Hell On Earth

[Midnight]

I mean, The Red and the Black grew to be bit of an ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE/I can't stand it... flip of a coin, but it seems to be fairly general consensus that IESF, the title track and maybe Empire are the beef of TBOS, where as Senjutsu seems to divide opinions a bit more when it comes to individual songs and album highlights. That's very interesting.

Maybe it's a Harris songwriting thing.

 

[Murder of Rue Morgue]

I've been watching this guy's reviews of Maiden for quite a while now.
He has perfect pitch and appears to have a great grasp of music theory.
He calls out that most Maiden is in Em and uses the same four chord progression.

I find it quite amazing to watch him, he plays piano along with listening to the song for the first time, goes straight to the right chords, straight to the right notes of the melody. I'd love to be able to do that.

He's not a fan of metal, doesn't like powerchords, but strangely he adores Metallica. (not necessarily a band he frequently listens to, just I never hear him criticise them at all)
Anyway, I always look forward to his reviews of Maiden. I think he is coming around to them (now that he has got the EM and four chords off his chest).

I think he said that he has no perfect pitch, he simply is musically trained lol – he holds a PhD in music composition and is a professional composer and conductor.

R. Douglas Helvering

www.rider.edu

RDH Music - Biography

 

[Melony]

...
I love the mournful, building intro. We get five runs of each of section's pieces, and there are two sections to this intro. First we're only greeted with bass and guitar, but two lines in the keys come up to remind us of their presence. Then things switch to an almost wharf like atmosphere, with warships sailing off into the horizons, leaving behind tears on the shore. ...

My interpretation is that the innocent child that the intro tells about is setting off into real life at this point.

 

[Jer]

A bright bass-driven intro is joined by a melancholy guitar lead. This evolves into a mellow, hypnotic groove for a while before bursting into a heavier, driving gallop and foreshadowing the chorus in instrumental form.

A catchy, melodic verse propels us into a brief interlude followed by a great pre-chorus and an excellent chorus 1 bursting with melody. A busy, soaring guitar solo flows into a smoother roller coaster of a solo, then dials it way back for a gentle atmospheric interlude that leads into great soft vocal bridge, eventually blowing up into the awesome chorus 2 (“love in anger”).

A driving interlude leads into a tasteful solo before rolling back into chorus 2. A great melodic lead carries us to a sudden halt and a reprise of the intro, fading ever so slowly into the long goodnight.

Aside from some wordiness in the bridge there really isn’t anything to criticize here — everything works brilliantly and leaves a hell of an impression on the listener. Another instant classic, 10/10.

 

[Kalata]

This song has a cool short guitar effect or it's a slide (I'm not sure what it's called?) under the verses after the intro - we can also hear the same effect right after the intro in ''The Legacy''.

I love this kind of features/small details.

 

[Kalata]

Maiden's career is one of absolute success, a testament to sincerity and integrity, and ultimately a force for overwhelming positivity. So a good song to be the end of such a career would, I feel, need to be cerebral and uplifting, maybe introspective.

Lyrically, you could argue that Harris is somewhat on a debbie downer on this song - and that would not be a befitting way to mark the end of this bands recording career.

You have a point, but I don't think the band looks at it that way. Honestly, the song feels a lot like the perfect farewell both musically and lyrically.

 

[chaosapiant]

I’m curious which part of Hell on Earth folks believe to be the chorus? I feel like it’s more accurate to say that the song simply doesn’t have one.

 

[srfc]

"I wish I could go back" section

 

[Diesel 11]

I’m curious which part of Hell on Earth folks believe to be the chorus? I feel like it’s more accurate to say that the song simply doesn’t have one.

