Only the Good Die Young

How good is Only the Good Die Young on a scale of 1-10?


  • Total voters
    12
Not if it was the final song in the concert.
Well, in this case, it would function...theoretically: I can't imagine any IM concert finishing with something else than "Iron Maiden" (main set) or a "classic" (encores). However, if there ever is a "final" IM concert -promoted as such-, this could be a solution to end it, with a touch of humour (given the age of the protagonists). ;)
 
The title of the song is an English expression which has its roots
in the Latin expression: "Quem di diligunt, adolescens moritur" ("The one who
gods love, he dies young "). The phrase "Walking on water" is one
reference to the New Testament, where Christ appears to be walking on
surface of the sea to reach the boat of his disciples (Matthew
14: 22-23, Mark 6: 45-52, John 6: 15-21).
The red moon (like blood) and the
black sun (like a mourning garment) is
images found both in
Old Testament (Prophets, Joel, 3: 4)
as well as in the New Testament (Revelation
6:12).
The young man, in a fit of rage before
suicide, spits out their hypocrisy
people and predicts the coming day of the crisis. It seems, however,
to hope in his transmigration. The bitter contempt of everything is the
last taste of life that insulting leaves, having, as
fulfill Satan's prediction in "Moonchild" and his
prophet in "Can I Play With Madness", that he will end up in the "eternal night",
in "lake of fire", in Hell.
The symbol that accompanies the lyrics in its insert
album has alchemical roots. Among the elements that fascinated
the Alchemists more, in addition to gold, silver, him
mercury and arsenic, were sulfur and phosphorus. The uncle
in Alchemy is depicted with a symbol consisting of
from the right isosceles triangle (symbolizing fire) and one
cross with a south arrow attached to the vertical line (symbolizing
incineration). Sulfur, for the Alchemists, was associated with
Hell and the Underworld, hence the southern arrow. The horizontal line
was added to form the point of the cross, which the Alchemists
they were trying to incorporate into many of their symbols.
 
The finale of a concept album is supposed to be the culmination of everything that came before. Maiden, having failed at crafting a concept album, also fail at providing a strong closer to it. “Only the Good Die Young” is okay, and it has a nice chorus and really great lyrics, but at this point it’s just another song on a fairly disappointing record. And the final callback to “Moonchild” is just stupidly shoehorned-in. 6/10
 
This is another weird one for me. It's rather unorthodox as far as album closers are concerned, which I don't really mind. In fact I like that quite a bit.

The intro with the harmonized twin leads is great. The verses with the combination of clean guitars and gallop are phenomenal. What keeps the song back is the chorus, which in a vacuum isn't bad, but unfortunately isn't particularly interesting or great. It's far too simple for my tastes.

The bass solo, for lack of a better word, is a neat addition. The solo is great as well. The lyrics (again, with the exception of the chorus) are brilliant too. The outro, a reprise of Moonchild's intro with one missing line, was a superb choice to end the album and though the concept wasn't flashed out during the album it serves to unify the vision just enough. This one is a good 8.
 
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