[Music] Iron Maiden's roots in literature, cinema, and history!

[DeltrusDisc]

So I thought this would be fun, to get peoples' opinion and help to try and chronicle all of Iron Maiden's songs that are based on some excellent piece of literature be it a poem, philosophical story, novel, or an epic, movies, plays, or TV shows, or even straight up history. I don't know all of them, but I know a lot, so I'm going to get all of the songs listed and put what I know they refer to next to them. Some will obviously be left blank, if you know what it's about, post a comment! This can also be an interesting educational thread for anyone who did not know this much about their songs.

We could also speak about Iron Maiden and such here too! Might even add other bands, however Iron Maiden is one I obsessed about as a teen and it always amazed me how many of their songs are rooted in such deep things.

Album Iron Maiden 1980
1.	"Prowler"
2.	"Remember Tomorrow"
3.	"Running Free"
4.	"Phantom of the Opera" - Should be pretty obvious, this is based on the play/musical.
5.	"Transylvania" (instrumental)
6.	"Strange World"
7.	"Charlotte the Harlot" - From what I recall, at least one member of the band, I think a couple, dated Charlotte when they were younger, something along those lines.
8.	"Iron Maiden"

Album Killers 1981
1.	"The Ides of March" (instrumental)
2.	"Wrathchild"
3.	"Murders in the Rue Morgue"
4.	"Another Life"
5.	"Genghis Khan" (instrumental) - Being an instrumental, there obviously isn't much to say other than the title. Genghis Khan. lol.
6.	"Innocent Exile"
7.	"Killers"
8.	"Prodigal Son"
9.	"Purgatory"
10.	"Drifter"

Album The Number of the Beast 1982 (OMG SATANISTS!!!)
1.	"Invaders" - This song is about the Vikings.
2.	"Children of the Damned" - This is based on the movie of the same name.
3.	"The Prisoner" - This is about a British TV series of the same name, the intro is from the series itself.
4.	"22 Acacia Avenue" - This song continues the story about Charlotte the Harlot and actually takes a positive turn in some of the lyrics wanting Charlotte to get rid of the life of being a prostitute.
5.	"The Number of the Beast" - This song was inspired, not by Satanic views, but by a nightmare Steve Harris the bassist had after he had watched Damien: Omen II late at night. Also influenced by Robert Burn's Tam o' Shanter.
6.	"Run to the Hills" - This song is, quite simply, about when the White Man came and took America from the Native Americans. The lyrics speak of the atrocities done during that time.
7.	"Gangland"
8.     "Total Eclipse"
9.	"Hallowed Be Thy Name" - This is about "Gallows Pole" and about a prisoner's final living moments. Very intriguing song and excellent lyrics/instrumentals.

Album Piece of Mind 1983
1.	"Where Eagles Dare"
2.	"Revelations"
3.	"Flight of Icarus" - Based on the story of Icarus and his father Daedalus in Greek Mythology.
4.	"Die with Your Boots On"
5.	"The Trooper" - This is based on a poem about the actual event in the Crimean war by the same name.
6.	"Still Life"
7.	"Quest for Fire" - This is about man's quest for fire in the days hardly recorded at all in the history books and the quest to constantly quench that need for "warmth and light."
8.	"Sun and Steel"
9.	"To Tame a Land" - Based on the 1965 novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert, a rock and metal hater, therefore they could not call the song Dune.

Album Powerslave 1984
1.	"Aces High" - This song is about WW2 and British and American pilots taking on the German Nazis.
2.	"2 Minutes to Midnight" - This song is based on the Doomsday clock and how in 1953 the clock reached the closest it has ever been to midnight, two minutes.
3.	"Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)" (Instrumental) - This song's title is a very play on words of how they had a loss for words about it. Get it? Haha.
4.	"Flash of the Blade"
5.	"The Duellists" - This is about Fencing, something Bruce Dickinson the lead-singer is a professional in.
6.	"Back in the Village"
7.	"Powerslave" - This song is about Egypt, if I understand it right, it might be about the Hebrew slaves slaving until they die, "Slave to the power of death."
8.	"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - This song is HEAVILY influenced by the epic poem of the same name, and is also Iron Maiden's longest song to date at 13:34 in length and some of its lyrics are direct quotes from the poem itself.

