Track title: “Journeyman”
Album: Dance of Death
Year: 2003
Written by: Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith
Subject: Not entirely sure here to be honest
Type: Acoustic ballad
Length: 7:03
Familiar? A little but not much
Rating: 6/10
Now this is an interesting one to kick off with. Maiden's one and only (so far) acoustic song. They don't do many ballads, but this is the only one performed entirely on acoustic instruments, and it closes their thirteenth album, Dance of Death, which is, incidentally, where I stopped listening religiously to the band. I've heard this album a few times only, and nothing on it has ever particularly impressed me, but as this thread goes on and I get to hear and dissect more tracks from it, perhaps that will change.
As usual, Steve Harris's thick pulsating bass is heard prominently, even from the beginning of the song, and it has a nice kind of swaying, almost waltzy feel to it (sounds like there might be violin in there, but surely that would be keyboard? Don't think Maiden ever used violins) and Bruce is in fine voice on the song, not having to push himself as on classics like “Aces High”, “Run to the Hills” or even “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Even acoustic, it's still unmistakably an Iron Maiden song: there's just something about their music that instantly identifies a song as being theirs. I suppose that can be viewed as a bad thing, too. Still, this one certainly steps away from their usual bombast and it's nice to hear them stretching and doing something new. It's also interesting that they kept it for the last track on the album, a surprise when you first play it.
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