Favorite Maiden Lyrics

[Forostar]

"Just for a second a glimpse of my father I see,
And in a movement he beckons to me,
And in a moment the memories are all that remains,
And all the wounds are reopening again."

I lost my dad in 1999 and I still think I see him sometimes, so that struck a particular chord with me. In a similar vein,

"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.

The man who casts no shadow has no soul."

What do you think of these lyrics:

Now and then I wonder where the faces from my childhood have gone
Like father like son in your bones it lives on glowing shadows

I personally like the lyrics of The Apparition very much. The post that I made in the topic of that song explains my fascination:

Spoiler

The lyrics of this song are interesting when you put them in context of Maiden's career, because we hear a positive advise -uttered by some kind of ghost or spirit (which could even be Steve himself, advising himself- about life and the road one can take.

... Live your life with a passion
Everything you, do well
You only get out of life what you put in ...

and check this out:

... can the soul live on through space and time? ...

... You don't be alarmed now, if I try to contact you
If things go missing or get moved around ...

... We'll meet up again some place, some way ...

Some way indeed! When listening to The Final Frontier Steve's input shows a continuation of this positive message, but now in a more reflecting way.
Space and time return, plus an attempt of contact.

... I think of my life, reliving the past
There's nothing but wait 'til my time comes
I've had a good life, I'd do it again
Maybe I'll come back some time, my friends

For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
To tell them one last goodbye ...

... If I could survive to live one more time
I wouldn't be changing a thing at all
Done more in my life than some do in ten
I'd go back and do it all over again ...

... There isn't much time, must say my last rites
Nobody is here to read them to me
Must say my goodbyes, if only a line
A message to tell them in case they might find ...

The perspective might be different, but I see The Apparition's lyrics as an integral part of the positive aura circling above the band, and its motivator, Steve Harris. I think this is not portrayed so well (in this manner) in any other song. The circle is round with The Final Frontier.

A. In The Apparition an advice is told to someone
B. That someone lives his life
C. And in The Final Frontier he reflects on that life, and surely shows that he has followed the advice.
One might even imagine that this someone (which is Steve of course) has again contact with the same spirit, but now Steve talks, and the Apparition "listens".

So I do find the lyrics important, and very uplifting. I can imagine that they even can support people who have lost a friend or a dear family member.

Musically the band ventures into the realm of "hotspaces". We hear short sudden silences in the couplets, because all the musicians and Bruce, play and sing and stop in sync, and continue together again. There's more going on in those couplets than I first thought, and I now I can appreciate them.

When Bruce sings "it's true!", the song suddenly continues in a different key, and the synth comes in, creating a different mood (like a sudden realization of the message). I like the short solos and the way we get back to the couplets.

Also note the last chord which is chosen very well (I bet it's no coincidence), because the next song starts with the same chord. Another reason to never skip this track, because it makes me enjoy Judas Be My Guide even more.

During that moment Bruce sings his last line of the song, like he means to say: "to be continued!":
a prophetic line.

 

[Perun]

Foro: You're completely right in what you say. I'll discuss this in detail tomorrow, when I have the time. For now, let me just say that of course I was being idealistic there, but what motivated me mostly was the discussion of the bleakness of Starblind's lyrics, something I didn't quite agree with.

 

[Shadow]

If we're talking personal resonance, I've always related to these lines from "Infinite Dreams":

Getting to me, so scared to sleep, but scared to wake now, in too deep
Even though its reached new heights I rather like the restless nights
It makes me wonder it makes me think there's more to this I'm on the brink

I'm a lifelong insomniac. Even on the best of nights, it takes me about an hour to go to sleep. So I have lots of time to think about stuff, and since there are few distraction it's often easier to think then than it is at any other time during the day. Eventually though, I start feeling that I should really get to sleep, and that's where the kicker comes in: sleep is scary. You lose consciousness and get thrown into some strange dreamworld instead, which you then forget all about when you wake up. If you wake up (not a thought you want to have at 4.30 AM on a Tuesday). So there's a kind of ambivalence about going to sleep, and I think "Infinite Dreams" captures it pretty well.

