To Tame a Land

How good is To Tame A Land on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    22
Apparently a spoken intro was intended for ''To Tame A Land''. / Curious info. Never knew that.

srfc said:
in Luisma's book it says this about a voiceover that had been intended for To Tame A Land, "I was gutted, we had a spoken intro on it as well by a guy who sounded like Ralph Richardson".
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I also uploaded that info from the Kerrang magazine clippings. Take a look to the Oslo interviews @ Piece of Mind album clippings section.
 
Luisma said:
In Portugal, Italy, Canada & Iceland there are vinyl versions of Piece Of Mind that lists the track as 'Dune'.
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Musicassettes are found too, in Canada and in Italy (but I assume in other countries too).

Also, on a side note, on discogs I did find this musicassette attributed to Saudi Arabia. It says it is an unofficial re-release from 1986 which features a different track listing:

Side A
  1. Where Eagles Dare
  2. Revelations
  3. Flight of Icarus --> Still Life
  4. Die with your Boots on --> Quest for Fire
  5. x x x --> Another Life (!)
Side B
  1. The Trooper --> Flight of Icarus
  2. Still Life --> Die with your Boots on
  3. Quest for Fire --> Sun and Steel
  4. Sun and Steel --> Dune (To Tame a Land)
  5. To Tame a Land --> The Trooper
 
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A top 10 Maiden track which perfectly encapsulates the world it's trying to create. I cannot fail to be swept away every time the riff first hits and those slight effects shimmer in. They're subtle but every time i'm there, on Arrakis. Bruce does a great job at making the lyrics sound mystical and portentous instead of ridiculous as this is clearly one of the trickier lyric sheets he's been handed over the years. A full 10/10 track
 
The only live video footage of this song. I wish they will play it again (played only on one tour... we need a better footage) - this classic epic deserves it. The song has such a unique atmosphere that is great for a live setting.

Btw, Steve had said in an interview (in 1983, I think) that ''To Tame A Land'' is the best song he has written so far.

 
So let’s first talk about what Steve achieved here: The unique melodies of this song instantly transport me to Dune in spite of never having read the books nor seen the films. It’s such an odd Maiden sound that I feel like I know exactly what I’m looking at before the lyrics even come in. Nomadic, barren, yet glorious in a way. Poor Bruce, the verses are good but man is that a clusterfuck of a lyric. Love that buildup to the high note in the bridge. But this is where the song sort of loses me. We get a “Hallowed” retread for a solo section, and then head back to the intro without touching anything else of note. It’s like Steve now had a working mold he could use for an epic and tried to force his luck with it a second time. The result is a little uninteresting in places but still has enough moments that I really dig to make me enjoy it when it comes on. All I’m saying is it’s very imperfect, but also has a unique sound that I like and some strong moments within it, so I can round up in spite of its weaknesses. 8/10
 
I wish I could see what people see in this song, but for me it's always been one of the bigger disappointments. It starts quite nicely, with an intersting melody building up a captivating atmosphere, but as soon as the verses hit, everything disolves.
I like Dune, I like Maiden, but the combination here simply doesn't work. The lyrics are annoying and simply come across as if Steve made notes while reading the book and decided to throw in as many of those notes in there as he could. The melody after the "ruler of the stars", along with Bruce's long note are one of the better moments on the song.

The section right after could maybe work with better lyrics, but they're simply far too weak in my eyes. The song tries to build up, but it simply falls flat for me. Doesn't help that Bruce is forced to sing the final lines in his highes register, which sounds too much like the whiney power metal singers do, so that results in a few fewer points again.

Then we have the solos, which start with a repeat of the opening motif, which in theory is nice, but gets repeated too much for something I don't find as interesting. The second solo is actually quite awesome. The twin guitar part right after with the constant key changes on the other hand is quite obnoxious and simply annoys me whenever I hear this song. It goes on and on, only to repeat the intro again, which is still quite nice, but simply not interesting enough to be repeated so often during the whole song.
I don't like this song and never go out of my way to listen to it, but it has a couple of redeeming qualities, so a 3 would be more fair than the 2 I previously though, I suppose. 3 it is.
 
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I had this playing in the car on the way to see Dune: Part Two. Unfortunately it was queued up next to both the Toto soundtrack for Dune (1984) and Hans Zimmer's recent scores for the new movies and frankly, Maiden didn't stand a chance.

TTAL is a decent warm-up for the epics that would come later but the song loses me around the halfway mark and I find it rather plodding overall. The chord progression is the most interesting thing about it with Steve experimenting with middle easterm sounds.

The live bootleg versions are much livelier.
 
Spaldy said:
I had this playing in the car on the way to see Dune: Part Two. Unfortunately it was queued up next to both the Toto soundtrack for Dune (1984) and Hans Zimmer's recent scores for the new movies and frankly, Maiden didn't stand a chance.

TTAL is a decent warm-up for the epics that would come later but the song loses me around the halfway mark and I find it rather plodding overall. The chord progression is the most interesting thing about it with Steve experimenting with middle easterm sounds.

The live bootleg versions are much livelier.
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I agree with you and @Vaenyr on this. I don’t really get the song either. It’s ok but nothing special. I’m glad they didn’t do it in 2005. That set list flowed really well and it would have been a momentum killer.
 
TheMercenary said:
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I just watched it. It's a good telling of the events that led to To Tame a Land (and he rightly points out that the song was written before Lynch's movie — but I wonder if Star Wars had some influence on Harris' knowledge of Dune; Lucas admitted quite immediately that his space opera was based on Herbert's books).

Only thing is, he welcomes the theory that the post-break riff is based on Asturias, which is frankly unsustainable.
 
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