Here’s how I view it:

Verse —> “Beginning of a sunrise…”
Verse —> “Prey upon the weak no more…”
Pre-chorus —> “All you have been…”
Chorus —> “I wish I could go back…”
Bridge —> “You dance on the graves…”
Refrain —> “Love in anger…”

Refrains and choruses are pretty much the same thing, but I visualize them as distinct. To me a refrain is a chorus-type hook that isn’t the centerpiece of the song, whereas the chorus is something that everything else is built around. Even if it’s not repeated again, it still acts as the chorus. Same goes for “The Legacy”.

Intro —> “Tell you a thing…”
Verse —> “You lie in your death bed now…”
Pre-chorus —> “I can’t begin to understand…”
Verse —> “Tangled up in a web of lies…”
Pre-chorus —> “You had us all strung out…”
Chorus —> “Left to all our golden sons…”
Finale verse —> “We seem destined to live in fear…”
Finale verse —> “But some are just not wanting peace…”

And “The Red and the Black”.

Verse —> “The morals of life…”
Verse —> “See myself in the hall…”
Hook —> “Oh oh oh oh oh…”
Verse —> “The black jack king…”
Hook —> “Oh oh oh oh oh…”
Verse —> “Meanwhile we play…”
Hook —> “Oh oh oh oh oh…”
Chorus —> “The red and the black…”
Hook —> “Oh oh oh oh oh…”

Now it’s subject to interpretation as well, because some may consider what I’ve labeled as the hook to be the pre-chorus or even the chorus proper. In the latter instance, my chorus would be more of a bridge.

 

[Jer]

I’m curious which part of Hell on Earth folks believe to be the chorus? I feel like it’s more accurate to say that the song simply doesn’t have one.

It has two choruses, the “I wish I could go back” part and the “love in anger” part.

 

[GhostofCain]

Steve hits a double homer! Is that a thing? I don't know, I don't care.

It is indeed a thing!

 

[chaosapiant]

It has two choruses, the “I wish I could go back” part and the “love in anger” part.

This is where my lack of musical theory/knowledge comes in. If there’s two different ones, can you call it a chorus? Granted, I think it’s fair game to label it however you want. There are definitely some bands/albums/songs that don’t have choruses.

 

[Diesel 11]

This is where my lack of musical theory/knowledge comes in. If there’s two different ones, can you call it a chorus? Granted, I think it’s fair game to label it however you want. There are definitely some bands/albums/songs that don’t have choruses.

I think a good example of a chorus-lacking song is "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which has a different structure to "Hell on Earth" entirely. It features a couple sections that musically sound the same, but lyrically advance the story rather than allow for a common unified centerpiece.

 

[Jer]

If there’s two different ones, can you call it a chorus?

Yes. There are many examples of multi-chorus songs out there.

@Diesel 11 characterizing the "love in anger" part as a refrain instead of a chorus is also a defensible position.

 

[Diesel 11]

One song I'd probably consider to have two choruses is "The Thin Line Between Love and Hate". I think that both the "There's a thin line..." and "I will hope..." sections are distinctive enough and Maiden use them interchangeably for the post-verse chorus section. Even when they finally come up behind each other, there's an instrumental wall between them, which to me makes them both work as a chorus. You could also call one or the other a refrain or a hook using this logic. Others may consider the first of the two to be the pre-chorus, which I can get but I don't think it works in the way a pre-chorus typically works: being a shift from the verse intended to lead into the more epic chorus.

Throw in Bruce's final peal of the song title in as well and you could argue that the song has three choruses. I personally think it's more of an outro refrain - similar to "Hell on Earth" having the "Love in anger..." section - but the argument can be there.

On the subject of pre-choruses v. choruses, another song that plays around with this is "The Nomad". Is "Nomad, rider of the ancient east..." section the pre-chorus, holding down the fort before the bigger "Nomad, you're the rider so mysterious..." chorus? I would argue it's in fact the first chorus. It doesn't bridge the gap between verse and chorus, it's more a chorus that works in building up anticipation. It's fun, it's exciting, but you feel the real payoff once Bruce explodes into the bigger second chorus.