 

[desultory]

^ I sincerely agree with what you wrote. Sleep is a major anxiety point in my life too. Infinite dreams and some of the words to Dream of mirrors touches upon that. Strange stuff.

 

[Black Abyss Babe]

Going back to Starblind, Perun, I take your point about Paschendale but notwithstanding all your observations regarding that it is still an episode in the past which (theoretically at least) we can learn from and move on. In fact I think that is part of the reason Maiden write history songs: to do their bit to stop us forgetting. But Starblind is a different sort of bleak: it deals with the end of the world at which point we will all die and then - what? Maiden's fascination with what might or might not be after death goes back at least as far as Hallowed Be Thy Name so we shouldn't be too surprised to find it cropping up again here but this is to the best of my knowledge the first time they have had a go at describing any kind of "afterlife". The vision of dancing among the worlds that orbit stars that aren't our sun seems very fantastical, especially if you like science fiction, and the suggestion of dancing suggests that the experience is expected to be a happy one (unless prancing is also involved, of course), but I didn't immediately find myself attracted to the idea, possibly because I've read Lovecraft, but also because everything about the vision is strange and alien, and everything we know and love will be gone forever.

I agree with you about "religion's cruel device" and "blanks of sin" being manmade but I don't think this necessarily renders the concepts artificial. "Sin" and "guilt" are actually two separate ideas and what you have described is closer to the idea of guilt (which is often artificial) than sin. The "blanks of sin" are said to be forged in the "crucible of pain" which goes back to your observation that we may never learn from Paschendale - basically, no matter how many times we mess up and however much we hurt ourselves and others in the process we always seem doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes (a theme also explored in These Colours Don't Run). I think this is probably the song's most powerful metaphor. Meanwhile "religion's cruel device" is presented in the context of the preacher who loses face with Christ. I think the key to understanding this is the lines "whatever God you know, he knows you better than you believe" and "remember you can choose to look but not to see". There is a definite sense of seeking after truth here, not only concerning God but just generally. I think the message of this section is that some people who spout on about God (this preacher being an example) are about to discover that God is something considerably other than they thought.

I take your point that "we can shed our skins" could be used figuratively to mean breaking out of a mindset (although in this context it clearly also has the immediate meaning of death) but to me it also included a suggestion of losing or giving up your identity. "Empty flesh and hollow bone make pacts of love but die alone" struck me as particularly, immediately bleak - while I don't dispute that death is something we all have to face alone, this seems to suggest that love doesn't touch the soul, or doesn't count for anything beyond this life, or that such pacts are not sincere. However the very positive message that is being presented in the midst of all this is that we should put the little time we have here to the best possible use, by making careful and deliberate choices and always seeking after the truth (even if that involves not trusting very many people).

Forostar, while I see what you are getting at regarding education, I really believe that everyone is capable of being educated at least a little bit. Which is why I really hate the sections of the media that encourage people to remain ignorant and stupid. "Just accept what we say and that's all you'll ever need to know" is their message, and the reason is clear - ignorant and stupid people are easier to control. And intolerance is born out of ignorance and stupidity. However, I welcome and thank you for your observation that intolerance is not restricted to those who identify with a religion. You are right, tolerance and patience are what we need - especially as religion is something to which humankind seems particularly susceptible.

Sorry that was another really long post (but you really don't want to see what I edited it down from!!)

 

[Perun]

your post also sounded a bit like a sermon.

Possible. I did get carried away towards the end, and lost oversight of the way I was saying things. There is a reason for that: It touched things that I feel very passionate about, and that carry an incredibly high personal meaning to me.

Who is we here?

