Re: Daily Song: Heaven Can Wait
Here we have a pretty happy song, which goes well with the lyrical theme...a person foresees the end of his physical existence, but wishes for his life to continue, thus the happy feel can be described as a celebration of corporeal life.
I always felt that this song was somewhat too "constructed" from several parts, eg. that it doesn't flow as naturally as other SiT songs do. However, if we refer to this interview of Bruce;
Adrian writes song on a much more medium tempo. His lyrics are pretty much... say... traditional, mixed with a Bad Company kind of style, very open, but also based on personal experiences and feelings. There's a song that deal with the way you feel when you reach the top with your band. It's the best time of your life, you have to enjoy it, to live intensely every moment of it. There's another one about violence in the large cities, and the fear it generates. Steve has written more "Maiden-tradition" songs. His songs are about a Greek warrior, about a man who sells his soul to the devil. Oh yes, there's also one about the thoughts of a dying man who sees his soul leave his body, but who simply refuses death...
No, there won't be one this time. All the songs have more or less the same duration – 4 to 5 minutes. But there is a great instrumental written by Steve.
For example, with this instrumental, he drove us all up the wall! Even me, and I had nothing to do on it! When I saw all the different parts, with all the guitar work... we really wanted to send him to the funny farm!
This interview is dated May 1986, inside the period of recording sessions. Bruce clearly mentions Wasted Years and Sea Of Madness, Caught Somewhere In Time, Heaven Can Wait, Alexander The Great + an instrumental of Steve that didn't turn out like that, obviously.
5 minute timeframe for HCW is 2 and a half minutes shorter than record version, so it fits my impression that the oooh part was added after the basic song was already written. Also note that the Harris instrumental is probably became instrumental part of ATG, with all the timeshifts and complexity, and that basic verse/chorus structure minus instrumental part also fits in 4-5 minutes category.
Dave's solo is good, but Adrian feels a bit uninspired, at least compared to his other leads on this album (which really set the bar sky high). But his chords beneath the oooh singing are excellent, and the transition from his solo to verses again is very good.
All in all, it's a very good song, but not as good as other SiT stuff (which just says what standard that album sets as whole). I can't escape the feeling that it was crafted to please audience...with all the experimentation and new stuff that SiT introduced, seems like the fast rocking ordinary riffs + singalong section was something that they needed for crowd participation in concert. Let's also consider this : CSiT was an integral opening track of the show, and in that position it couldn't be that mid setlist highlight. Sea Of Madness didn't work live well, it was too unconventional and a lot of it's magic is based on the production sound they weren't able to reproduce in concert, so they dropped it from the list. The Loneliness Of Long Distance Runner pays greatly to it's background synths, and i bet it was dropped right after first (or second) show because they needed to operate all those MIDI gadgetry on guitars, having focus on that and not being able to fully release their energy into the show. Stranger In A Strange land is slow-paced and melancholic, it's also good live but it can't be considered as crowd highlight. Deja Vu wasn't played because of background synths, but also because the great buildup is based on doubing guitars one at the time, which again wasn't possible in live setting. ATG was immediately dismissed by Bruce because of lyrics. If we take all that into mind, only two songs that could really work and be a mainstay were Wasted Years and HCW. So HCW needed a bit of tune-up for live setting.
Never the less, it's 8/10.