And then there's "Ghost of the Navigator". Does this song have two pre-choruses? I would argue against this. To me, the pre-chorus is "Mysteries of time...", the chorus is "I've seen the ghosts of navigators...", and the section thereafter, "Take my heart and set it free...", is the post-chorus. But you can make all sorts of arguments because a lot of this is subjective to how we visualize the songs for ourselves.

Another interesting song when it comes to the chorus sections is Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through". There's a verse, it leads to a chorus, which ends up not being the actual chorus because we hit another section that leads into the actual chorus. The way we structure our songs is entirely malleable and I love that artists can do whatever they want when crafting music, because it adds so much extra variety than if everything was just ABAB.

My perception of HoE is built around my recognition of other songs with similar structure, divorced from the fact that the chorus is only there once.

Also:

If there’s two different ones, can you call it a chorus?

If this were the case, what would you do about songs with several different parts that act as unique identities while remaining one song? A good example is Nightwish's "The Greatest Show on Earth", where there are five distinct parts and two of them are based around the verse / chorus arrangement. What else would you call them if not choruses?

The simple idea of a chorus being the repeated centerpiece in a song doesn't always hold true because of outliers like "Hell on Earth". We as humans have the need to ascribe roles to objects, and this is the best way we are able to break down songs like these.

 

[Randalf]

The emotional and melancholic vibe of this song hit me hard from the day one.

Today, perhaps more than ever.

Beginning of a sunrise bores a big hole in the sky
Not to reason why that armed children are in this world
And fighting in the name of God's way
Mourning bleak and utter waste
The vanity of the world is assured now

Prey upon the weak no more
The spirits of those who are gone
Propaganda of the battles
That are lost or won
And count your blessings still alive
Of those who managed to survive
Inside oblivion of that hell on Earth

All you have been, all you have seen
Lost in somewhere in your dreams
How the angels they have fallen
All is nothing what it seems
And the voices that you hear now
And the voices in your head
Now are thinking of a lifetime
You can never feel again​

 

[Shmoolikipod]

I completely agree with Diesel. Well, not in the individual examples, for example I'd call what Diesel called the first chorus in The Nomad a refrain.

But that's why double choruses are so awesome imo, they leave you puzzled over which one is the "real" chorus. It's kind of uncommon compared to standard single chorus songs, can't think of too many in Maiden's discography which Diesel didn't mention, maybe Paschendale (Both "home, far away..." And "the bodies of us and our foes..." are choruses imo). So maybe that's another reason I tend to love songs with two choruses.

Also, the chorus is usually the most powerful part in the song, so surely having more will yield

In my own musical scribbling, in an attempt to write a verse to what sounded like a chorus to me, I realized I accidentally made a second chorus, so I ended up struggling to label sections in my own song

 

[Diesel 11]

maybe Paschendale (Both "home, far away..." And "the bodies of us and our foes..." are choruses imo).

Personally I’d consider the latter to be a bridge. “Cruelty has a human heart…” works better as another chorus but it acts more as another verse or bridge.

Also, the chorus is usually the most powerful part in the song, so surely having more will yield

Yup, unless it’s “The Mercenary”, where the pre-chorus hits harder than the actual chorus.

 

[Melony]

Here’s how I view it:

Verse —> “Beginning of a sunrise…”
Verse —> “Prey upon the weak no more…”
Pre-chorus —> “All you have been…”
Chorus —> “I wish I could go back…”
Bridge —> “You dance on the graves…”
Refrain —> “Love in anger…”

...

Even though my definition of chorus and refrain is a little different, I would divide and label it the same way.

I also like how the bridge starts with a short instrumental moment so we can take a breath and reflect on what we have heard before we then head for the next highlight.

 

[Lexa]

It could be a good, even an ideal opening song for the next live shows. No way I wish the half-dead fusion-tremble-cacophoniac Senjutsu song to be the opening. But no chance. I even imagine they made a video with an old japanese guy flying on a wheelchair around the Fuji mountain accompanied with that Nicko's drumming