It's gotta be tough being Dave Murray

most of daves songs kick off with slow guitar intro, I wouldn't be surprised if that was all that Dave contributes to some of the tracks., i.e. I think maybe some of the time Dave's guitar ideas just get tacked onto a relatively fully formed idea from someone else
 
srfc said:
most of daves songs kick off with slow guitar intro, I wouldn't be surprised if that was all that Dave contributes to some of the tracks., i.e. I think maybe some of the time Dave's guitar ideas just get tacked onto a relatively fully formed idea from someone else
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I don't think so. Because nearly all the riffs/melodies in the songs with a Dave credit on, sound different to anything Gers/Smith/Harris would come up with. It's rather Steve who work with Dave, shaping the song together after he has presented his material to him, starting from scratch, writing a vocal melody/lyrics for it. Just compare the latest three Murray tracks - The Man of Sorrows, The Man Who Would Be King and Benjamin Breeg, and it's not just the intros that are different stylewise.

On a sidenote, Blaze mentioned in "At the end of the Day" that Dave came to his house and they started writing When Two Worlds Collide on their own back in 1997. And let's not forget that Murray wrote Judas Be My Guide and Chains of Misery alone with Bruce.
 
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TheTalisman said:
On a sidenote, Blaze mentioned in "At the end of the Day" that Dave came to his house and they started writing When Two Worlds Collide on their own back in 1997.
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Blaze has stated quite often in interviews how much he enjoyed the writing process with Dave. He had hoped to write again with him for a future album, and later invited him to play a solo on Tenth Dimension, I think (which he didn't do).
 
It struck me in one very recent interview, how he mentioned both Steve and Dave and did not mention the only other songwriter Janick when he said that he wanted to work on ideas he had for the next album. It's almost impossible to forget about Janick, not when you speak so slowly and thoughtfully as Blaze.
I know I shouldn't look for things that aren't there but it certainly was a striking moment, I thought.
 
soundwave said:
This has come up in other threads, but I've always been highly suspicious of the song writing credits in Maiden. Did Bruce really write Powerslave from top to bottom (when what evidence I can find suggests he's never really been that adept at guitar)? Does Steve really write every guitar harmony on his solo credit songs? I think Dave is more involved behind the scenes than the credits allude to.
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Songwriting credits are, traditionally (and legally) given for lyrics, song structure and chord structure together with the main melody (chord structure by itself is not copyrightable). The point is, the song is nothing more than what can be performed by a single person on vocals and accompanying instrument (typically piano or guitar). Harmonies, solos, chord voicings, and sometimes even underlying riffs are not part of this and would traditionally not earn the contributor a credit.

Now, metal is not the singer-songwriter type of situation in which these guidelines were hammered out, and in the end the credits are registrered by the band as they like (unless a court decides to award it to somebody else after legal dispute), but if Maiden followed the traditional guidelines it would only mean Bruce at the very least wrote "Powerslave" singing to a single acoustic guitar - which the band then could have arranged for 2 electric guitars, bass, drums etc (to his wishes - or not!). Arrangement is different from songwriting, and does not receive credit in the same way.

The main point is, songwriting credits vs the final recorded version of a song are not necessarily the same.

The underlying reason for why it is like this, is that giving someone a credit for taking an acoustic song and arranging it for a full band (or vice versa) without contributing to lyrics, structure and so on resulting in a credit, would mean that every single song either would have to be performed exactly as written without any room for interpretation, unless the contributor to the arrangement should also receive credit. If they do we suddenly have two different versions of a song with different credits, but how do we know who should get credit for a third version now? It's legally impossible to have it any other way.

The song is what is able to be identified as that particular song. No less, no more.
 
So for Powerslave, Bruce could have said "I want a slow, instrumental section here, you guys do what you want." So any of the other band members could of written that section and Bruce would rightly still receive the sole credit? Is that correct? Or, Steve still is rightly the sole credit on Infinite Dreams even though Dave wrote the intro?
 
Niall Kielt said:
So for Powerslave, Bruce could have said "I want a slow, instrumental section here, you guys do what you want." So any of the other band members could of written that section and Bruce would rightly still receive the sole credit? Is that correct? Or, Steve still is rightly the sole credit on Infinite Dreams even though Dave wrote the intro?
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Very much so. Slow, quiet, fast, heavy is all arrangement really. Solos with very rare exceptions are just counted as improvised parts. The only possible credit-receiving part in that whole instrumental section is the short harmony in between.

As for Infinite Dreams, that short lead is hardly integral to the song and probably wouldn't be counted towards a credit, no.
 
Niall Kielt said:
So for Powerslave, Bruce could have said "I want a slow, instrumental section here, you guys do what you want." So any of the other band members could of written that section and Bruce would rightly still receive the sole credit? Is that correct? Or, Steve still is rightly the sole credit on Infinite Dreams even though Dave wrote the intro?
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I refer you to the interview I posted in response to the original comment on which Bruce explained how he wrote the song. Straight from the horse's mouth. ;)

http://www.metal-rules.com/metalnew...ere-back-in-time-the-powerslave-interviews/3/
 
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