Journeyman

When Bruce introduces the song to the crowd in the concert in Gernamy he says that it is about of the process of being a musician and writing songs. I confess that it puzzled me a bit because when I first listenned to it  imediatelly associate it with the metaphor of a life’s journey. But then a  straightforward look at the word really explains it all.

Basic Wikipedia search

The word ‘journeyman’ comes from the French word journée, meaning the period of one day; this refers to their right to charge a fee for each day’s work. They would normally be employed by a master craftsman, but would live apart and might have a family of their own. A journeyman could not employ others. In contrast, an apprentice would be bound to a master, usually for a fixed term of seven years, and lived with the master as a member of the household, receiving most or all of their compensation in terms of room and board.

It is not a coincidence that the song is in Dance of Death, an album with strong medieval allegory and imagery.

Read the lyrics

 

 

dream of mirrors

We have just a very interesting discussion about intertextuality in the LMCS group and I come to realise that we can apply the concept in a much larger scale than intended by Kristeva. Texts connect to texts in some quite unexpected fashion and the reader can also established new connections sometimes unintended by their original writers.

I have no idea if Janick or Steve have thought of this, but the lirics of Dream of Mirrors make me think of The Lady of Shalott. She is also one who lives her life in black & white to save herself from imagination and life that awaits outside and which will lead to her demise. She is also the one who lives a parallel life which is a plain reflection of something already lost.

Read the lyrics of Dream of Mirrors

Read Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott

We shall fight them in the air

We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France,
We shall fight on the seas and oceans,
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
We shall fight in the hills,
We shall never surrender.

Let’s borrow Churchill’s speech to say that we shall fight for Maiden and intelligent music! And if you watch Flight 666 you will understand what it means to be a Maiden fan on this planet and what Maiden means for thousands and thousands of people in so many countries.

We went the cinema yesterday for this single showing of the film here in Plymouth. It was amazing to see people coming in dressing on Maiden shirts and we all feeling that we were among twin souls   Some girls sitting around the Vue before seeing that asked us, ‘Is there something special going on that we have missed?’ You bet lady!!

The film is everything good that you have read in the reviews but no amount of reading about it can give you an idea of that it is. Get the DVD or Blue-ray when it comes out on 25th May!

 

different world

No specific literary connection in this song but it makes me think that with each book we read, being it a novel or poetry, we are actually entering a different world. Sometimes escaping into it. We don’t know what is waiting for us; whether you would like to be there or not;  and perhaps we will discored that that is not a place for us, but we go there anyway. And each reader will see it in a different way. Maiden’s approach to reader reception theory

And it has one of the most beautiful little guitar solos ever, by courtesy of Mr. Smith.

Read the lyrics of Different World

Yes! They/we got it!!!

Finally, Maiden has been recognised in this country. We fan have made our voices heard along with Bruce’s and the whole band. They got the Brit Awards for best live act because, as Metal Hammer said, they are the best Brit live act and because they are Iron Fucking Maiden!!!

Check the news here

And watch the acceptance speech

Up the Irons!!!

for you & for me

 

Dance of Death

The title of the album refers to the late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one’s station in life, the dance of death unites all. This philosophy is more commonly known as Danse Macabre . La Danse Macabre consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave—typically with an emperor, king, youngster, beautiful girl, all skeletal. They were produced to remind people of how fragile were their lives and how vain the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest artistic examples are in a cemetery in Paris from 1424.

The “Dance of Death” was originally a species of spectacular play akin to the English moralities. It has been traced back to the middle of the fourteenth century. The epidemics so frequent and so destructive at that time, such as the Black Death, brought before popular imagination the subject of death and its universal sway. The dramatic movement then developing led to its treatment in the dramatic form. In these plays Death appeared not as the destroyer, but as the messenger of God summoning men to the world beyond the grave, a conception familiar both to the Holy Bible and to the ancient poets. The dancing movement of the characters was a somewhat later development, as at first Death and his victims moved at a slow and dignified gait. But Death, acting the part of a messenger, naturally took the attitude and movement of the day, namely the fiddlers and other musicians, and the dance of death was the result.

Hans Holbein published his The Dance of Death in 1538.

Indeed, there is much more in Maiden than what meets the (literary unaware) eye!

Read Holbein’s text

Read the lyrics

Wailing shells

I was reading a comment made by one of our e-Reading group members in which he calls the attention to the word *wailing* at the end of the short story we are debating. The first thing that came to my mind was the introduction to Paschendale that you can see in the Death on the Road DVD.

It is Wilfred Owen’s poem and I just realised how, poem, short story and the lyrics are connected. Superb piece of music in all aspects and I agree with Steve when he said in an interview that perhaps this is going, in time, to become one of Maiden’s epic songs.

Here is the poem

Anthem for the Doomed Young

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?

- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

- Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons

No mockeries now for them; nor prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning, save the choirs,

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers, the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Read the lyrics of Paschendale

Wildest Dreams

Quite a long time since my last post here but it was only because in this period both my son and I have moved to the UK for our respective courses at Marjon in Plymouth. There was a lot to do and a process of settling in to go through- courses starting, writing assignments and reading. It takes a bit of time to incorporated these changes and rework them into your own routine.

Studying at a UK university has always been a dream –  with the double advantage that we can work on ways to go to all Maiden gigs at home!! Moreover, it’s new life in a number of ways. I was trying to find a Maiden’s song that fitted in what is going on now and I think the best one is definitely ‘Wildest Dreams’

Read the lyrics of Wildest Dreams

Saints & Sinners

Another obvious lit connection – William Golding’s allegorial novel Lord of the Flies is the inspiration for one of the few songs that have survived from the Blaze Bayley’s era and now – on Bruce’s voice of course (!) – it is frequent in their live performances. Great lyrics that summarise the main themes of the book – the perennial struggle between instinct and civilisation, desire and moral, the power of one’s will over the collective good, the loss/lack of innocence and (again) Biblical undertones.

Read the lyrics of Lord of the Flies

Buy the educational edition