Iron Maiden News, Links, and Interviews

Forostar said:
Not much different from others from that album.
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I think those are, by far, the worst lyrics off the debut album. The lyrics to 'Prowler' are pretty bad too, but in my humble opinion that song is miles better than 'Charlotte the Harlot' from a musical point of view.
 
Number 6 said:
I think "Charlotte" was very good on that era specifically, but it has not aged well.
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I agree. I used to be a big fan of the song thirty years ago, but I don't even listen to it anymore. The quiet mid-section is great, but the rest is a bit to riffy for my taste.
 
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GhostofCain said:
... but in my humble opinion that song is miles better than 'Charlotte the Harlot' from a musical point of view.
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Of course ! Prowler is one of the best Maiden songs and it is a classic. ;)

Recently I started to like Strange World more and maybe Charlotte the Harlot will become the song that I like least from the debut album.
 
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The Beat Club performance totally reaffirms to me that this is a fine song. Much more enjoyable than Iron Maiden and also at least as good as Sanctuary imo. There is more feel, warmth and depth in this song.
By the way, Adrian (I believe) does some beautiful licks in the calm mid piece. :shred::notworthy:
 
The only thing I dislike about Charlotte are the lyrics in the mid-piece, which seem rather stupid. Otherwise it's a shallow but fun affair, with some good guitar and a catchy chorus. Not very high on my list but I enjoy listening to it.
 
Diesel 11 said:
The only thing I dislike about Charlotte are the lyrics in the mid-piece, which seem rather stupid. Otherwise it's a shallow but fun affair, with some good guitar and a catchy chorus. Not very high on my list but I enjoy listening to it.
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My thoughts exactly. I particularly hate the off colour drawers lyric, but outside of that it's enjoyable enough.
 
Edington said:
Interesting, do lyrics not influence your opinion of a song in any way?
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It depends on whether you speak and understand English in the first place (many Maiden fans around the world don't, or hardly do). As far as I'm concerned, what may explain that I've grown very difficult to content with Maiden lyrics, is that I started to be able to pay attention to them not until 1995-ish (I was fourteen) before becoming rather fluent. As a conclusion, poor lyrics tend to bother me more in songs released from 1995 onwards. ;)
 
Edington said:
Interesting, do lyrics not influence your opinion of a song in any way?
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Music (sound) can arouse all kinds of feelings, touch emotions. You really feel it. A vibe. There are many layers in music, rhythms, harmonies, sounds. Lyrics have a meaning, but they also have it without music. A poem or a piece of text affects me in a different way than a song does. Not in a lesser way, per se. A great book is a great experience when reading it. But in songs, lyrics are just often inferior to the importance of music.

In this case as well.

Charlotte the Harlot music >> Charlotte the Harlot lyrics
Iron Maiden music > Iron Maiden lyrics

Both lyrics are not that good, but hardly differ in quality. But the music in the former is more convincing than the music in the latter. This is the more important factor to me.
 
Well, personally I wouldn't totally dismiss an otherwise good song if it had crap lyrics. "Girls, Girls, Girls" springs to mind. But they can sometimes bring a song down in my opinion, just a little.

I think @Forostar you do have a point. For the most part the music or even the vocal melody is what usually stands out the most to me in a song. Most of the time if I simply read lyrics they don't stir any emotion in me. But when I hear those words being sung, with the music alongside them, that's what really brings them to life.
 
I would generally agree, but for me one exception is bad vocal phrasing, where the emphasized syllables are very unnatural sounding. Throws me right out of the song. I'll take bad lyrics over bad phrasing any day of the week.
 
Jer said:
I would generally agree, but for me one exception is bad vocal phrasing, where the emphasized syllables are very unnatural sounding. Throws me right out of the song. I'll take bad lyrics over bad phrasing any day of the week.
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Yes, as Dream Theater would say (in "To Live Forever"):
"The starvation has turned ..................................................................................me outside in" ;)
 
srfc said:
Nicko was on it last night, not for a huge amount of time. He was basically illustrating how drum parts can be influenced by what the other musicians are playing, especially the bass player, and he used Where Eagles Dare as an example, showing how a different beat could easily have been used but it wouldn't have sounded as good with the bass line. He talked about being blessed to play with the best bass player in the world in our genre of music and made a joke about it getting harded to play this style as he's an old man now and has recently got his rail card.

EDIT: Dave Lombardo and Gene Hoglan were on it as well
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The final episode was on last night. Nicko spoke briefly about Keith Moon. He was on the whole series for maybe less than a minutes screen time, so if Maiden fans are looking for this show to see Nicko I guess they might be disappointed, but I can't reiterate enough that if it ever "appears" online, it's a real good series that is worth watching for anyone with an interest in music.

The final episode featured 20 drummers chosen by drummers. From a metal point of view, Ian Paice, Bill Ward and John Bonham made the list, as did Neil Peart. Portnoy, Hoglan and Lombardo featured much more heavily than Nicko in the discusssions about these drummers, as well.
 
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