Your Maiden blasphemy

harrisdevot said:
Opinions man, opinions.
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Yes, and I voiced my opinion on yours. :P

Although I really have to ask you if you are serious about Bruce not being able to write a good instrumental section on your own. I mean, you have heard Revelations and Powerslave, right?
 
harrisdevot said:
As much as I admire him, I disagree with his choice : 2 Minutes is an average song, while The Duellists and Losfer Words are fantastic. And Back in the Village is a really great song, with a very special feel (I consider this the very first proof that Smith is a great songwriter, only topped by Harris and Murray). The only song I really dislike is Flash of the Blade, because of that intrumental bit. Dickinson really can't write good instrumental parts on his own.
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@harrisdevot Adrian had some hand in the instrumental section of Flash of the Blade:

Forostar said:
This song has a very alerting beginning and a dazzling amount of guitars in the instrumental section.
Apart from that, the beat is really good and I also dig Steve's very melodic approach here.

About that mid piece, this is an interesting comment by Adrian:

...followed by 'Flash Of The Blade', a slightly above average track, blessed with a killer intro riff. "Yeah, that was a good little song," recalls Adrian, "one of Bruce's; good, tight little song. We never played it live but I enjoyed playing it in the studio. I actually added quite a few more guitar lines to it. A lot of the harmony stuff you hear, I actually overdubbed. Good little song. And everybody knows Bruce is a fencing nut."

When you did your famous harmony solos, how did you guys work it out? "We actually used to work separately. Dave would go in for a couple of days and do some solos, do some guitar lines and then I would go in and do my solos and put the harmony to what he'd done. And if it was Steve's song, Steve would be there, but both of us were in there, just making sure it's what he wanted. He's very meticulous about his stuff, you know. But on 'Flash Of The Blade' for example, there were certain parts I didn't feel were strong enough, so I overdubbed harmonies myself on top of what was already there. So occasionally we would do separate harmonies, but mostly we would do them together." (source)

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Perun said:
Yes, and I voiced my opinion on yours. :p
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Well, you were mainly laughing at my opinion, not really discussing it. Anyway...

Perun said:
Although I really have to ask you if you are serious about Bruce not being able to write a good instrumental section on your own. I mean, you have heard Revelations and Powerslave, right?
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Revelations is a song I don't like. And I sincerelly think the instrumental sections are rather weak by Maiden standarts ; rather simple and rythmic, with no great and long melodies. So this song won't change my point. As for Powerslave, I love that song, but I think most of its impact is due to the fantastic solos and awesome bassline. And I assume Bruce didn't write any of them, so...
And, to be honest, I don't think Bruce has ever really written ANY song on his own, from start to finish. By his own admission, he his not a good guitarist, so it must be him proposing a melody line, and the guitarists and the bassist elaborating on this. I would be happy to to be proved wrong though...

Forostar said:
@harrisdevot Adrian had some hand in the instrumental section of Flash of the Blade:
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Thanks for the statement : I had missed that one. This makes sense.
 
harrisdevot said:
And, to be honest, I don't think Bruce has ever really written ANY song on his own, from start to finish. By his own admission, he his not a good guitarist, so it must be him proposing a melody line, and the guitarists and the bassist elaborating on this. I would be happy to to be proved wrong though...
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That would make sense if Bruce didn't have so many co-writing credits even on Piece of Mind and Powerslave. Clearly, his ego is not big enough to claim he wrote a song all on his own if he didn't, so I don't see why these two songs would be exceptions.
 
True, but I think his point in Bruce never having written a song by himself is wrong. There is a grand total of six songs in the entire Maiden and Bruce solo discography that have a solo Dickinson credit, not counting non-album tracks that I didn't bother to look up. These are Revelations, Flash of the Blade, Powerslave, Bring Your Daughter... ...to the Slaughter, No Lies and Tears of the Dragon. Why, if Bruce always has shared credits otherwise, would he insist on having only his name on these pieces if he didn't write them all by himself?
 
It also raises the question of what is meant by writing a song all by oneself. From the dvd docus, it looks like Steve plays basslines and whistles the guitar and vocal melodies. I don't think he writes the guitar solos. So, Bruce can claim a sole credit, and moral ownership, of his songs even if the guitarists added bits, Nicko added fills, etc etc.
 
