And so, we've reached the top ten at last. Here are my ten favourite Maiden songs, in order...
Oh
fuck! I've just realised I miscounted earlier. Or, to be clearer, I put up two number 28s, which then screwed up the running order for everything else. Dammit! That means I have to go back now and amend parts 1, 2, and 3 .... all right, done now. So this then becomes
10 “Drifter” (from Killers)
I love everything about this song. The way it opens with that hard repeated guitar riff, the way Di'Anno comes in with the vocal almost like an air-raid siren himself -- “Rock and roh-oh-ohhhhhhl!” the way it bounces along with such energy, the solos, the big scream and guitar punch at the end. Superb.
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9 “Run to the hills” (from The Number of the Beast)
Ah, what more do I have to say? The very first Iron Maiden song I ever heard. Prior to seeing this on “Top of the Pops” I had glanced warily at the covers of the first two albums, assumed they were nasty punk rock or something that my delicate sensibilities could not handle and would not like, and gone no further. Once I heard this, I rushed out to buy the album, loved it to bits and immediately set about buying those two albums which had scared me so much, as well as, since then, everything else they have ever released. This was the one, ladies and gentlemen. This was the song that woke my dormant metal gene and allowed me to start appreciating (in a small way, for a long time admittedly) heavy metal music.
The subject matter is handled really well, with both viewpoints expressed through the verses of the song, Bruce's soon-to-be-trademark scream is heard for the first time, and I got my first ever experience of that amazing double act on the guitar. Ah, life would never be the same again!
8 “Fear of the dark” (from Fear of the Dark)
The only other decent, in my opinion, track on the album that saw the departure of Bruce, and it's a powerful closer. The soft, almost balladic opening and indeed closing, the slow buildup, the creeping sense of menace, everything in this song reflects perfectly the cover of the album, as Eddie waits in a tree in a distorted dark park, ready to pounce on the unwary. As, at the time, a swan song for Dickinson, he couldn't have done much better, and it's certainly appropriate when you realise his last words on vinyl or CD to his fans are “I am the man who walks alone”.
7 “The number of the Beast” (from The Number of the Beast)
From the intoned Vincent Price monologue to the first sharp guitar chords, that moment when Bruce screams “Yeahhhhhhhh!” and the main verse gets going, to the sweet solos right through to the end section where the subject falls under the spell of the “chanting crowds” and becomes one of them, this is the song to put the willies up every Concerned Parent and shivers of delight down the spines of every metal fan when they hear it. Another “up yours” to the self-appointed moral guardians of the innocent, the song is in fact as we all know not a homage to Satan or a prayer, but based on a nightmare Steve Harris had after watching the movie
The Omen. A headbanging, heartshaking, blood-pumping joy of a song that has gone on to become almost as much an anthem and signature for the band as the song “Iron Maiden” itself.
6 “Powerslave” (from Powerslave)
One of Maiden's best songs (obviously in my view, given how high it is in my list) with a fantastic sense of the awe of Egypt that hadn't really been reached since the days of Rainbow with “Gates of Babylon” and later Dio's own “Egypt (The chains are on)”, with a big cinematic intro, screams and pipes and dark breathing followed by a laugh without humour, the kind of mirth that the likes of Chthulu might have shown. Galloping, punching guitars, a great motif that's SO Egyptian, and the underlying message that man or god, we all die in the end, and we are all, as it says at the end, slaves to the power of death. As someone once put it, “sceptre and crown must tumble down, and in the dust be equal made with the poor crooked scythe and spade.” Death the leveller indeed.
5 “Aces high” (from Powerslave)
What an incredible way to open an album, and hint at the delights to come, and a mainstay of the live show from then on, almost always the one to open the gig with the immortal words of Churchill ringing in the air. A real tribute to the Few, those brave men who fought for three months over the skies of England and won the Battle of Britain, thus forcing Hitler to call off the planned invasion of Britain. He wouldn't have stopped there, you know! Ireland's only a hop, goosestep and jump away. Love the way the lyric brings to life the idea of a dogfight, the “rolling, tumbling, diving” and then “coming in again!” Great solo as always, and a song to get the blood flowing and prepare you for what else was to come, if anything could. Classic song, a Maiden favourite forever.
4 “Killers” (from Killers)
I've said before and I repeat: there is nobody can sing this like Paul Di'Anno. The aggression, the menace, the sheer psychotic energy he puts into the song is almost impossible to duplicate, and Steve Harris's trundling, gasping bass line just ups the horror and paranoia quotient of the song. The twist (sort of) at the end, when we realise the singer IS the killer, while not exactly a revelation, works very well, and Di'Annos' shrieks and growls, mirrored by Murray and Smith's screeching guitars are so effective you almost take a step back from the audio source. The best Di'Anno era song? Almost, but not quite...
3 “Phantom of the opera” (from Iron Maiden)
An early indication that this band was something special, the seven-minute plus song goes through enough changes over its length to qualify as progressive metal, and the lyric is tight and scary. Di'Anno puts in a powerhouse performance on the song, and of course it gained extra notoriety when it was used as the theme for the energy drink Lucozade in the eighties. I especially love the bit at the end, when Di'Anno hisses the last line in a repeated echo that still to this day sends shivers down my spine. Definitely, for me, the pinnacle of the Di'Anno era Maiden material.
Of course, it also came out on top in my “Before the Beast” list last year, so if you really want to you can read more about what I think about it there. But suffice to say here, that if I had to (as I have done) pick out my favourite early Maiden track, that is, before 1982, this would be it all day long.
2 “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (from Powerslave)
No surprise to find this epic here. I've made no secret of my love for this song, not least because either I got into Coleridge's poem through it or was already into it at that point, I really can't remember which.The whole scope of the song is immense; you would normally expect maybe a progressive rock band to undertake something like this (as did Hostsonaten) but for a metal band to write something so almost anathema to metal --- how do you convince your millions of fans that a song running almost fourteen minutes and based on a nineteenth century epic poem is worth giving your time to? --- almost beggars belief.
And yet, not only did it work, but it has become one of Maiden's most loved and requested songs on tour. The changes it goes through, especially the midsection, with the creaking, the groaning and that indefatigable bass thrumming slowly like the very approach of death himself, is stunning in every way. Never for once in its length does it flag or seem like things are being added just to fill it out, and it even manages to tell, mostly, the whole story of the poem. An absolute triumph, and definitely a shining jewel in Iron Maiden's crown.
And number one is, I'm sure no surprise to anyone and most of you will probably agree...
1 “Hallowed by thy name” (from The Number of the Beast)
For a band whose album ws decried and denounced as being Satan-worship (which it was not, no more than Black Sabbath or Venom were) there is a delicious irony that the closing track from that much-maligned album should be the words of The Lord's Prayer. Probably really pissed off Tipper Gore and her ilk. The song itself seems to question whether there is a god, but does seem to hold that there is something in the afterlife, when the condemned prisoner sings “Don't worry now that I have gone; I've gone beyond to seek the truth” but he certainly doubts the existence of a Christian God, or is perhaps just angry with him for not intervening as he is led to the gallows when he asks “If there's a god, why has he let me die?”
From the opening peal of bells, the thump of drums, to the scorching guitar solos and Bruce's roared “Yeah yeah yeah! Hallowed be thy name!” the song doesn't ever put a foot wrong, and the final machinegun guitar chords finish it perfectly. Although never released as a single, it is surely one of the very finest and most requested Maiden songs ever, and I can't think of a gig since 1982 that didn't end with this, either as the last song or within the encore. Another long song, its length is fully justified and so is its place at the very top of my own personal tree of Iron Maiden songs.