'brave New World'
This is one of those songs that instantly resonates with me, and I have hitherto not been able to understand why. Textual analysis, therefore, might be useful in explicating its meaning.
As an environmentalist, the song presents an image of a planet after some kind of holocaust (be it nuclear, environmental, or just old fashioned genocide).
After the disaster chaos reigns, there is nothing in life to strive for except survival.
Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here
Lost my love, lost my life, in this garden of fear
The swans, a traditional symbol of purity and beauty, are not needed in the new world, they serve no purpose and are, by definition, weak. Purity has no use in a land where only the strong surrvive. The ruthless and grotesque thrive because of their brute strength.
I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother love is no more, bring this savage back home
The protagonist has, obviously, been able to live through the horrors, but only at the expense of losing the essence of what makes him human. The purest love, from mother to child, is non-existent, and sorely missed. "This savage" wishes to turn back the clock to the way things were (and presumably are now). In short, he misses his mommy and childhood. Innocence is gone, and the cold hard realities of life set in.
Wilderness house of pain, makes no sense of it all
Close this mind dull this brain, Messiah before his fall
What you see is not real, those who know will not tell
All is lost, sold your souls to this brave new world
The key lines in this stanza are 2 and 4. In the chaos, people have turned away from religion (the Messiah about to fall). By religion I don't mean Christianity or Islam or Buddhism, I mean they have stopped believing in a better future. There is no hope, as indicated by the fourth line, for those people who have bought in to this brave new world.
Dragon kings, dying queens, where is salvation now
Lost my life lost my dreams, rip the bones from my flesh
Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth
You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world
The dragon can have multiple meanings - it could be a reference to the serpent of the Bible (in medieval literature snakes and dragons were often interchangeable). If this is to be believed, then the "king dragon" is Satan, and the "dying queen" could be Eve after she ate the forbidden fruit. She did not physically expire, but her soul died a little inside for disobeying God. Eve and Adam lost their (and humanity's) chance at salvation, casting humanity into a brave new world in which we are all "planned and damned".
If this is indeed the case, then the "brave new world" is Earth and the Apocalyptic event I wrote of earlier is that of the expulsion from Eden - a subtle biblical allusion which demonstrates the complexity and depth of Iron Maiden's lyrics.
Alternatively, the dragon could just be a beastification (if that's a word) of the evils which plague the new society. If biblical allusions are discounted, it does allow for an interesting hypothesis about the album Brave New World - the argument for a recurrent theme in at least four songs, almost creating a tetrarchy of plot.
"The Mercenary" could be viewed as the beginning of the apocalypse, with a small number of people triggering the series of events which would lead to the ultimate disaster in "Out of the Silent Planet." "Brave New World" shows the post-apocalypse era in which all that makes humans good and pure is gone. Finally, hope for the future is restored in "The Fallen Angel;" the chosen one, whoever that might be, has been sent by God to act as a scourge – he will purify the world of its evils so that it may be saved. I’m not suggesting BNW is a theme album, I just think there is a continuity of though among at least four of the songs.
Dying swans twisted wings, bring this savage back home
Let us pray we never experience a complete end of civilization such as depicted, because once the "savage" is gone, we can never bring him back home. We have the ability to destroy the planet – let’s be sure it is never used.
This post was thought up on the spot, so a lot of editing and revising will be required to make the arguments stronger, but I think the “tetrarchy case” I mentioned above is worth exploring.
Cheers,
Duke
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/rolleyes.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'rolleyes.gif\' /][!--endemo--] to the heavier pre-chorus that follows it is [hard to think of the word to describe at this time of night!]. In short, it's one hell of a song, and deserves it's spot in my top 5!
