{"id":203990,"date":"2025-12-27T16:27:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T16:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/203990\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T16:27:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T16:27:17","slug":"iron-maiden-the-story-behind-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/203990\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Maiden: the story behind Rime Of The Ancient Mariner"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s big, there\u2019s huge, then there\u2019s whatever the fuck Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is. In translating the epic Romantic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to heavy metal<\/a> form, Iron Maiden<\/a> ended up testing the limits of the genre. The song filled up almost 14 minutes with its soaring highs and creaking, spoken-words lows, ending 1984 album Powerslave<\/a> on one of the grandest notes the band have ever reached.<\/p>\n

As with most of the musically intrepid things Maiden have done, Rime\u2026 was the brainchild of bassist, founder and lead songwriter Steve Harris<\/a>. Just nine years after he started the band, \u2019Arry was known for exploring seemingly un-metal things in his lyrics. Songs inspired by sci-fi saga Dune, Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom Of The Opera and a fictional East London sex worker were already part of his repertoire.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Even by those standards, though, the Rime\u2026 poem was particularly out-there. First published in 1798, it\u2019s a surreal morality play, about a nameless mariner who kills an albatross for no reason while at sea. For his crime against nature, his ship is cursed and he\u2019s trapped in a state of living death, watching his crewmates die of thirst while his suffering never ends. Only after praying about the sanctity of all life does the mariner return to shore, and he spends the rest of his eternal life telling his tale.<\/p>\n

Rime of the Ancient Mariner (2015 Remaster) – YouTube
\n\"Rime<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Talking to Metal Hammer in 2008<\/a>, Harris said he couldn\u2019t remember why he chose to do a song about Rime\u2026. Long-serving singer Bruce Dickinson<\/a> has a theory, though. He implied during a 1984 interview with French magazine Enfer that the bassist wrote about it because he was sick of the devil-worshipping allegations which followed Maiden after their 1982 chart-topper, The Number Of The Beast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The poem is] a warning to all that imposes the respect of God\u2019s actions,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cSteve says that if he hears again that we\u2019re stuck with stories about Satan and other things, it\u2019ll mean that people will never understand Iron Maiden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work on the song started during the pre-production for Powerslave, after the band had flown to Jersey to great their creative juices flowing. As with most of his songs back in those days, Harris locked himself away and came up with the nucleus by himself.<\/p>\n

Guitarist Adrian Smith told Hammer: \u201cWe had this system whereby we\u2019d each come up with our ideas, then work with whomever to fill them out. I would often work with Bruce on lyrics to my songs or Davey [guitarist Dave Murray] on harmonies and guitar parts and that. Steve usually works on his ideas alone, and when they\u2019re kind of 90 per cent done he\u2019ll present them to the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Harris added: \u201cI wrote most of it in the Bahamas where we recorded the album. I had an idea back in Jersey, but really it was at Compass Point Studios where it all came together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rime\u2026 was not just a long song \u2013 it was also insanely dynamic. While the lyrics retold the poem in its entirety, the music ebbed and flowed, starting with rock-solid metal before breaking apart into bassy segues and spoken-word interludes. Then it rebuilt itself for a bold, bombastic conclusion. But, when Harris presented it to his bandmates, there was no fear of taking on the mighty track.<\/p>\n

Smith remembered, \u201cWhen he put Mariner forward, I just knew we had to do it, because I\u2019d never heard anyone do anything like it before. I think when we recorded it in the Bahamas he had to hang the lyrics from the top of the wall all the way to the floor, there were so many. And Steve was so fired up about it he convinced everyone else. It\u2019s so dramatic, how can you not like it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The exact run-time was 13 minutes and 38 seconds \u2013 enough time to cook a frozen pizza. For decades, that fact was one of the most-dropped pieces of Maiden trivia, and it set a benchmark for scale that the band didn\u2019t beat until three decades later, when they put out the 18-minute Empire Of The Clouds in 2015. According to Harris, they didn\u2019t realise how long the song was for quite a while.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Steve\n<\/p>\n

Steve Harris onstage in 1985. (Image credit: Paul Natkin\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is, no one actually thought it was 13 minutes long at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were all so into making it work, and we all enjoyed it so much that we thought it was only eight or nine minutes long, maximum. When our producer Martin Birch timed it at 13 minutes we were all like, \u2018Fuckin\u2019 \u2019ell, 13 minutes?!\u2019 And when we play it live, it never seems like 13 minutes at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

And play it live Maiden do! Rime\u2026 wasn\u2019t released as a single (of course it wasn\u2019t!), but the band couldn\u2019t get enough of it on their blockbuster World Slavery tour from \u201984 to \u201985. In the years since, much like the mariner himself, it\u2019s refused to die, coming back for the Somewhere Back In Time run in the late 2000s as well as the ongoing Run For Your Lives<\/a> 50th-anniversary trek.<\/p>\n

For the rest of the 80s, Maiden would further develop their grandiose side, incorporating synthesisers into their sound before making a semi-concept prog album in 1988\u2019s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son<\/a>. But, when it comes to pinpointing the band\u2019s single most ambitious moment, Rime\u2026 usually has the last word. It pushed the barriers of metal to breaking point, filling up nearly a quarter of an hour while still having no wasted space.<\/p>\n

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