Dance of Death (album) - Songs

Songs

Dance of Death is the only Iron Maiden album to date in which drummer Nicko McBrain has a songwriting credit, having co-written "New Frontier." As a born-again Christian, the track expresses his concerns with human cloning, stating, "I personally believe that God created man and it's only God's right to create a human being because only He can give you a soul. When man attempts to make man then it's a monster in a test tube."

"Montségur" was based on the fall of the Cathar stronghold of the same name, which fell during the Albigensian Crusade in 1244. Bruce Dickinson, who wrote the song's lyrics, states, "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."

"Paschendale" is about the Battle of Passchendaele which took place during First World War. It was written by Adrian Smith, who usually contributes to the band's shorter, more "commercial" songs, but decided to write what he describes as "a traditional Maiden epic." It features strong progressive rock elements, including its length, detailed structure, and multiple tempo changes throughout the song. Dickinson comments, "the beauty of 'Paschendale' isn't in the epic-ness of the song - although you have to admit it is a powerful and stirring body of music - but the detail."

According to guitarist Janick Gers, the album's title track was inspired by the final scene of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, at the end of which "these figures on the horizon start doing a little jig, which is the dance of death." Gers wrote most of the music and explained the concept to Steve Harris, who wrote the lyrics and most of the melodies.

"Face in the Sand" is based on the media coverage surrounding the Iraq War, taking place as the album was being recorded. Dickinson explains, "I remember thinking about the desert sands as an image and how it moves and shifts with time. Specifically what I was thinking was that whatever empires you tend to build - whether they are British, American, Iraqi or whatever, they'll all crumble and fade away into something else. So, to my mind at least, the best thing you can hope for, if you were to leave anything behind, is just an imprint in the sand." The song is notable for being the first and only Iron Maiden track in which Nicko McBrain uses a double bass pedal.

The final track, "Journeyman", 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," although Mick Wall describes it as "a wistful tale of carpe diem." The song was originally recorded with electric instruments, however, as Dickinson states, "after all the battering that we've given the listener over the last hour of music it just seemed right to play out with something totally unexpected and left field." The original version appears on the No More Lies EP.