Album Somewhere in Time 1986
1.	"Caught Somewhere in Time"
2.	"Wasted Years"
3.	"Sea of Madness"
4.	"Heaven Can Wait" - Loosely based on the 1978 movie of the same name.
5.	"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" - Based on the novel and movie of the same name - novel(1959) movie (1962).
6.	"Stranger in a Strange Land" - Based on the 1961 science fiction book with the same title.
7.	"Deja Vu"
8.	"Alexander the Great" - Obviously about the actual man himself in Greek History.

Album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son 1988 (Concept album)
1.	"Moonchild"
2.	"Infinite Dreams"
3.	"Can I Play with Madness"
4.	"The Evil That Men Do"
5.	"Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"
6.	"The Prophecy"
7.	"The Clairvoyant"
8.	"Only the Good Die Young"

Album No Prayer for the Dying 1990
1.	"Tailgunner" - Follow-up to Aces High, same subject matter.
2.	"Holy Smoke"
3.	"No Prayer for the Dying"
4.	"Public Enema Number One"
5.	"Fates Warning"
6.	"The Assassin"
7.	"Run Silent Run Deep"
8.	"Hooks in You"
9.	"Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter"
10.	"Mother Russia"

Album Fear of the Dark 1992
1.	"Be Quick or Be Dead"
2.	"From Here to Eternity"
3.	"Afraid to Shoot Strangers"
4.	"Fear Is the Key"
5.	"Childhood's End"
6.	"Wasting Love"
7.	"The Fugitive"
8.	"Chains of Misery"
9.	"The Apparition"
10.	"Judas Be My Guide"
11.	"Weekend Warrior"
12.	"Fear of the Dark"

Album The X Factor 1995
1.	"Sign of the Cross"
2.	"Lord of the Flies" - Based on the 1954 book of the same name.
3.	"Man on the Edge" - Based on the 1993 movie, Falling Down.
4.	"Fortunes of War"
5.	"Look for the Truth"
6.	"The Aftermath"
7.	"Judgement of Heaven"
8.	"Blood on the World's Hands"
9.	"The Edge of Darkness" - Based on the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, set during the Vietnam War.
10.	"2 A.M."
11.	"The Unbeliever"

Album Virtual XI 1998
1.	"Futureal"
2.	"The Angel and the Gambler"
3.	"Lightning Strikes Twice"
4.	"The Clansman"
5.	"When Two Worlds Collide"
6.	"The Educated Fool"
7.	"Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger"
8.	"Como Estais Amigos"

Album Brave New World 2000
1.	"The Wicker Man" - Based on the 1973 film of the same name.
2.	"Ghost of the Navigator"
3.	"Brave New World" - Based on the 1932 book of the same name.
4.	"Blood Brothers"
5.	"The Mercenary"
6.	"Dream of Mirrors"
7.	"The Fallen Angel"
8.	"The Nomad"
9.	"Out of the Silent Planet"
10.	"The Thin Line Between Love & Hate"

Album Dance of Death 2003
1.	"Wildest Dreams"
2.	"Rainmaker"
3.	"No More Lies"
4.	"Montségur" - Based on the true story about the fortress of the same name and the fight between the Cathars and the Catholics in 1243-44.
5.	"Dance of Death"
6.	"Gates of Tomorrow"
7.	"New Frontier" - A song written by the drummer about his concerns as a Born-Again Christian on human cloning.
8.	"Paschendale" - Based on the Battle of Passchendaele which took place during First World War.
9.	"Face in the Sand" - This song is about leaving just an imprint in the sand for future generations to remember you, because empires fade with time. This track is also the first and ONLY to have the drummer use a double bass drum pedal (he likes his single, as do I!)
10.	"Age of Innocence"
11.	"Journeyman" - This is Iron Maiden's first and only fully acoustic song. According to Bruce Dickinson on the Death on the Road live album, it is about "the whole process of writing and being a musician."

