The Beckett Connection

Maiden were out of ideas after first two albums. That's the reason for Beckett copy-paste. That album, Number of the beast, features biggest diversity of songwriters for that time, riffs from previous bands of members, members that didn't write wrote songs, members that were prohibited also wrote songs. It seems to me that Maiden mustered anything to get that album out. No-one knew what Hallowed would become.

But the Nomad?
 
It can be that Steve was out of ideas:

22AA is an Urchin song with different lyrics
The Prisoner is mainly H and Bruce (who wrote the lyrics)
and also COTD sounds like a song where Bruce had a big input

So Steve could have very well struggled with ideas at this point.

But more plausible theory is that Steve wrote the majority of Hallowed's lyrics and struggled just for final few lines. He couldn't think of them and "borrowed" them from Beckett.

The Nomad? That is beyond me.
 
Run to the hills, Bruce too. He also let Clive pen a sub-par song and it landed on the record.

I still believe Maiden won't credit people "out of band" on their records due to ease of management and worldwide royalty rights, etc. Blaze was given substantial severance (and he didn't have severance in contract) to pay his BNW material off. Perhaps, after initial Beckett settlement for HBTN, Harris wanted to do that again with the Nomad but it failed?

The only example of far fetched reasoning I can come up with right now.
 
matic22 said:
It can be that Steve was out of ideas:

So Steve could have very well struggled with ideas at this point.
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I don't think so. He wrote Hallowed and The Number of the Beast on his own (except for those six lines). I wouldn't call that struggling. The difference was that he had competition in the writing department. Adrian was writing more, Bruce was a major improvement from Paul. Steve didn't have to write everything on his own.
 
Poto said:
I don't think so. He wrote Hallowed and The Number of the Beast on his own (except for those six lines). I wouldn't call that struggling. The difference was that he had competition in the writing department. Adrian was writing more, Bruce was a major improvement from Paul. Steve didn't have to write everything on his own.
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As I said after: that probably wasn't the case.

More plausable is that during the end of writing HBTN he ran out of ideas for lyrics and thought: fuck those few lines just sum up what I want to tell in these verses of this song. So he borrowed them, which came to haunt him 30 years later.

As for Prisoner and 22AA:
The core of The Prisoner was written during an accidental jam session between H and Bruce on drums. 22AA was an altered version of Urchin song called Countdown.

I think that during TNOTB whole band was under a lot of pressure and didn't have any material.
 
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I find the whole thing quite strange. Steve was a pro musician signed to a big label with a shrewd manager. Surely he knew the possible implications of using someone else's work? Although, am I right in saying that Beckett disbanded in the 70s with very little fanfare? What with it being pre-internet and all, maybe Steve thought he would simply get away with it. Not admirable but understandable (they are great lyrics). Like Zare says above, whats the excuse for The Nomad? Great music but surely a very big risk to rob it.
 
Niall Kielt said:
I find the whole thing quite strange. Steve was a pro musician signed to a big label with a shrewd manager. Surely he knew the possible implications of using someone else's work? Although, am I right in saying that Beckett disbanded in the 70s with very little fanfare? What with it being pre-internet and all, maybe Steve thought he would simply get away with it. Not admirable but understandable (they are great lyrics). Like Zare says above, whats the excuse for The Nomad? Great music but surely a very big risk to rob it.
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No excuses but I guess they thought it sounded appropriate, a bit like when Oasis used the TREX riff in their song.

I'm just disappointed because The Nomad was my favourite song on BNW. And I thought Dave Murray composed all the music.

Worst case senario, Maiden will have to delete the track from future pressings.

Hallowed as well.

But in the streaming/ YouTube world, people will still hear it anyway so who cares? It would just suck if it was never performed live again.
 
If it works out as suggested above and the royalties for Hallowed get split in whatever ratio, do people think that would lead to the band never playing it again? I'm not convinced. Maiden don't have that long left and so I'd like to think that Steve would take the cut in pay in order for the fans to get to hear this all time classic again and the band clearly love playing it. It's not as if this is any old song. Its not as if Steve would have to pay from his own pocket, he would just receive less coin when the cheques come in and surely losing 50% or 66% of the royalties from one song wont break the bank. Or a I misunderstanding the whole thing?
Compensation for past usage is a whole other thing and I've no idea how much that might cost. I assume this would come from the bands coffers and not Steve's own pocket. So, really, is it all that bad? Or do I misunderstand it?
 
I think compensation for the past use plus 6% of the rights together for Barton and Quinn would be a fair solution. But from what I understand Quinn wants far more, so Steve and Rod won't have that.
 
Magnus said:
He didn't have to write everything on his own before that either.
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With the exception of Twilight Zone, Killers and Another Life wrote Killers on his own. On Iron Maiden he wrote everything except Running Free, Sanctuary and Remember Tomorrow on his own.
 
Poto said:
With the exception of Twilight Zone, Killers and Another Life wrote Killers on his own. On Iron Maiden he wrote everything except Running Free, Sanctuary and Remember Tomorrow on his own.
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[Edit: And Charlotte, but that's not the point. Edit: Another Life?]. According to official credits, yes. But there are at least seven other members who have contributed to the material from the first two albums.
 
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Poto said:
On Iron Maiden he wrote everything except Running Free, Sanctuary and Remember Tomorrow on his own.
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Charlotte the Harlot is credited entirely to Murray :) I don't know who really wrote the lyrics though, propably someone who left the band earlier.
 
jazz from hell said:
Perhaps Hallowed was already written, finished and perfect as it was, so they just didn't want to risk not getting a permission to use those lyrics in time or at all.

It would be interesting to see how the guys in Maiden would handle a similar situation, if someone 'stole' from them. Has there ever been a case?
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The closest is the dispute between Ides of March / Thuderburst.

Well, we all know how that ended LOL
 
Well I personally think that Quinn would stand better chances of winning this case if he sued Batrton first. Now he will probably need to face the Smalwood/Taylor Lawyer army.
 
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