Perun said:
True, but I think his point in Bruce never having written a song by himself is wrong. There is a grand total of six songs in the entire Maiden and Bruce solo discography that have a solo Dickinson credit, not counting non-album tracks that I didn't bother to look up. These are Revelations, Flash of the Blade, Powerslave, Bring Your Daughter... ...to the Slaughter, No Lies and Tears of the Dragon. Why, if Bruce always has shared credits otherwise, would he insist on having only his name on these pieces if he didn't write them all by himself?
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There's indeed no proof that he couldn't have written these sections alone. Although I vaguely remember Janick saying that he co-wrote Bring Your Daughter (not sure if I can find that again). There's probably some border between getting a credit and not getting one. Not sure how that works (in Maiden).
 
How do we know it's an ego thing if Bruce gets the sole credit despite not actually writing the song by himself? Maybe Steve decided that so much of it was his that he should be given the only credit. Maybe he said something like, "I want a twin guitar melody to go here" and let the guys work it from there. In this case he didn't come up with the notes or rhythms but he's still the creative director, so it makes sense. You never know, I'm not saying that there's no way Bruce wrote the songs himself, but I think it's reasonable to wonder if he had some help.

For songs like Flight of Icarus where he gets shared credits, it's very clear (both in the music and interviews) that there is a collaboration happening.

I've always been really interested in how much of songs like Revelations and Powerslave were written by Bruce. My best guess is that he came up with the skeletons of the songs (arrangements, chord progression, lyrics obviously) and for more complicated passages (which wouldn't be that many really) just told the band what kind of riffs/melodies/etc he wanted. I think that's enough to warrant having only his name on the credit.

I remember reading a relevant quote by Yes' Rick Wakeman: "Never believe credits on any album. They're all political." Granted that's a little extreme and I'm sure writing credits aren't as inaccurate for Maiden as they were for Yes, but I think it could be true to some extent. There are a lot of bands (Van Halen and Dream Theater are the first I can think of) who will credit every member for every song regardless of who actually contributed. There's also Painkiller by Judas Priest which doesn't credit Scott Travis, despite the fact that he initiated the idea for that song. And lets not forget the Thunderstick/Ides of March conundrum. Writing credits are weird and there's always more to it than simply who wrote the song, I don't think they should ever be trusted as 100% accurate.
 
I love reading about how the ideas of songs came about and then how they were developed.
 
I believe we have had this discussion before, and we've come to the conclusion that "I dunno, I wasn't in the studio".

However, remember official song credits go into one's pocketbook in certain ways, including allowing the artist to perform without royalties outside of the band. Bruce did get screwed over when he did stuff on The Number of the Beast, and it's possible some single-credits songs were added to compensate him over the next 2 albums.
 
OH, yeah. Was that the deal where he couldn't get writing credits because of his Samson contract?
 
Not saying that is what it is, but it's what I'd do if I were Steve and wanted to make things honest. Especially considering that The Number of the Beast was bigger than anyone in the band surely expected.
 
Well, there are a couple things about Revelations...

It's a very sophisticated piece of composition for someone who has to concentrate fully just to play beginner-level chords correctly.

It's got chord progressions straight out of the Steve Harris playbook. In fact, if this songwriting credit included Harris, no one would bat an eye. This is by far the most Harris-like song that "Bruce" ever wrote. (Speaking only of music here, not lyrics.)

On the side of Bruce having written it: The chord progressions are simple, and the fact that Harris also favors them could be coincidence. Also, the riff that backs the guitar solo is more melodic than what Steve typically uses behind a solo, and sounds somewhat Bruce-y.

In short, the only reason I've ever thought this was a "Bruce song" was because the credits say so. IMO, all evidence says that this is a "Bruce song" the same way New Frontier is a "Nicko song". Steve helped write it, left his mark all over it, but let the originator of the idea take full credit.
 
In that case , I assume we can distinguish the official credits (on the album sleeve notes) and the royalties' share beetween the members in the band. I don't think Bruce was "screwed" (except that he didn't get the credits he deserved and saw Steve being awarded by a native nation for something he, Bruce, had written, which must have been a real pain in the arse).

Edit : sorry, I was writing about The Number of the Beast.
 
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