Starblind

How good is Starblind on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    12
This song is another track that has been a grower for me, to the point where it has become IMO one of the strongest tracks on the album, the lyrics are truly brilliant, the music is beautiful, Starblind is easily in my top 10 list of favourite Maiden tracks, I give it a well deserved 10/10.
 
Zare said:
Isle Of Avalon, second favourite off the album, yes - because it contains quite a few elements and known progressions from before, but this damn Starblind is really new. Apart from VXI-alike intro, everything else is new.
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Actually, maybe others have also heard it (and posted it?) but try to:

1. Sing/hum or think Bruce's verses in Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger, in the part starting @ 3:27 in this clip.

It matches, doesn't it?

Try this as well:

2. Sing/hum or think Blaze's lyric "Don't Look to, Don't Look to, Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger", in the intro and couplets of Starblind.

It matches! Because it feel these parts have the same chord progression. Maybe not chords, but the progression is really the same.

I find it hard to believe that these compositions were made entirely independent from each other.
Some people might not like it that a suspenseful core of one song from Maiden's less successful era is repeated so lengthily in one of Maiden's most loved songs of this era.

Nonetheless, this proves Zare's point in this topic, where he describes VXI's influence on later Maiden.
 
Forostar said:
Actually, maybe others have also heard it (and posted it?) but try to:

1. Sing/hum or think Bruce's verses in Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger, in the part starting @ 3:27 in this clip.

It matches, doesn't it?
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Only up to the third repetition of don't look to the eyes of a stranger. On the fourth repetition, it does not sound right any more. The chord progression is not entirely the same. If each repetition of don't look to the eyes of a stranger corresponds to two bars, then the chord progression repeats itself in 8 bars. Now let's break down the chord progression. (I write them all in capital letters because power chords are used, no major and minor chords)

DLTTEOAS: VI (two bars), IV (two bars), II (two bars), I (one bar), II (1/2 bar), III (1/2 bar)
Starblind: VI (two bars), IV (two bars), II (two bars), III (two bars).

Both of these are quite similar to the one used in No More Lies, which is like in Starblind, but has a V instead of the III.

BTW, I'm convinced SMX will come and correct my notation if he sees this post  :D
 
Alright, let's leave out the fourth DLTTEOAS-line repetition then.

Did you try what I mean? Do you feel it, recognize it when mixing these songs the way I described (both ways)?
 
Yes, I tried it both ways, and as I wrote - it feels right for three lines, but then on the fourth one, it feels awkward. But I also think that the chord progression itself is quite generic - you'll find it more places in the catalog if you look for it.

My opinion on TFF, the whole album, is that the band has revisited a lot of old musical themes, but they have managed to make it sound fresh and new - and therefore, hats off to the band.
 
Take Pink Floyd for example. A lot of their post-Barett songs share same patterns and progressions. However, progressive rock/metal bands can always sound interesting and fresh if they manage to incorporate those same old elements in new arrangements and new themes.
 
After reading many plausable theories on the song's meaning im going to take an opinion on it. The first paragraph seems to talk about a spiritual being (angel?) who is describing a future world where religion is forgotten and world leaders ("jailers" like in Brave New World) have taken hold of the world. The spiritual being is taking the listener on a spiritual revelation about the sad future where no one remembers what religion is except the elders' stories about it. People are making pacts of love but die alone as they don't carry there souls onward and preachers have forgotten there original purpose. And because they die alone without souls their "time is short" and have wasted their life living without one.

Or it could be something completely different ??? (on youtube look up "Bruce Dickinson Faith and Music" to get a clue on his stance in faith and religion)
 
That's also 12 years old. Bruce has said other things on religion since then - specifically, that he's moved away from it. Details are buried somewhere in this thread.
 
LooseCannon said:
Bruce has said other things on religion since then - specifically, that he's moved away from it. Details are buried somewhere in this thread.
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I need to look this up then. I don't remember Bruce talking about religion lately.
 
Part 3 of the video says that he does beleive in an all supreme spiritual being and the excistence of the human soul. But he also has another inner voice telling him that this is all probably fiction too but that mankind needs too beleave in something.
This is Bruce's mind so who knows what he thinks and maybee he has moved away also, but it's also very personal for him.
 
Undoubtedly it is. All faith - or lack there of - should be a personal decision. But the song isn't about faith; it is a critique of organized religion. The first lines are a suggestion of where we could be if we put aside dogma and worked to get shit done.
 
Personally I don't think it is about athiesm. But after looking a bit more I do see lines of questioning organized religion. Some lines remind me of the reformation of the church, like in Flourance, when people could simply buy forgivness from the pope with currency. Others lines seem to be about beleiving in what you want as long as you live your life the way you want to. I'm still completely unsure about how the chorus fits into anything i'm talking about. "We are the light that brings the end of night", I wonder who or what the "we" speaker is in the chorus, (sounds like a spiritual being or alian to me). Anyways we will never know untill the band tells us cause we could all be completely wrong.
 
This is, in my opinion, the best song of the album. The lyrics are very interesting, and as can be witnessed on this board they are bound to create discussion - which probably was Bruce's intention. The composition is great as well, and the solos are top notch. A damn good job by H.

10/10.
 
Listening to Starblind again, it strikes me as the (much) better version of Ghost of the Navigator from BNW. It's as if GOTN was the first draft and Starblind was the finished product. Needless to say, I think Starblind exceeds GOTN by a magnitude of a thousand.
 
Apperantly star tripping is an actuall activity where a person stares at a single star at night while spinning in circles 15 times. Then another person shines a flashlight into the spinning person's eyes which will quickly black out the spinner.

Starblind has many quotes to this : "We are the light that brings the end of night", "Step into my light startripping"... So I think the speaker is shining the "light" on the "blind" people who follow organized religion and waste their times seeking something that can't be proven while alive. "Remember you can choose to look but not to see and waste your hours" seems to mean that you can gaze into a star but don't waste your life circling around that thought instead of living your life.
 
finalfrontier said:
Apperantly star tripping is an actuall activity where a person stares at a single star at night while spinning in circles 15 times. Then another person shines a flashlight into the spinning person's eyes which will quickly black out the spinner.
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I have finally found something more stupid than planking.
 
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