Iron Maiden - Tweeter Centre At The Waterfront, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, July 23, 2003, during the '' Give Me Ed...'Til I'm Dead Tour'' 2003.
The Wicker Man (Smith, Harris, Dickinson)
Bruce Dickinson:Vocals
Steve Harris:Bass
Janick Gers:Guitar
Dave Murray:Guitar
Adrian Smith:Guitar
Nicko McBrain:Drums
[Lyrics]
Hand of fate is moving and the finger points to you
He knocks you to your feet and so what are you gonna do
Your tongue has frozen now you've got something to say
The piper at the gates of dawn is calling you his way
You watch the world exploding every single night
Dancing in the sun a newborn in the light
Say goodbye to gravity and say goodbye to death
Hello to eternity and live for every breath
Your time will come, your time will come
Your time will come, your time will come
The ferryman wants his money you ain't going to give it back
He can push his own boat as you set up off the track
Nothing you can contemplate will ever be the same
Every second is a new spark, sets the universe aflame
You watch the world exploding every single night
Dancing in the sun a newborn in the light
Brothers and their fathers joining hands and make a chain
The shadow of the Wicker Man is rising up again
Your time will come, your time will come(x5)
.......................................
''The Wicker Man'' is a song from the twelfth studio album''Brave New World'' by Iron Maiden, released on 30 May 2000.
''This song is called 'The Wicker Man' because there's one line in the song which mentions The Wicker Man as in The Wicker Man of the cult 70s movie. And the song is, I think, the best single Maiden have had out in donkeys years. It's a really rocking single. Basically the feel of it is so up in term of the vibe you could almost be listening to an Offspring track during one or two bits of it as far as I was concerned. I was just thinking about when I stand up in front of x thousand people singing, just thinking about the buzz I get out of it; I'm thinking about the buzz I used to get when I was a kid and I used to go to rock festivals you really felt you belonged to something bigger than yourself on that one day. You also felt in some ways that you could change something; you could change the world a weeny bit that day 'cos you're all in that field. And that's what's the song's about, hence the chorus, 'Your time will come'. You suddenly feel you are a part of everything. '' (Bruce Dickinson)
The lyrics seem to highlight the general apathy of our modern society and our egoistic disinterest in what is happening in the world until something actually happens to us and we get "knocked to our feet". Watching "the world explode every single night" refers probably to those who watch the evening news and who have an overload of grisly images of wars and sufferings, and who become gradually de-sensitised and de-humanised.
This selfishness is further portrayed by the refusal to pay the "ferryman", most probably Charon, who according to the Greek mythology was ferrying the souls of the recently departed across the river Acheron, and not the Styx as many may think, from the land of the living to that of the dead -- incidentally, Styx was the name of Bruce's very first band (nothing to do with the famous American rock band, though). The image seems once again to emphasize the fact that the modern world is more and more inhabited by zombies whose feelings are either dead or dying.
The symbol of the new rise of the wickerman, a figure of paganism, might imply that we are slowly going back to ancient "evil" ways. The ritual was once performed as a fertility rite for the land in former Celtic tribes, where a giant wicker man was burned with living beings inside, mostly farm animals but also sometimes humans too, then the ashes were spread on the fields as fertiliser. Technically, the system was good as the ashes would contain a lot of elements beneficial to the crops, mostly a fair amount of nitrogen from the animals, but there are nowadays many very efficient fertilisers on the market that render this method quite fortunately obsolete.
''Brave New World'' is the twelfth studio album by Iron Maiden, released on 30 May 2000 (see 2000 in music). It marked the return of longtime lead singer Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith to the band, who left in 1990, replaced by Janick Gers. It was also the band's first studio recording with three guitar players, as Gers stayed with the band after Smith's return.
The album art and title song are references to the novel of the same name written by Aldous Huxley.
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