Prodigal Son

How good is Prodigal Son on a scale of 1-10?


  • Total voters
    24
Such an oddball song for Maiden. Off the top of my hand, this is the only time Maiden did anything with 12 string guitars. I wonder why they haven't gone back to them since.

Anyway, I like this one a lot. Very good lyrics, good performance from Paul, and it never gets predictable. You expect it to build up into a really heavy climax but it never really does. When it gets close to doing that it actually gets even softer. So they play a lot with dynamics, which really works. Great guitar solos too, I especially love how it starts without a straight beat before settling into one. In general it's a song I can easily get lost in.

9
 
Prodigal Son is a rather average song which is lifted to a much higher level by incredible solos.

In my opinion, Dave Murray has in every album since Iron Maiden until Powerslave performed one brilliant, particularly beautiful and emotional solo. The self-titled album had "Strange World" and this one has "Prodigal Son".

However, the main star of this song is Adrian. I believe his solo in this song is in the Top 10 of his solos ever.

The highlight: Adrian Smith solo at 3:04.

7/10
 
9/10. One of favorite mellow songs from Maiden, though I like Strange World from the debut more than this one mainly because of the cool drums and the dreamy guitar. This song really delivers a great rest between a very energetic aggressive album.
 
5. Just a distinctly average song to my ears.

Rankings:

1980 - Iron Maiden - 6.67

8 - Prowler
6 - Sanctuary
7 - Remember Tomorrow
6 - Running Free
9 - Phantom Of The Opera
7 - Transylvania
4 - Strange World
6 - Charlotte The Harlot
7 - Iron Maiden

1981 - Killers

6 - The Ides Of March
6 - Wrathchild
6 - Murders In The Rue Morgue
5 - Another Life
5 - Genghis Khan
5 - Innocent Exile
8 - Killers
5 - Prodigal Son
 
Love this one, very different from the other songs of this era. Cool to hear Paul sing a bit different from his usual style. 9/10
 
Very different for Maiden, but a very good song. The intro is lovely, and Steve's playing is nice. The song works surprisingly well in an album with a lot of fast and intense songs. I would love to hear this song with todays line-up. 8/10
 
This is a good song, one of my favorites from Maidens early days. Never new Dave did BOTH solos until I read it here! Awesome!
 
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