For the Greater Good of God

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How good is For the Greater Good of God on a scale of 1-10?

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Steve's big epic. The intro is wonderful, and I love Bruce's singing. You can feel he is into it. The verses are heavy and hard-hitting, and I like what Adrian(?) does in the background. The pre-chorus is only decent though, but I love the chorus. Repetitive? Nah, unlike No More Lies this chorus gains momentum when it's repeated.

The instrumental part is quite interesting. All of the guitarists get their moment, but only Adrian and Janick deliver. Dave's solo pales in comparison. Still a really good song. Could see it return to the setlist, altough it might be too hard on Bruce. He struggled with this one back in 06/07. In particular the Download performance was really poor.

Anyways.. 8/10.
 
10/10

For the Greater Good of God is a masterpiece - a Steve Harris epic in every sense of the word. It's gloomy, heavy, melodic, and spine-tinglingly good. ‘Arry questions organized religion and the effect it has on inciting war. Bruce’s quiet, somber intro becomes a vital roar as the whole band joins in. When the chorus eventually occurs it is repeated over and over again, empowering the song rather than making the message redundant. The bridge cuts in like a battle axe with an inspired riff and a time signature change. It has the only three guitar solo battle on the album and they couldn't have saved it for a better song. Each guitarist gets to solo over a different riff to match their playing style. Murray's frantic ending solo makes almost zero sense, but somehow works perfectly in the context of the song.
 
Another strong song, my only gripe with it is that the way the verses are played (the backing music, that is) in the build-up works, but the constant going back to them afterwords not so much. Of course, once they leave them behind it continues to be a great song. A low 9/10, but a 9/10 nonetheless.
 
Another one of Steve's masterworks. Beautiful songwriting, with incredibly deep and thought-provoking lyrics that question religion and how it can be connected to war. The song features some of the most epic and beautiful melodies 'Arry's ever come up with. The chorus is a little bit repetitive (4 times would've been enough, maybe 8 just to close the song), but it's not that big of an issue to bring it down. It still deserves a strong 10.
 
I’ve always considered this song to be the title track of A Matter Of Life And Death even though the two names bare no resemblance apart from the word “Of”. It is an epic, immense song and perhaps may have been considered a “classic” if it had been written 20 years earlier.

Speaking of classics, those concert-goers who complained about Maiden not playing classics for the AMOLAD tour foolishly didn’t understand they were witnessing live one of Maiden’s most classic albums in it’s entirety. Lucky buggars.

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I think this song is brought down quite a bit by an anticlimactic chorus, just like Brave New World (the track). Also, as much as I don’t like saying it, I think the song is slightly too long for its own good. It’s still a very good track, but I wouldn’t class it as a masterpiece or one of their best epics. 8/10
 
Pre-chorus repeats too much. Chorus repeats its single line too many times. Song is truly excellent but I can't go over these things that easily. It takes too long to reach that instrumental part.
 
Zare said:
Pre-chorus repeats too much. Chorus repeats its single line too many times. Song is truly excellent but I can't go over these things that easily. It takes too long to reach that instrumental part.
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True. But it's still not as bad as No More Lies (x48) in that aspect.
 
The only thing that bothers me about this song is the crummy phrasing in a couple of spots in the verse ("a wolf in SHEEP's clo-THING or saintly or sin-NER"). I think this type of thing is Steve Harris's biggest failing as a songwriter, closely followed by the circular soft-heavy-soft disease he caught during The X Factor and never completely shook.
 
Wow, I revisited this song after it was included again in the live shows. Poor structure,endless choruses all over the place. I actually striped it down to 7 minutes...works much better that way (IMO)
 
A moody bass intro gives way to a surprisingly gentle verse. Bruce sounds superb here, aside from some phrasing problems. This kicks into a great heavier version of the verse before breaking into an equally great, bright pre-chorus.

A couple more rounds of verse and pre-chorus and the song builds into a great melodic chorus. Some of this is definitely repetitive, but not gratingly so.

A cool synth-accented interlude follows, leading into a couple of excellent solos and a solid one, then a great bright interlude before returning to the pre-chorus and chorus, and ending on a soft verse reprise and outro.

Aside from some phrasing problems early on and a bit too much repetition, this song is fantastic. Taking it all into account, I think I would still round this up to a 10/10.
 
This is a song I tried to get into so much for a long time, but couldn't thanks to the endless repetition on display. It wasn't until I saw the live performance of it on the LOTB in Tallinn via a YouTube upload, and somehow something clicked for me there because this song has risen greatly in utter leaps and bounds to become one of my goddamn favorite songs from the band. "For the Greater Good of God" is a timeless tale of religion, and of war, and of how the two things often are, as Bruce says, one and the same. I love it. 10
 
10/10. Believe it or not, my introduction to this song was the LOTB promo that played at the end of the Live Chapter stream on youtube. That intro is haunting, those verses are thought provoking, that instrumental is great. I love the production effect at the start of H's solo, with the sound going around the channels with the wah. My only criticism is the insane amount of repetition in the chorus. The final verse (starting with "he gave his life for us") is some of the best lyric writing I've heard. And, as a Christian, I could make the argument that particular verse is better than most modern Christian music.

This and SOTC are the two songs I'm looking forward to hearing the most next summer. :clap:
 
Iron Brody said:
And, as a Christian, I could make the argument that particular verse is better than most modern Christian music.
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It's an interesting juxtaposition of textual Christian beliefs vs. the behaviour of the institution of Christianity, isn't it?
 
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