Iron Maiden lyrics tournament final: Empire of the Clouds rises above all

Pick the song with the best lyrics from each pair


  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
Eliminated Aces High and the Clansman

The final seedings are done, the game is about to get serious as we return to head-to-head matchups for the round of 32.

Our first matchups

STARBLIND


versus

DANCE OF DEATH


and

EMPIRE OF THE CLOUDS


versus

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

 
Careful mckindog: I assume we have to choose our favourite ones? The instruction still says:
Vote for your five least favourite lyrics
 
Stranger is OK and Dance is good.
It will be a long time before I will vote against either of the others.
 
Fairly easy choice. Starblind is thoughtful, philosophical, and has rich imagery . Empire is packed with near-theatrical drama.
 
I voted for Starblind, but I really hate seeing it battle Dance of Death. Dance deserves to go far in this tournament, but any song that faces Starblind is going to have a hard time.

Empire is a no-brainer.
 
Starblind (14-2) and Empire of the Clouds (13-3) advance.

Next pairs:

HALLOWED BE THY NAME


versus

BRAVE NEW WORLD


and

WASTED YEARS


versus

BLOOD BROTHERS

 
Significantly weaker group than the previous one, I wouldn't put any of these among the band's best works lyrically.

Went with Hallowed and the positive energy of Wasted Years.
 
Hallowed - excellent storytelling with feeling and hints at back story. Blood Brothers - decent expression of sentiment, although I don't find this one of the best set of lyrics. I can't identify with the sentiment in Wasted Years at all, though, so BB gets the vote.
 
Hallowed - for the same reason as Brigs.

Wasted Years - which has very concise, easy to understand, yet incredibly interesting hooky lyrics.

Shame we will probably lose these BNW songs, tho.
 
The images of Brave New World are great and perfect fit with the music, but I don't think they really add up to anything substantial or capture the source material
Hallowed, on the other hand tells a compelling, provocative story in very few words.

Blood Brothers: shitty things make me sad — but we are one! I think the poignancy of the subject matter matches the music, but it just doesn't tie together well when you read the words apart from the music.
Wasted Years is not a contender to win it all — not enough depth or poetry, and the message doesn't resonate personally — but it does a very solid job of getting its point across.
 
The winners are Hallowed and Wasted Years.

Our next battles:

PASCHENDALE


versus

RUN TO THE HILLS


and

DIE WITH YOUR BOOTS ON


versus

FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF GOD

 
These are both no-brainers. It hurts to vote against RTTH because the lyrics are probably its best quality.
 
"Killing time until my very own death" has to be one of the best lyrics in an Iron Maiden song ever.

FTGGOG is over-bloated, but one thing it does exceptionally is the lyrics.
 
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