1620: The Pilgrim (A Matter Of Life And Death, 2006) / The Talisman (The Final Frontier, 2010)
Both songs tell of people compelled to leave their homes to start again in a new land. The Pilgrim is set aboard the Mayflower on its journey to the American colony; The Talisman is less explicit about its destination. The fate of the surviving protagonist, however, mirrors the doom of many pilgrims who died during their first winter in the ‘New World’.
c.1645: Sun And Steel (Piece Of Mind, 1983)
Bruce based this loveable close-harmony singalong around 17th-century martial art text The Book Of Five Rings, written by Japanese samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Earth, Water, Fire and Wind are four of the Five Rings, alongside the more philosophical Void. The lyrics also allude to Musashi killing his first man at the age of 13 and refining his fighting skills by the time he was 16.
1854: The Trooper (Piece Of Mind, 1983)
Steve’s visceral lyrics take us into the Charge Of The Light Brigade, a notoriously bungled British cavalry assault at the Battle Of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Due to misunderstood orders, the dutiful horsemen rode into a position surrounded by Russian artillery, waving sabres into the crossfire. 40 percent of the brigade were killed or injured, including this song’s unnamed trooper.
1864: Run To The Hills (The Number Of The Beast, 1982)
Several events inspired this classic about Native American tribes slaughtered by white colonists, but 1864’s Sand Creek Massacre is one of the most egregious. Peaceful relations between Arapaho, Cheyenne and US settlers had been guaranteed by treaty, but that didn’t stop America’s Colonel Chivington leading an attack on the indigenous’s camp, slaughtering around 150 – largely women and children.
1917: Death Or Glory (The Book Of Souls, 2015)
Of course pilot Bruce couldn’t resist writing about German World War I flying ace Manfred Von Richthofen, AKA the Red Baron of dogfighting legend. Richtofen’s observation that his Fokker DR1 triplane “climbed like a monkey” inspired Death Or Glory’s lyrics. Bruce even owns a replica of the craft, which he flew with the Great War Display Team in a mock-dogfight over the 2014 Sonisphere festival.
1917: Paschendale (Dance Of Death, 2003)
The Battle Of Passchendaele (Steve simplified the spelling of the Belgian village where the campaign was waged) was deeply controversial, even at the time. Its very name quickly became emblematic of the senseless brutality and squalor of the First World War: an estimated total of 500,000–600,000 troops were killed in the appallingly muddy conditions described in Steve’s lyrics.
1918: The Aftermath (The X Factor, 1995)
References to mustard gas and barbed wire clearly place us in the closing moments of a First World War battle, and the mention of “mud and rain” may suggest Passchendaele. By the end of the song, we’re in the fallout of the conflict itself, when the impact of trench warfare on servicemen’s bodies and minds becomes ever more horribly apparent.
1930: Empire Of The Clouds (The Book Of Souls, 2015)
In October 1930, the hydrogen-powered British airship R101 – “the biggest vessel built by man,” Bruce sings – was between Bedfordshire and Karachi on its maiden overseas voyage. It didn’t end well. Empire Of The Clouds’ lyrics trace its sad story with obsessive accuracy, but more happily, Bruce is backing a firm to relaunch helium-powered airships as a green alternative to jet-fuelled travel.
1940: Darkest Hour (Senjutsu, 2021)
Under pressure to negotiate peace terms with Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Winston Churchill defied elite consensus by refusing to appease Hitler’s tyranny. Bruce’s patriotic lyrics unambiguously hail the formidable war leader’s resolve – and the “sons of Albion” who heeded his call to “defend this sacred land” – while also acknowledging the deep depression that Churchill called his “black dog”.
1940: Aces High (Powerslave, 1984)
During Powerslave’s celebrated opener, Steve puts us in the cockpit of the aeroplanes ducking and weaving as they fight in the Battle Of Britain. For three months, Britain’s freedom was defended by just 2,937 aircrew, with an average age of 20. As Churchill stated, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
1941: Run Silent Run Deep (No Prayer For The Dying, 1990)
“This is about the dog-eat-dog, no-mercy world of life and death at sea during the Second World War,” Bruce said of this underestimated submarine yarn. The eponymous book and film were set around the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; the lyrics mention no specific engagement, but brilliantly evoke the tension and terror of underwater warfare.
1944: The Longest Day (A Matter Of Life And Death, 2006)
The D-Day landings saw the Allies succeed in pushing back the Nazi war machine and begin the liberation of France. 1998’s Saving Private Ryan did much to bring Operation Neptune to a new generation, but the lyrics of The Longest Day, from A Matter Of Life And Death, are almost as vivid a depiction of the valour and terror of June 6, 1944.
1945: Tailgunner (No Prayer For The Dying, 1990)
The rear gunner on a bomber plane had the ‘best’ view of whatever carnage was unleashed, and this track’s lyrics take in “the glow of Dresden” (the RAF’s most controversial bombing campaign) and the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped atomic bombs on Japan). “Nail that Fokker” is a misnomer, though: Germany flew very few captured Fokkers in World War II, but it’s a fun pun all the same.
1945: Brighter Than A Thousand Suns (A Matter Of Life And Death, 2006)
All of Iron Maiden grew up in the Atomic Age, with the fear of nuclear warfare engendered across the world by the bombs dropped from the Enola Gay. The title is a quote from Robert Oppenheimer, chief scientist overseeing the development of the atomic bomb; he is explicitly named in the song, contrasting his Christian faith with the project’s monstrous consequences.
