Childhood's End

[Pibroch_Whistler]

A little underrated - one of my favorite songs from Maiden! Amazing melancholic intro and when the drums starts, it's sounds epic. Great verses and the chorus is unique and fantastic. Good riff. Superb twin-lead guitar harmonies and very good solo. I love this song. I wish Maiden will play it live some day. The song is with a perfect length. A hidden gem! 10/10.

My favorite song on the Fear Of The Dark album, and it has been for quite some time now. Childhood's End has never been less than a 9/10 since I first heard it after "unboxing" the FoTD CD way back then, and its been a perfect 10/10 likely since my 3rd-4th playback - about which time this song really took hold.

I for one really enjoy the effect of Bruce singing the dark and doomy chorus, with little more than Nicko's pummeling percussion and a lone guitar line (a guitar line that sounds relegated far back in the background, or perhaps off in the distance somewhere to the left or right of the singer).

Quibble as we may with Bruce's styling and delivery on the chorus of "Childhood's End", I can't imagine the chorus any other way - as it stands, it conveys loneliness, hopelessness, and decay - with a small tinge of hope (perhaps provided by the lone and somewhat elegiac guitar line)

 

[Vaenyr]

My favorite song on the album, one of my all-time favorites and easily one of the best Maiden songs written in the 90s. It starts out with a haunting melody, not unlike the intro to The Evil That Men Do in style. Then we get an instrumental version of the chorus riff, with its unique floor tom groove, instead of a traditional drum groove, and some beautiful lead guitars, as well as a heavy synth backing. The verses paint a bleak but unfortunately even more relevant picture more than 30 years later. I really like the vocal melodies and how Bruce sounds here. The chorus simplifies the vocal melodies, but the guitars fill the void nicely.

After another round of verses and a chorus we get to the instrumental break and more phenomenal melodies. Like many post-FOTD songs we get a ton of unison melodies, without any harmonies. On one hand, a shame, on the other what we have here works well. The solo fits the song and a special shout out to the strummed chords in the backing. The key change towards the end of the solo is brilliant.

We get another lead break, but this time we actually get a harmony line in the repetition. Back to the verses, a variation of the chorus and an abrupt end. A shame this never got played live, because it's a genuinely beautiful song in my opinion. Anything less than a 10 would be an insult.