Rank songs written by Dave Murray

My top 5 would be:

1. Brave New World
2. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
3. Still Life
4. Judas Be My Guide
5. Rainmaker

Special mention(s) to The Prophecy and Public Enema Number One

That being said, I think Davey is below the two other guitar players when it comes to songwriting chops.

Honestly no guitar player is close to Adrian in terms of song writing.
 
For the hell of it, The Dave Murray Setlist!

Brave New World
Age of Innocence
Judas Be My Guide
Lightning Strikes Twice
Deja Vu
The Man Who Would Be King
The Prophecy
Fates Warning
The Nomad
The Man of Sorrows
The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
Still Life
-----------------
Rainmaker
Charlotte the Harlot
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
 
For the hell of it, The Dave Murray Setlist!

Brave New World
Age of Innocence
Judas Be My Guide
Lightning Strikes Twice
Deja Vu
The Man Who Would Be King
The Prophecy
Fates Warning
The Nomad
The Man of Sorrows
The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
Still Life
-----------------
Rainmaker
Charlotte the Harlot
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

The Dave Murray Project!
 
Don't all band members, in some sense, write every song? I mean, Dave and Adrian both got to write riffs, melodies, and solos for every song. Nicko's got to write the drum parts, Steve's got to write the bass lines, and Bruce's got to work out how the lyrics are sung and delivered. I never understood how somgwriting credits were established. I guess it goes to the person who came up with the idea?
 
Don't all band members, in some sense, write every song? I mean, Dave and Adrian both got to write riffs, melodies, and solos for every song. Nicko's got to write the drum parts, Steve's got to write the bass lines, and Bruce's got to work out how the lyrics are sung and delivered. I never understood how somgwriting credits were established. I guess it goes to the person who came up with the idea?
It depends on the band/ artist. Your description fits how Queen used to work - the key idea being "the one who writes the tune (that is, skeleton of melody and lyrics) gets the songwriting credit (even though the others had contributed the rest of the orchestration)". They decided they would credit all members on each song from The Miracle (1989) onward.

Much more cynical methods are sometimes used: the music on the Bark At The Moon album was written mostly by guitarist Jake E. Lee (with additional input from bassist Bob Daisley and keyboard player Don Airey). However, only Ozzy Osbourne is credited on these songs because they (Sharon) basicly told Lee: "We have got your music on tape now: either we buy you out (and give the songwriting credit to Ozzy alone while you get a modest sum of money and no copyright to the songs), either you have nothing".

As far as Maiden is concerned, Adrian Smith tends to write full demos (with drums) or to show what he has in store to Bruce Dickinson who then tries to develop melodies and lyrics, while Steve Harris tends to explain to the others what he wants face to face. I think I haven't read about how Dave and Janick work (they don't write lyrics so it must be like the Smith/Dickinson collaboration). Nicko has only written one song ("New Frontier" on Dance of Death) on the bass and "showed" the results to Adrian and Bruce who developed it into a song.

Sometimes, members are bought out too: Blaze Bayley collaborated to what became "Blood Brothers" and "Dream of Mirrors" (among others) but he was paid off and doesn't appear in the credits, since he was out of the band when these songs were released (on Brave New World). Bruce Dickinson contributed a lot to "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner" and "Run To The Hills" but for legal reasons (he was just leaving Samson whose label still owned the publishing rights to what Bruce wrote), he was bought out.

Sometimes, writers are alledgedly robbed of their rights (business is business): the lyrics to "Strange World" and "Charlotte the Harlot" were supposedly written by the first Iron Maiden singer Paul Mario Day (Dave recognizes himself that he has never written a single word of lyrics and the song is credited fully to him), while the drum intro to "The Ides of March" was brought by Barry Purkis aka "Thunderstick".

The story behind who wrote "Sanctuary" is also a bit unclear to me: it is credited "Iron Maiden" now but over the years, it had borne different credits (Harris alone, Harris/Murray, Harris/Murray/ Di'Anno...) and a tape of 1977 dug out recently (cf the thread "Dennis Wilcock", credit to @fekso2017 and @Magnus ) suggests that former members Bob Sawyer ("Rob Angelo") and possibly singer Dennis Wilcock too had a hand in the writing of the song.
 
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Sometimes, writers are alledgedly robbed of their rights (business is business): the lyrics to "Strange World" and "Charlotte the Harlot" were supposedly written by the first Iron Maiden singer Paul Mario Day (Dave recognizes himself that he has never written a single word of lyrics and the song is credited fully to him), while the drum intro to "The Ides of March" was brought by Barry Purkis aka "Thunderstick".