The entirety of mankind. Better said: Mankind as a whole. I completely appreciate that each individual is unique, but in their sum, they make up a whole with many aspects. I believe in the individuality of every single person, but I also believe in the unity of mankind. There have been astonishing moments of unity in the past, and I think that if only we were united behind one goal, we would lose all our differences. It is highly idealistic, and highly improbable that it would ever happen, but it is still possible, and I think that tiny, statistically completely insignificant possibility is worth clinging to.

It's not possible to turn the current human race into people who have the same goal (all study art and history, learn from the past). Not everyone is capable to be educated.

Should the educated educate the uneducated in the same way?

I didn't mean to say that every person should be educated in the same way. When I said that we must learn about these various things, I meant that mankind as a whole must do that. There must be a general understanding of psychoanalysis, history, arts and humanities that is free from preconception and ideology, and that is accessible to all. I don't mean we must all be psychologists, historians or philosophers, I only mean that we must understand how important these things are for us. As you know, I'm coming from an academic background, and I have been highly questioned about the purpose of my particular field of studies. One professor has put it the way that, humanities is under increasing pressure of justification. I am aware of the fact that this is not a problem of humanities, but of science and academia in general. I believe in the freedom of science. It is necessary to snap scientists back to reality every once in a while when they get too carried away, but it is not OK when institutes with long academic traditions get shut down because they don't generate income.

When the Higgs Boson was purportedly discovered (it wasn't exactly, but that is not important right now), there was an outburst of incredibly stupid and incredibly loud voices questioning the significance and importance of this discovery for our every day life. People shouted out that a lot of money has been spent on this, but they could not see any benefit from it. The money argument is the modern equivalent of an ignorant mob with torches and pitchforks. Their priests are usually people of education but limited knowledge, who have some sort of rhetorical talent and at their worst, start creating conspiracy theories to offer an alternative explanation for something people refuse to understand. In their minds, it is not mankind that benefits from science, but aliens/New World Order/Zionists/make up your own.

That is what I mean with mankind having to overcome itself to ascend. And yes, religion still plays a big part in this. People should have the freedom of belief and the freedom to choose their own religion. They should have the freedom to build their own church if they want to. But what is wrong is when a church starts mission work, by providing the only education available for people, as it happens in Africa, or even parts of the west. Or when all education is based on religious teaching, as is the ideal of Islamic education. People educated in this way are not taught to think critically and to choose for themselves what they want to believe in.

I think that ultimately, it does not play a role what religion you follow or not, what god you believe in or not. If your belief or lack thereof is what inspires you to make the best of yourself, and contribute to the progress of mankind, then it is good enough.

Now to Black Abyss Babe's post. When I try to abbreviate your name, it turns out as Bab, so do you mind if I call you 'Babe'?

But Starblind is a different sort of bleak: it deals with the end of the world at which point we will all die and then - what?

I think we have fundamentally different ideas of what the song is about. I appreciate that the song talks about an end time, but not necessarily the end of the world. What a line such as the things I've seen in this world coming to an end says to me is that, whatever the outcome, things cannot continue the way they are. We are facing the end of the world 'as we know it', for better or worse. With a climate change happening (despite what Sarah Palin says) our fresh water reserves gradually being poisoned, overpopulation forcing mass migration, whatever we believe to live in is coming to an end. The question is, how do we deal with that?

The vision of dancing among the worlds that orbit stars that aren't our sun seems very fantastical, especially if you like science fiction, and the suggestion of dancing suggests that the experience is expected to be a happy one (unless prancing is also involved, of course),

I take these words a bit more literally. Maybe this is the right point to direct you to a post I made earlier here. Christ, has it been three years already? Anyway, I do not entirely support everything I wrote there anymore, but only because I have developed my ideas further since then. Some of what I wrote there seems a bit simplistic to me now, but in general, it still demonstrates what I think the song, and the album it comes from, say to me.

but I didn't immediately find myself attracted to the idea, possibly because I've read Lovecraft, but also because everything about the vision is strange and alien, and everything we know and love will be gone forever.

