Legendary Rock Songs: FEAR OF THE DARK: IRON MAIDEN.
Hello my people I hope you are all super well, today I present to you this great band, which is one of the ones that I like most in what is all that marketing and art system that combine, their covers are all a work artist, their mascot eddy etc etc.. Without further ado enjoy this report.
Theme:FEAR OF THE DARK.
Disc:Fear Of The Dark.
Year:1992.
Choosing just one of Maiden's songs to be considered a heavy anthem is practically impossible. “Fear of the Dark” enjoys here that recognizable at the first time and one of those that the public likes to sing along to. Just listen to the live version that was released as a single shortly after to present “A Real Live One”. Suggestive beginning of guitar and bass, inquiné and atmospheric, with a melody so prone to be intoned live by thousands of voices in unison and Dickinson singing in a frightened whisper until the marked change of pace where a fast and hard riff reigned and the frotman's throat was already vibrating at full lung.
The theme goes through different ups and downs in its more than seven minutes of duration adopting an epic and grandiose character. Signed by Steven Harris, the lyrics of a paranoid man who after having studied occult sciences and having seen too many horror movies lives continuously besieged by fears, believing that something or someone is stalking him in the dark. This “fear of the dark” (which has its medical explanation with a disease called nictophobia) gives the song a dark atmosphere in certain moments, with a nervous, sordid and frightened character as part of a theme to which similarities can be found in many other songs by the Maiden: “Murders In The Rue Morgue”, “Innocent Exile”, “Sanctuary”, “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter”...
“Fear Of The Dark” was the last album recorded by Bruce Dickinson” with Maiden until his return to the band with guitarist Adrian Smith in 1999. It is considered by some as a minor album in the band's discography, although at the time it was seen as a symptom of improvement over its predecessor “No Prayer For The Dying” (1999) and debuted directly at number one in the English charts. The album cover was a real novelty in the Maiden's career, as it was the first not illustrated by the usual cover artist of the band, Derek Riggs, but by Melvyn Grant, who conceived the famous “mascot” of the band, Eddie, as an evil dryad or spirit of the forest that comes out of a tree in the dark of the night, certainly an image that perfectly reflected the fears of which the title track spoke.
“Fear Of The Dark” was also the album that took them for the second time in their career to headline the legendary Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Castle, where they recorded their live show “Live At Donington” and where this song reigned supreme without showing that the internal situation of the band was not the best and that Dickinson was about to leave. Luckily he came to his senses, and in the last few years, once again standing up for the Iron Maiden, he has not ceased to sing “Fear Of The Dark” in the recent tours of the British combo that have been so well received in these parts. Up the Irons!
Thanks for reading my people, see you in a future post with more of these incredible editions. A thousand blessings.
