"Iron Maiden: The Talisman" Iron Maiden is a British heavy metal band that has been active since the 1970s. Known for their energetic and powerful performances, they have achieved massive success in the music industry. One of their notable songs is titled "The Talisman." "The Talisman" is a track from Iron Maiden's 2010 album "The Final Frontier." The song starts with a melodic guitar intro, which sets the tone for the entire track. The lyrics tell a captivating story that revolves around a traveler who embarks on a dangerous journey in search of a mystical talisman.

The Best Damn Live Music Clip Of All Time: Iron Maiden Soaring With 'The Talisman' Live in 2011

I don’t know about anyone else, but the stuff I find it most difficult to write about is the stuff I love. I find it much more difficult than writing about things I hate, anyway. When I want to express why I hate something, for some reason the thoughts come quite easily. When I try to put words to my love of something, on the other hand, I struggle. Is there a saying for that? I feel there should be a saying for that. ‘Acid flows easier than…affection(?)’, or something. What’s an affectionate liquid? No wait, never mind, no need to think on that too much.

The point is that I find it tricky to express myself when it comes to things I love. And there’s not much in this world that I love more than Iron fuc*ing Maiden. This isn’t news by any means, I know. I’ve tried to put words to it before; and I always feel like I come up short in doing it justice, but that won’t stop me from trying, again and again like some sort of greasy, headbanging Sisyphus! As far as efforts go, though, due to time pressures this will be on the simpler end of the scale. Similar to that time I celebrated the birthday of the Metal God himself—Judas Priest’s Rob Halford—by posting a serious contender for the single greatest stage entrance of all time. This is going to be an echo of that piece, this time in celebration of the one and only Bruce Dickinson.

Dickinson is, of course, Iron Maiden’s frontman. He has been—with a little break in the ’90s—since 1981. His first record with Maiden, 1982’s ‘The Number of the Beast’, still frequently tops polls whenever anyone asks metalheads for their lists of ‘Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time’. At least two or three (or four or five if you ask me) other albums that Maiden have recorded with Dickinson often vie with ‘The Number of the Beast’ for that spot. ‘The Number of the Beast’ itself contains one song—the at turns haunting and blistering ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’—that more often than many other tunes occupies pole position whenever someone asks what the greatest metal song of all time is. As well as recording and releasing an all-time great metal album in almost every single year of the ’80s, Dickinson and Maiden also mounted the most impressive musical comeback of all time at the turn of the millennium, returning from the relative wilderness to begin a ‘late’ career streak of brilliance that continues to this day and that rivals their untouchable heyday several decades ago.

It’s from one of those comeback albums that the song at the heart of this piece comes. Oddly enough, it’s the album from that era that took me the longest to love. Maiden’s latter-day records can be a lot denser than their earlier work, containing material that it takes significantly more investment on part of the listener to get into than the immediacy of something like ‘The Trooper’ or ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’. The post-millennium songs (and albums) are, in general, longer, proggier, more challenging. I absolutely adore both flavours of Maiden, so in some ways it’s funny to me to consider how long it took me to fully appreciate their 2010 album, ‘The Final Frontier’. I bought it as soon as it came out, but for some reason I can’t conceive of now, I only listened to it a few times before putting it away and largely forgetting about it for a good few years. The aforementioned density doesn’t really explain it, as I fell in love with 2006’s dark and foreboding ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ immediately.

Whatever the reason, it’s the end result that matters: These days I listen to ‘The Final Frontier’ all the time, and I cannot get enough of it (‘When the Wild Wind Blows’ is never far away from my thoughts when I think of the best Maiden tunes of all time).

And the song that unlocked the album for me—the one that I heard one day and just my mind blown open—is called ‘The Talisman’.

Eighth track out of ten, ‘The Talisman’ comes late in the record. It starts, as many longer Maiden songs do, with a quiet, atmospheric intro. Co-written with Maiden mastermind Steve Harris by guitarist Janick Gers, ‘The Talisman’ calls to mind Maiden’s 13-minute classic ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by telling a tale of a ship crew beset by misfortune—in this case a harrowing storm:

‘Riding the waves and the storm is upon us
The winds lash the sails
But the ropes keep them tight
Off in the distance a dark cloud approaching
None could imagine what there was to come’

As the quiet, acoustic intro that sets the scene ends, ‘The Talisman’ explodes into a musical fury that rivals any of Maiden’s youth, a blistering pace and an incredible performance by Dickinson evoking the storm at the heart of the story.

As mighty as the recorded version is, however, it’s a live performance of ‘The Talisman’ that truly captures the power of the band and its insanely skilled singer.