The story behind who wrote "Sanctuary" is also a bit unclear to me: it is credited "Iron Maiden" now but over the years, it had borne different credits (Harris alone, Harris/Murray, Harris/Murray/ Di'Anno...) and a tape of 1977 dug out recently (cf the thread "Dennis Wilcock", credit to @fekso2017 and @Magnus ) suggests that former members Bob Sawyer ("Rob Angelo") and possibly singer Dennis Wilcock too had a hand in the writing of the song.

There are other cases too. One that I know from the top of my head is that Dave Sullivan wrote the riff to Iron Maiden (although I saw him in late 2006 at a IMFC meetup and he didn't seem to hold any grudges). This has been discussed elsewhere on the board during the whole Maiden77 thing.
 
the lyrics to "Strange World" and "Charlotte the Harlot" were supposedly written by the first Iron Maiden singer Paul Mario Day

Only Strange World by Paul Day, Charlotte's lyrics are by Dennis Willcock.

Once again on Sanctuary - track by Bob Sawyer written long before he became a Maiden member, played and recorded with his band Nitro before Dennis Willcock joined Nitro, then recorded once again with Nitro with Dennis on vocals. [Info from http://www.legacyproject.co.uk/bob-sawyer-interview.html]
Then taken to Maiden (where DW was already a vocalist); Maiden apparently kept playing it after Bob left. Bought off fair and square from him when they wanted to record it for Metal For Muthas. Once bought off, I guess they could put whatever credits they wanted, I mostly remember it as being credited to "Iron Maiden". :)
 
My top 10:
1. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
2. Brave New World
3. Judas Be My Guide
4. Rainmaker
5. Age of Innocence
6. The Nomad
7. Still Life
8. Total Eclipse
9. Deja Vu
10. The Prophecy
 
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Only Strange World by Paul Day, Charlotte's lyrics are by Dennis Willcock.

Once again on Sanctuary - track by Bob Sawyer written long before he became a Maiden member, played and recorded with his band Nitro before Dennis Willcock joined Nitro, then recorded once again with Nitro with Dennis on vocals. [Info from http://www.legacyproject.co.uk/bob-sawyer-interview.html]
Then taken to Maiden (where DW was already a vocalist); Maiden apparently kept playing it after Bob left. Bought off fair and square from him when they wanted to record it for Metal For Muthas. Once bought off, I guess they could put whatever credits they wanted, I mostly remember it as being credited to "Iron Maiden". :)

I meet Bob once and this is the same info I got!
 
My favorite songs written by Dave are:

Rainmaker
Brave New World
Deja-Vu
Judas Be My Guide
When Two Worlds Collide

- All are top-notch songs IMO.
 
1. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
2. Judas Be My Guide
3. Rainmaker
4. When Two Worlds Collide
5. Still Life
 
Charlotte the Harlot and Deja Vu are my favorites. Charlotte is really really underrated you don't see a lot of fans singing it's praises. I like the middle portion where it gets softer and Di'Anno laments about Charlotte. I didn't like Bruce's 1988 rendition of it.

Deja Vu has one of the best openings to any song ever. It's a shame the rest of the song doesn't really live up, but I love it regardless.
 
1. Judas Be My Guide
2. The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
3. Still Life
4. The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
5. Brave New World
 
Charlotte the Harlot and Deja Vu are my favorites. Charlotte is really really underrated you don't see a lot of fans singing it's praises. I like the middle portion where it gets softer and Di'Anno laments about Charlotte. I didn't like Bruce's 1988 rendition of it.

Deja Vu has one of the best openings to any song ever. It's a shame the rest of the song doesn't really live up, but I love it regardless.
About Charlotte: The Ruskin Arms live version from early April '80 (first seen on 12 Wasted Years) really rocks hard, I absolutely love it. Here, the backing vocals are a bit different from the album and also earlier bootlegs. I suspect this detail to be a Dennis Stratton idea, and it's brilliant.

Sorry for going (slightly) off topic.
 
1. The Thin Line Between Love & Hate
2. The Nomad
3. The Man That Would Be King
4. Deja Vu
5. Still Life

...If Drifter is 1 of these tracks, then that takes my #2, and simply moves 2-5 down.
I'm very surprised TTLBL&H was not a Steve epic... Never knew that, though it should have been obvious since the chorus wasn't repeated 50 times like that absolute horrible piece of work that came just before it on the album that would have made a killer instrumental.
 
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