Being on a heavy metal forum, I think you're hard pressed to find someone who hasn't read Lovecraft. However, my ideas take a lot of inspiration from Nietzsche. I don't want to call myself a Nietzschean, and I certainly do not adopt everything he said, but I do think that if there is any sort of metaphysical component to our existence, it compels us to walk on, to grow beyond our limits and become more than what we are. History is all about that.

"Sin" and "guilt" are actually two separate ideas and what you have described is closer to the idea of guilt (which is often artificial) than sin.

I agree, to an extent. Here, we have Nietzsche again. His idea of the ascent of mankind involves shedding off the morality of good and evil. I agree with him under the pretext that there actually are a few things in our sense of morality that are not artificial, but natural. If you look at the animal kingdom, you will find that there are only very few species who turn against their own members. Instinct tells us to show solidarity and that it is wrong to kill others. But much of our moral code is outdated and irrational, if not so say irresponsible.

[quoteThe "blanks of sin" are said to be forged in the "crucible of pain" which goes back to your observation that we may never learn from Paschendale - basically, no matter how many times we mess up and however much we hurt ourselves and others in the process we always seem doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes (a theme also explored in These Colours Don't Run).[/quote]

I disagree. We're not doomed to repeating the same mistakes. As I said, Paschendale implies that, and you are bound to think it under the direct impression of horror, but I do not think that is true. We can learn from our mistakes, even if that is not the easiest of things. We can break out of the cycle. The problem is, I think, that this is a conscious effort. We have to be willing to do that. A single individual is often successful. The question is, can we bring all of mankind to do so? As I said above, the thought is highly idealistic, and highly improbable that it would ever happen, but it is still possible, and I think that tiny, statistically completely insignificant possibility is worth clinging to.

There is a definite sense of seeking after truth here, not only concerning God but just generally. I think the message of this section is that some people who spout on about God (this preacher being an example) are about to discover that God is something considerably other than they thought.

True. This is both one of the songs strongest and most enigmatic parts. But what if whatever God we know knows us so well because he is only within us? What if God looks at us from the mirror? What if all our acts of sin, all the dark sides we have, and all the crimes we commit ultimately serve to only harm ourselves? And the worst part - we know it. We know we hurt ourselves, and yet we still do, because we try to tell us there will be ultimate redemption. To me, Whatever God you know he knows you better than you believe means that we are to answer to ourselves. We can't hide anything from ourselves, and eventually, we will pay for anything we do against ourselves.

I take your point that "we can shed our skins" could be used figuratively to mean breaking out of a mindset (although in this context it clearly also has the immediate meaning of death) but to me it also included a suggestion of losing or giving up your identity.

I don't think so. Even if we shed our skins to break out of our mindset, we can keep our identity. What makes up our identity is not religion or nationality. It is our life, our experience, the x factor that makes us to be more than the sum of our parts. We couldn't lose or give up those things even if we tried.

"Empty flesh and hollow bone make pacts of love but die alone" struck me as particularly, immediately bleak - while I don't dispute that death is something we all have to face alone, this seems to suggest that love doesn't touch the soul, or doesn't count for anything beyond this life, or that such pacts are not sincere.

I can't but strongly disagree with this. I think the exact opposite. If our flesh is empty and our bones are hollow, that means there is something to us beyond our physical existence, if you take the lyrics in that way. I personally interpret them in a different way, but this context is equally possible. If we talk about love, isn't it precisely the non-physical aspect of it that prevails? Couldn't it be that our flesh and bones die alone because our souls do not depend on them, and unite beyond our physical existence?

However the very positive message that is being presented in the midst of all this is that we should put the little time we have here to the best possible use, by making careful and deliberate choices and always seeking after the truth (even if that involves not trusting very many people).

Whatever else there is in this song, this is definitely true.

Sorry that was another really long post (but you really don't want to see what I edited it down from!!)

Well, as you can see, I'm the last person you need to apologise to when you make long posts. Even if I don't agree with everything you said, I think it was very interesting to read and very nutritious food for thought.

