Re: "Perfect" Iron Maiden album by Track Position (Track #8 Finals)
Paschendale is still in the lead - shades of the end of Survivor this year?
I think the same factors apply to both Rime and Paschendale (and for that matter, Hallowed, Sign of the Cross, and Where The Wild Wind Blows). Sometimes when you're in a band, you get a song that you know is nothing special for what you do. Every album has songs that aren't special. Maybe some people like them, but I'm pretty sure that the boys have a good idea which songs they aren't interested in playing again.
And then you have songs you know are special. Paschendale and Rime are these songs. You can hear it on the album and in the live performances. You can hear that everything is a bit more precise, a bit more emphatic. It's that extra intensity that rolls from the speakers when you hear the hi-hats, or when you hear that intro "da-nananana!", and it never stops from start to finish.
But Paschendale has more of that. I think part of that is because it's written by two guys, not just one - in the same vein that you get the feel that Bruce gets a little more into songs that he wrote, I think it's much the same when H writes a song, or when Arry helps. But I think part of it is that they picked something a little more tangible than a mystic mariner's journey, and that (if you recall the interviews around Dance of Death), H wrote the song with Passchendaele in mind and asked Steve to make lyrics. Unlike a lot of modern Maiden constructions, this one had a purpose from start to finish. Rime has a purpose too, and it's still a great song, one of the best. But the hammer doesn't swing quite as hard for me on Rime.