Album A Matter of Life and Death 2006
1.	"Different World" - This song is a reflection on how different people from different cultures, times, and places on the earth view the world in vastly different ways.
2.	"These Colours Don't Run" - This song is about soldiers leaving for war, and how quite simply, every soldier on the battlefield is going through the same mental torment and viewed by their people in the same way, essentially.
3.	"Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" - This song is about the Manhattan Project and humans playing God.
4.	"The Pilgrim" - From what I recall from their documentary, this song is about Jesus Christ.
5.	"The Longest Day" - This song is about D-Day and the Normandy Landings in WW2.
6.	"Out of the Shadows" - This song is about that most beautiful thing known as birth and the day of its occurrence and how the newly-born is "king for a day."
7.	"The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg"
8.	"For the Greater Good of God"
9.	"Lord of Light" - This song is about the fall of Lucifer, the Angel of Light, as some would call him.
10.	"The Legacy"

Album The Final Frontier 2010
1.	"Satellite 15... The Final Frontier"
2.	"El Dorado"
3.	"Mother of Mercy"
4.	"Coming Home"
5.	"The Alchemist"
6.	"Isle of Avalon"
7.	"Starblind"
8.	"The Talisman"
9.	"The Man Who Would Be King"
10.	"When the Wild Wind Blows" - This song is Iron Maiden's feel on the whole 2012 phenomenon and ultimately how they feel people are freaking out too much and should just live their lives. They ultimately talk about people mistaking an earthquake for the fall out, saying how when that time comes later this year, people will assume something happening is the end of the world, however it might just not be.

This took a lot of time to set up, going to take a break now at the moment, however I will work on the later albums for what I know later on. Bring on the discussions and let's keep it civil! UP THE IRONS!!

Edit 2: Added a ton of new references and updates!!!

[Deleted]

I'm a big iron maiden fan, and i've always loved the fact that thier music has alot of roots in things like literature, don't get me wrong i don't get all of the references, but the one's i do get make me think and i love thier music :P

[Rend Blackhand]

"The Trooper" is based on a poem the Charge of the Light Brigade which, in turn, is a poem about the actual event.

[Duilliath]

There's quite a few lyrics inspired by books, you could take that direction as you have started with already. Stranger in a Strange Land is inspired by the book with the same title. As is Brave New World. As is Lord of the Flies. Flight of Icarus is based on Greek Mythology.

Or you could talk about their musical influences. Steve Harris has on multiple occasions claimed that he's a major fan of Golden Earring(s) and its bass-player Rinus Gerritsen.

Oh, it's Public Enemy - not Enema.

[Deleted]

To Tame A Land is about Frank Herbert's Dune however Herbert hated rock music and 'especially rock bands like Iron Maiden' to quote one band member who stated this somewhere so he didnt let them name the song Dune. Hence its current name.

[arinth]

Flight of Icarus is based off the Greek Legend of Icarus. Icarus and his father Daedalus were imprisoned my King Minos is the labyrinth-prison which held the minotaur. Daedalus built two pairs of wax wings for them to escape with, but Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. He then fell into the sea and drowned.

[Niku]

Oh, I think I'll pick an easy one. Alexander the great is about... Alexander the great! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_great

This is nostalgic, haha, when I was a teenager all I used to listen to was Iron Maiden. Boy, has my taste driften in an odd direction.