 

[Forostar]

Thanks for that "extra", Per! (I will take more time to read later)

 

[Perun]

You're welcome, sorry for the delay.

 

[Forostar]

No prob at all. I was quite busy myself!

 

[Patrick Watts]

To my mind, I do believe that When the Wild Wind Blows has intrigued me ever since I started listening to it in depth. When listening to the lyrics, it has all the makings of an incredibly dark tone, and is definitely a game changer, throwing The Final Frontier completely off course, and ending the album perfectly. In its own way, TFF is an incredibly dark album, depending on how you look at it

• Satellite 15 - A man desperate to escape his impending death, but nobody can hear him down on Earth
• The Final Frontier - Following on, the astronaut has now accepted his death
• El Dorado - The greed we all feed on, due to the hold the world's economy has on us all
• Mother of Mercy - A soldier, caught up in senseless killing and death, confused about which side he's on
• Coming Home - Not a dark, gloomy song. Nice and gentle
• The Alchemist - An alchemist, whose philosophies led to his downfall
• Isle of Avalon - Where King Arthur was supposedly taken and buried
• Starblind -'A gloomy song about the spiritual realisation that we are one with our cosmic surroundings
• The Talisman - A sailor leaving his land behind, being caught at sea, and then revealing that he is dying due to an unexplained illness
• The Man Who Would Be King - A man who regrets killing the previous king, perhaps?
• When the Wild Wind Blows - See Below....

In WTWWB, the lyrics tell the incredibly bleak tale of a couple believing that the world is coming to an end, as they have forgone the news and not seen the earthquake that is destined to happen (Have you seen what they said on the news today/Have you heard what is coming to us all)
The man is incensed that he is going to die, and the world is about to be destroyed (As he stares across the garden, looking at the meadows/wonders of they'll ever grow again)
His fixation on his apparent doom leads him to scare his wife, who also believes the world is ending (He sees a teardrop roll down her face)
In the end, the two of them take drastic action, as they are shown to have rashly committed suicide (Their tins of poison laying near by their clothes/ the day they mistook an earthquake for the fallout)

 

[GhostofCain]

In WTWWB, the lyrics tell the incredibly bleak tale of a couple believing that the world is coming to an end, as they have forgone the news and not seen the earthquake that is destined to happen (Have you seen what they said on the news today/Have you heard what is coming to us all)
The man is incensed that he is going to die, and the world is about to be destroyed (As he stares across the garden, looking at the meadows/wonders of they'll ever grow again)
His fixation on his apparent doom leads him to scare his wife, who also believes the world is ending (He sees a teardrop roll down her face)
In the end, the two of them take drastic action, as they are shown to have rashly committed suicide (Their tins of poison laying near by their clothes/ the day they mistook an earthquake for the fallout)

Apart from the ending, the song is based on this adaptation of a masterpiece, "When the wind blows", by Raymond Briggs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(comics)):

 

[Black Abyss Babe]

When I try to abbreviate your name, it turns out as Bab, so do you mind if I call you 'Babe'?

If you really want to! It's certainly a question I'd never get asked in real life, put it that way (but what was the stuck-out tongue for??). Actually CriedWhenBrucieLeft sometimes calls me "Babs", which is absolutely fine. If you don't like that then you could have "Abby" (from Abyss) so there are a few options if you need an abbreviation.

I don't want to write another essay so I'll just pick up on a few of the points you raised. I was struggling to get my thoughts and impressions into words and I think that sometimes I didn't really do it that well. I didn't mean to indicate that I personally don't think we can learn from our mistakes, just that the line about the crucible of pain may indicate an observation by Maiden's lyricist that even if we can, for various reasons it doesn't seem to happen that often.

The Lovecraft story I was particularly thinking of is called The Whisperer In Darkness.

