumbersome ways. Yet, despite all this, today is the best time there has ever been for a child to be born. That child has the best chance of living, education, luxury, and all the things humans need to thrive.

The chorus comes next, and it's very important to this song. "Out of the shadows and into the sun/Dreams of the past as the old ways are done/Oh there is beauty and surely there is pain/But we must endure it to live again." It's interesting that this could be seen both as a metaphor for childbirth and as a metaphor for escaping obfuscation. The segment "old ways are done" is interesting, but certainly points us towards the use of light as a metaphor for knowledge as well. This feels like a Steve lyric in a lot of ways, and the ending bit is very neat as well. Basically we are born into the light, a life of beauty and pain, but we must endure it to live - and at the same time, there are multiple ways to live. Some of them have beauty, and some have pain. But we must get through it to live again.

What does live again mean? Maverick, on the Commentary, has often noted that Steve writes lyrics that hint towards reincarnation, and that might be what he's talking about - counter to Christian religion, certainly. But it also means the continuation of what we know through the next generation. This is a song that focuses on death (the second verse is entirely about death) as well as birth. Potential. Dreams that flicker away. But we can live again through the shared experiences and passing on of our knowledge. Or perhaps through reincarnation. It's not really specific.

The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg - Does anyone else remember how crazy this song made people when it came out? Theories being tossed around left and right. Who was Benjamin Breeg? Why did he die and/or live again? What is the song actually about? There was even a website, benjaminbreeg.co.uk that purported to tell the tale of Benjamin Breeg. I don't think anyone ever figured out if it was a fan who made it or if it was viral advertising.

Once again, this song challenges Western religious norms, by explicitly referencing reincarnation, a very Eastern thing. There's also been a discussion of this song as a description of someone living with serious mental issues. I think it leans a little closer to the themes of Hallowed Be Thy Name, about someone who is wracked with guilt over crimes committed, though those crimes are never explicitly examined.

What is truly interesting is the way that the hints of a mental illness are linked to religion. Now, I don't think religion is a mental illness, as some hardcore atheists will say - I find that to be truly an offensive comparison towards people that have mental illnesses. What I do find interesting is the link between voices in one's head and the break with religion. Let's take a look.

The opening intro is pretty much a repeated plea to someone to listen. "Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you." But what I find neat are the lines "Let me tell you about the things that happen/always real to me." It very much sounds like someone who has things happening that they can't explain - or perhaps that aren't real outside of his head. This is repeated later on, "Demons are trapped all inside of my head" and "I'm able to see things, things I don't want to see."

What we do know about Mr. Breeg is that he is steeped in Christian tradition. He makes explicit references to heaven and hell. He indicates the sky, heaven, as his goal. He concerns himself about sin. The chorus discusses exorcism. It's tough to tell if that makes this a discussion of someone who practices the occult, or someone who merely thinks he does. It's a very interesting collusion, and enough to fit into our recurring theme of counter-religion. Can we truly believe anything said by prophets and witches, if we can't judge if someone is ill or a wizard?

Part 2 - will come later.
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Yeah, well....this is deep and all, but doesn't really matter to me. I'm not interested in whatever views Maiden have on religion etc... unless there is good music to back it up. In my opinion, AMOLAD's music stinks, and no "deep meanings" can save it. They could have written an essay about the subjects if they so desperately needed to get it off their minds, and then proceeded to actually write what I'd consider some good, entertaining, rocking music, but no...
 
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Iron Maiden continue to write good, entertaining, rocking music, but it doesn't have to be dumbed down to fulfil this purpose. Consider it an extra dimension.
 
One of the main reasons I listen to Maiden is not just for the amazing music they put out, it's also for the subject matters they write about. It's what makes them unique is that they write about intellectual subjects, which obviously the band has passion for.

If I wanted to listen to some rock music that had no emotional or deeper meanings to, I'd go and listen to Twisted Sister or Motley Crue.
 
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