[Deleted]

Cool thread idea. But, man! It's hard to think about where to begin chronicling Maiden's lyrical influence. They take inspiration from all kind's of literature and history. Unless it's a song like Iron Maiden, which is obviously about the band, or Prowler/Killers which are about generally being a badass, then the lyrics of a song are probably based on some novel or historical event. Christian folklore also plays a massive part in the imagery of their songs from Hallowed Be Thy Name (a condemned man's reflection on life and the afterlife) to Montsegur, which is based on the story of the Fort of the same name in France, and the sectarian fight between the Cathars and Catholics.

Found a cool quote from Bruce talking about histories influence on their lyrics while checking the spelling for Montsegur (xD): "There is so much great stuff and so many great stories throughout history that you can make parallels with the modern day - particularly when history repeats itself as often as it does - that it makes for some very colourful subject matter."

Some interesting, lesser known ones:
To Tame A Land on Piece of Mind is based on the Dune novels (specifically mentions Arrakis at one point and uses other bits of vocab from the universe). (Doh! Beaten to the punch.)
Heart Of Darkness seems to actually be more inspired by Apocalypse Now than the novel by the same name (which AN was based on I believe), as it often quotes line from the movie, word for word.
(Might add more as you have started the cogs in my head turning, OP. And I shall now have to listen to Maiden's back catalogue all week!)

[Deleted]

Lonliness of the long distance runner, from a film of the same name.

Wicker man maybe too
Tailgunner follow up to aces high
Heaven can wait, film again I think.
2 minutes to midnight is about the doomsday clock and reflects the nuclear arms race of the time (the amount of nuclear warheads we had reached a peak, please correct me if im wrong!)

isnt die with your boots on a film too?

[Jistu]

Man on the Edge is based on a movie called Falling Down, which is about a guy who has had a REALLY bad day and finally snaps.

Also, Invaders is about Vikings.

[DeltrusDisc]

Heart Of Darkness seems to actually be more inspired by Apocalypse Now than the novel by the same name (which AN was based on I believe), as it often quotes line from the movie, word for word.

What is this Heart of Darkness you speak of? :P I've never heard of it, is it a B-Sides or something, like Women in Uniform? hehe (greaaaat song!).

About to update the initial post with several of your own and more of my contributions. Thanks for all the help so far folks! It's much appreciated!

[Deleted]

What is this Heart of Darkness you speak of? :P I've never heard of it, is it a B-Sides or something, like Women in Uniform? hehe (greaaaat song!).

About to update the initial post with several of your own and more of my contributions. Thanks for all the help so far folks! It's much appreciated!

Bah! I meant Edge Of Darkness! I didn't realise it was 'Edge..', as in the song it says, "I've looked into the heart of darkness, where the blood red journey ends...", but, my bad. Still that song is totally influenced by Apocalypse Now!

And yes, by the gods, Women In Uniform is awesome!

Another contribution, I am fairly sure that New Frontier is based on Frankenstein, if not it takes a lot of inspiration from the idea of creating artificial intelligence/sentient beings. It is also the only song to have been written predominantly by Nicko McBrain (this was at least true at the time of the release of the Dance Of Death album, he may have written more since then but considering how long it took him to contribute that one song, I highly doubt it. ).

Edit: Run Silent, Run Deep (one of my favourite tracks from NPFTD) is apparently based on a submarine-dueling war movie by the same name, although the line, "Warriors is secret sleep...", to me feels like invoking the image of King Arthur and his slumbering knights, waiting to awaken and fight for their kingdom once more, from the Camelot folklore.

Mother Russia, from the same album, gets a fair bit of debate over which era of history it is depicting, dispute is particularly prevalent over the line, "Can you be happy now your people are free?". But, I believe, as the song was written in 1986(?) four years before the desbanding of the USSR, it talks about Russia's movement from Tsarist rule to the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet era.
I think the line I quoted is pondering over the success of the revolution in hindsight. Reflecting that, although Lenin and the Old Bolsheviks freed the Russian people from the serfdom of the Tsar's absolute rule, they also paved the way for Stalinism, a much more efficient and technologically advanced, brutal authoritarian government. I think it was Trotsky who described Stalin as, "Genghis Khan with a telephone"!