My interpretation of "this world coming to an end" and shedding our skins as meaning the actual end of the world and actual death mainly has to do with its context alongside the lyrics "I'm weary of these earthly bones and skin" and "All the oxygen that trapped us in a carbon spiders web" - to me at least this indicates that a literal interpretation was intended. Hence the picture painted seems to me to be simultaneously utopian and nightmarish, which I thought might also have been intentional by the author (particularly if the author is Bruce).

Your suggestion that our flesh and bone (ie everything that falls into the once and future grave) die alone because our souls don't need them is a new idea. I'm not sure I really get that from the lyric as it is given but it's an interpretation that had genuinely never occured to me and is worthy of consideration. Incidentally, the reference to the once and future grave is baffling me as well, because by the time you're falling into your grave any deception would be over, I would think? Because you would know by then what lies beyond. Unless it's another metaphor and indicates a life not really being lived by someone who's chosen to "look but not to see". That's a thought that only just occured to me.

The idea of natural morals and the god that looks at us from the mirror leads to the conclusion that somewhere inside every person is a "conscience" that has never been corrupted, either by deliberate conditioning or by just getting used to things being wrong. I think you are probably right but in some folk it seems like it's buried pretty deep. This is similar to CS Lewis's idea of a "law of nature" which we all know we break - he wrote once about how if one person reprimands another for something (like jumping a queue or nicking someone else's seat), the second person rarely just says "to hell with your morals" but will instead try to argue that whatever he did is in fact alright within the moral standards of the person who made the criticism. Incidentally I don't think that this interpretation of "God" rules out the other one, ie a person or being that lives or exists completely separately from us. My observation has always been that Maiden have intentionally never come down on either side of that fence, because they are agnostic rather than atheist.

I think it was Steve who said he was interested in how Maiden's songs could mean different things to different people and now we're really seeing that in practice! Until we get a definitive answer from the writers (and to the best of my knowledge they've never said a dickie-bird on the subject) we will never know what it meant to them, and in the meantime the discussion about what it means to the listeners is very interesting indeed. Thank you again Perun!

 

[Forostar]

Have we not heard of it, that God is dead?

Listen to the godfathers of heavy metal!

 

[Collin]

I've always quite liked to the lyrics to The Aftermath, which I feel are some of Maiden's best war based lyrics. The song is just brilliant until it gets to the chorus at 2:53.
I've included the lyrics down here.

Spoiler

Silently to silence fall
In the fields of futile war
Toys of death are spitting lead
Where boys that were our soldiers bled
War horse and war machine

Curse the name of liberty
Marching on as if they should
Mix in the dirt our brothers' blood

In the mud and rain
What are we fighting for
Is it worth the pain is it worth dying for
Who will take the blame
Why did they make a war
Questions that come again
Should we be fighting at all

Once a ploughman hitched his team
Here he sowed his little dream
Now bodies arms and legs are strewn
Where mustard gas and barbwire bloom
Each moment's like a year
I've nothing left inside for tears
Comrades dead or dying lie
I'm left alone asking why

 

[Eric Wright]

As much as I admire Maiden's zeal for the cause of world peace and anti-war, a different subject matter would be pretty refreshing. The lyrics on a lot of TXF, Paschendale, and pretty much all of AMOLAD are cliched and interchangeable to me.

"Why did I have to be in a war? People die and it's horrific. The government is using us as pawns. Big explosions. War is a machine that consumes us all. Will I survive? I'm questioning my religion now!"

It's interesting how they can take such a powerful and poignant topic to the point of self-parody.

 

[Forostar]

They changed that on The Final Frontier.

 

[Eric Wright]

Not at all. "Mother of Mercy" is probably the worst offender in this respect.

 

[Mosh]

Mother of Mercy is pretty generic lyrically. Still a cool song, very underrated IMO.

 

[Forostar]

Not at all. "Mother of Mercy" is probably the worst offender in this respect.

One song. And indeed an underrated one.

 

[Mosh]

As far as lyrics go, TFF was a huge step up from AMOLAD. Not just because of the larger variety of themes, but they also seemed more well written and less repetitive.