The Number of the Beast – Today’s classic song and interesting covers. #MusicisLife #TedTocksCovers #IronMaiden #Powderfinger #ShawnJames #StringQuartetTributetoIronMaiden

Today’s song is a beauty by my favourite band from the ‘80s heavy metal era; Iron Maiden’. ‘The Number of the Beast’ is a classic. On this day in 1982 the album of the same name went to #1 on the UK charts and it became the first Iron Maiden album to go Platinum. It is as important for its message as it is for its popularity in music circles. The intention of this post is to speak to the former point because it is another clear example of holier than thou religious zealots commenting on what they do not understand, only to make fools of themselves in the process. They then, unwittingly became a key spoke on the wheel of the song’s popularity. Here is how it goes.

‘The Number of the Beast’ was written by Iron Maiden bassist and founder Steve Harris. It has roots in a dream he had after watching Damien: Omen II as well as the poem Tam O’Shanter by Scottish poet Robert Burns. From my perspective, when rock stars have dreams some pretty amazing creativity emerges. Those of you familiar with the song will recall the opening passage which appears in spoken word as read by English actor Barry Clayton. Clayton quotes Revelation 12:12 and Revelation 13:18. Their original choice was Vincent Price, but it is reported that he wanted no less than 25,000 pounds to deliver the message. In hindsight that was an economic decision that paid off in spades. Every time I hear Clayton’s oration it becomes synonymous with the song and it takes me back to the summer of 1982 as a 15 year old, straddling the lines between ‘60s and ‘70s classic rock and the emerging metal movement. As always, I resisted but, to me Iron Maiden was captivating. At the encouragement of my friend Nick, I was drawn into this band. To this day I admire Iron Maiden and to me Bruce Dickinson is one of the best vocalists ever. The blood curdling scream in ‘The Number of the Beast’ was a spontaneous act by Dickinson which was not actually a part of the song. It came about as a result of producer Martin Birch’s insistence that they do take after take of the song’s introduction. When Birch said ‘let’s do it one more time’, one more time, Dickinson wailed. The scream was caught on tape and they spliced it into the final version. To this day it is known as one of rock and roll’s finest screams.

Now let’s head back to the controversy of ‘The Number of the Beast’. Upon its release and at the detection of its potential popularity, religious holy rollers in the United States fell all over themselves to prevent Iron Maiden’s voice from being heard. They tried to brand the band as Satanists. They organized burnings of the group’s albums and arranged protests as Iron Maiden toured the album. Right out of the ‘Frank Zappa School of Rock and Roll Success’, this only served to make the album more popular. I can hear Frank Zappa laughing as I type. When mindless authorities try to step up and condemn creativity, the youth of the day come out in droves. Way to go Jimmy Bakker, Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell. Just one more example of the fact that ‘the moral majority, is neither’. For his part, songwriter Steve Harris called the accusations of Satanism, ‘mad’.

“They completely got the wrong end of the stick. They obviously hadn’t read the lyrics. They just wanted to believe all that rubbish about us being Satanists.”

But wait, it gets better.

On their follow up album, Piece of Mind, Iron Maiden ramped it up by placing a backwards mask as a message at the beginning of their song ‘Still Life’. Drummer Nicko McBrain (the best drummer name ever next to Chad Wackerman) gives a drunken impression of Idi Amin where he states”

“Don’t meddle wid t’ings yo don’t understand.”

This direct shot at the mindless zealots who labelled Iron Maiden as devil worshippers would have made George Martin proud. McBrain later commented:

“We thought, if people were going to be stupid about this sort of thing, we might as well give them something to be really stupid about, you know.”

As we all know, when you give people with no capacity for independent thought the opportunity to be stupid they carry the torch proudly. Sadly, the result, all too often is people like Donald Trump, Doug Ford and Andrew Scheer. Hopefully someday we will collectively learn from the damage created by not seeking the truth.

‘The Number of the Beast’ has been covered by several bands. Largely due to the fact that Iron Maiden is revered as one of the most influential acts of the heavy metal genre their songs are proudly recorded by many up and coming acts. Here is one such cover. I love this version by Powderfinger.

Here is a scaled down version by Shawn James complete with a cool introduction. Shawn is a fascinating character. In music, he has been an engineer, singer/songwriter as a solo artist and with his band The Shapeshifters. He has also acted in the TV show ‘Reckless’. Currently, he is living off the grid, and as a result he was featured on the Discovery Channel show ‘Yukon Men’. An interesting back story that only scratches the surface.

In direct contrast here is a version by String Quartet Tribute. A classical portrayal where the highly trained musicians recognize the depth to Iron Maiden’s songwriting. The instruments literally speak to the listener. Enjoy!