Music Banter - View Single Post - Trollheart's Comprehensive Guide to Iron Maiden

Trollheart · 11-12-2017, 05:33 PM

Track title: “Can I Play With Madness?”
Album: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Year: 1988
Written by: Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith
Subject: Insanity and magic
Type: Fast rocker
Length: 3:30
Familiar? Yeah I know this one well
Rating: 7/10

Note: although most of you will know many of these songs, I'm going to write as if the reader does not. So if I go into too much detail about “Run to the Hills” or “Phantom of the Opera”, just suck it.

Soooooo.......

If you're any kind of a fan of Maiden you know this song. It was the lead single from the concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and reached number three in the UK charts, making this one of the most commercially successful of Maiden's albums, with no less than four singles hitting the top ten. There's a real hammering feel about this, a juggernaut of a track with warnings about messing about with forces you can't understand. It's perhaps not unique (I'd have to check) but certainly unusual in being a song from Maiden that opens on an acapella vocal before the music pounds in, and indeed ends the same way. It's not, to be fair, my favourite off this album – I prefer “Moonchild”, “The Evil That Men Do” and “Only the Good Die Young” - but it certainly is a fan favourite, and probably inadvertently helped to give ol' Tipper Gore and her buddies lots more ammunition in their glorious fight against the corrupting influence of heavy metal, with its allusions to madness, never mind the fact that the song specifically warns against dabbling in the black arts.

Something that this song has, that all Maiden songs up to about the Fear of the Dark era have, and don't really seem to have any more, is a real hook in the melody. It's a song you can sing easily, whereas (allowing my caveat in the OP, when I admitted I am not that familiar with the albums post-BNW) it seems the later ones don't. It could be because they became exponentially longer and more involved, more progressive metal really, became too intricate and involved, but something like “Can I Play With Madness” really puts the “play” into the title. A real fun song.

11-12-2017, 05:33 PM	#7 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	Track title: “Can I Play With Madness?” Album: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Year: 1988 Written by: Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith Subject: Insanity and magic Type: Fast rocker Length: 3:30 Familiar? Yeah I know this one well Rating: 7/10 Note: although most of you will know many of these songs, I'm going to write as if the reader does not. So if I go into too much detail about “Run to the Hills” or “Phantom of the Opera”, just suck it. Soooooo....... If you're any kind of a fan of Maiden you know this song. It was the lead single from the concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and reached number three in the UK charts, making this one of the most commercially successful of Maiden's albums, with no less than four singles hitting the top ten. There's a real hammering feel about this, a juggernaut of a track with warnings about messing about with forces you can't understand. It's perhaps not unique (I'd have to check) but certainly unusual in being a song from Maiden that opens on an acapella vocal before the music pounds in, and indeed ends the same way. It's not, to be fair, my favourite off this album – I prefer “Moonchild”, “The Evil That Men Do” and “Only the Good Die Young” - but it certainly is a fan favourite, and probably inadvertently helped to give ol' Tipper Gore and her buddies lots more ammunition in their glorious fight against the corrupting influence of heavy metal, with its allusions to madness, never mind the fact that the song specifically warns against dabbling in the black arts. Something that this song has, that all Maiden songs up to about the Fear of the Dark era have, and don't really seem to have any more, is a real hook in the melody. It's a song you can sing easily, whereas (allowing my caveat in the OP, when I admitted I am not that familiar with the albums post-BNW) it seems the later ones don't. It could be because they became exponentially longer and more involved, more progressive metal really, became too intricate and involved, but something like “Can I Play With Madness” really puts the “play” into the title. A real fun song. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018