[DeltrusDisc]

I'll add what you added in your edit later on at some point, for now I added all of the above mentioned ones and some more of my own, A Matter of Life and Death being a pretty heavily hit one because I LOVE that album. Such amazing topics, I mean shit, Iron Maiden made a power-ballad about BIRTH?! That is f*cking BEAUTIFUL.

[Deleted]

Cool. I still haven't listened to the latest album properly, in full. I was a little put off by the last album. It was a little too 'prog' sounding for my taste, especially compared to Bruce's solo, Tyranny Of Souls (metal riff-tastic), which came out at a little before. But you do make it sound cool.
And yeah, it is staggering how many different forms of literature, film & theatre and culture that Maiden take influence from. It definitely had a profound effect on my own interests in sci-fi, fantasy and philosophy.

[Deleted]

I was just reading about maiden on wikepedia, and it says Children of the damned is based on a movie called 'Village of the Damned'.
Awesome thread, thank you, love Maiden since forever. 1988.

[DeltrusDisc]

I was just reading about maiden on wikepedia, and it says Children of the damned is based on a movie called 'Village of the Damned'.
Awesome thread, thank you, love Maiden since forever. 1988.

Technically it's more based on the sequel, "Children of the Damned." :P But yeah the first movie is "Village of the Damned." The stories are extremely similar.

[draynay]

The Iron Maiden itself is obviously the torture device in Nuremberg until it was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944. Although there are other accounts of devices, that was the only known one to exist.

"Beware the Ides of March" - Julius Caesar, the day he was assassinated, the warning given to him in Shakespeare's account
"The Evil that Men do" - also from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones"

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" - Edgar Allan Poe

Where Eagles Dare and Die With Your Boots On are common idioms

"Seventh Son of A Seventh Son" - mythical magic or curative abilities

there are a lot of war films in Iron Maiden titles, some of them using common idioms

"El Dorado" - mythical lost city of gold

"Powerslave" was more about the Pharaohs and their need to transcend death with elaborate tombs, that they are God on earth yet mortal as any other man, how can they continue to express their deification beyond death? Slave to the power of death meaning that though he is a God amongst men and they are his slaves, death is something no man can escape. "I don't want to die, I'm a God, why can't I live on?"

"Flash of the Blade" is a romanticized way of the sword, way of the warrior kind of story, tale of revenge, etc.

"Moonchild" is a novel by Aleister Crowly, the famed occultist you might know from Ozzy's Blizzard of Ozz track "Mr. Crowley"

theres more, will see if I have time to look it over again later

edit - the Two Minutes to Midnight on the Doomsday clock was pretty early on in the Cold War, both the USSR and USA had the bomb and were testing it simultaneously and uncertainty was high

[DeltrusDisc]

I know I have procrastinated terribly and I feel horrible about it, but I will update this soon! (TM)

[Leonard McCoy]

Stranger in a Strange Land is at least in title a reference to the Heinlein novel (which is an excellent book, Heinlens bigotry aside). It's not really a reference to it in the song. Brave New World is along these lines but has a bit closer to the song. As an aside I was listening to Charlotte the Harlotte earlier today and the change up in the tempo that occurs at 1:30 in the song is so god damn good. It is soulful to its core.

[DeltrusDisc]

This thread will finally be getting some more love here as my summer course is about to end this coming Thursday (July 19) and I've PM'd Baiyn about helping out, since he is a moderator now (wasn't when I started this) and he could help edit things in. So folks if you know the meaning behind a song that hasn't been filled in, let us know! We'll be hitting this hard in the coming weeks I hope and maybe get it finished soon enough! Would be awesome to have a place where people can come and see a full list of the story behind every single one of Iron Maiden's songs!