Recorded one night on April 10th at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, this live rendition of ‘The Talisman’ is quite simply one of the most impressive vocal showcases in metal. Every single time I watch it, I find my jaw hanging slack in awe. It’s Poseidon’s rage bottled. On stage, Bruce Dickinson is famous for his high energy antics. He runs and leaps and goads the crowd like the master showman that he is. It’s a testament to the throat-and-lung shredding difficulty of ‘The Talisman’ that in this performance he does none of that. All Dickinson does here is he plants himself, and he belts. Legs wide in a power stance that grounds him to the spot, drawing up the power from the earth, eyes closed in unwavering focus, he belts like an absolute motherfuc*er, reminding you just why he earned the nickname ‘the Air Raid Siren’ decades ago—and why the name still applies. Happy Birthday, Bruce, you ludicrous beast of a vocalist.

Header Image Source: Martin Philbey/Redferns via Getty

The Talisman

When I stand and look about the port
And contemplate my life
Will I ever see my countrymen again?

As the captain calls us on the deck
I take my things and walk to the harborside
I glance back one last time

Fleeing our nation
Our problems we leave behind
Ships by the tenfold sail out on the tide
We are pleased to be out and embracing the open sea
Free from our troubles and more free from thee

Inheritors unfulfilled reason behind us
We flee from what is not what is will be
We flee the earth and face our harsh reality
Will death be low mist that hangs on the sea?

We run from the evil tongues
Rash judgements, selfish men
Never to be seen on these shores again

As we sail into ocean size
And lose sight of land
A face of contentment around in the air
We're off now to seek all our fortunes
To the land of our dreams

Riding the waves and the storm is upon us
The winds lash the sails
But the ropes keep them tight
Off in the distance a dark cloud approaching
None could imagine what there was to come

No, there's no one going back
No, there's not a second chance
As we strap onto the side
We pray to God that we won't die

As we ride the rough seas
As we soak from the ocean waves
I just hope for all our lives
And pray that I survive

Four ships are lost in the stormy conditions
The spirits of the sunken crews
Their phantoms follow us

Spirits sails, they drive us on
Through the all consuming waves
Cold mortality, no weapon
Against these ever raging seas

Four leagues and ten and we hit storms again
We just can't get away from the eye of the storm
The birds outsoar the raging storm
But we cannot escape it
Abandoned earth, that we now crave
Is many leagues from safe

Holding on for our dear lives
And we're praying once again
Rotten luck or just jonahed?
The talisman is in my hand

Limbs fatigues, trembling with cold
Blinded from the sea spray salt
Clasping anything we can hold
Heaven's rain upon us falls

Twenty days without a meal
And ten without fresh water still
Those that didn't die in storms
The scurvy rest did slaughter

Westwards the tide
Westwards we sail on
Westwards the tide
Sail by the talisman

We approach the other side
Of the ocean with the tide
In our favor just for once
Welcome greeting our new land
The elation in our hearts
The excitement in our veins
As we sail towards the coastline
Of our golden promised land

Weary limbs fatigued away
I have no life left in me
No more strength and nothing left to give
Must find the will to live

Never thought that we could make it
Truly sight of shores divine
The sickness I am dying from
Never wanted it to end this way

Westwards the tide
Westwards we sail on
Westwards the tide
Sail by the talisman

Westwards the tide
Westwards we sail
Westwards the tide
Sail by the talisman

Lyrics submitted by revanchist

The Talisman Lyrics as written by Stephen Percy Harris Janick Gers

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

The Talisman

I only did reunion songs. Come Estais Amigos, Lord of the Flies, The Edge of Darkness, Be Quick or Be Dead, Wasting Love and The Aftermath all walk into the top songs he's written if you add the 90's stuff.

Ranko

I'll shoot the gunner first!

My take on the lyrics - it's probably about the first pilgrims leaving England (or Europe in general) and heading for North America, running away from all the troubles in their old life. The talisman itself appears to be a magical compass or possibly a "lucky charm" of some sort, pointing them exactly where they need to go. Of course, most of them don't make the trip, including the storyteller who clings on to life just to see the shores of the New world. It appears that he dies of scurvy - "those that didn't die in storms, the scurcy rest did slaughter".

A cringeworty line in the song - "The winds lash the sails but the ropes keep them tight". Seems to me like a moment of no inspiration, they needed a line and couldn't think of anything that made a bit more sense.

Mega

Ancient Mariner

Jeffmetal

Ancient Mariner

I think these are more about latins, africans and asians leaving the tyranny of their 'socialist' dictators behind and pursuing to the land of the free, somewhere in the western world. By the way, what a song.

p4warrior

Trooper

My take on the lyrics - it's probably about the first pilgrims leaving England (or Europe in general) and heading for North America, running away from all the troubles in their old life. The talisman itself appears to be a magical compass or possibly a "lucky charm" of some sort, pointing them exactly where they need to go. Of course, most of them don't make the trip, including the storyteller who clings on to life just to see the shores of the New world. It appears that he dies of scurvy - "those that didn't die in storms, the scurcy rest did slaughter".

A cringeworty line in the song - "The winds lash the sails but the ropes keep them tight". Seems to me like a moment of no inspiration, they needed a line and couldn't think of anything that made a bit more sense.

Deleted member 7164

Guest

FriendlyFire

Prowler

My take on the lyrics - it's probably about the first pilgrims leaving England (or Europe in general) and heading for North America, running away from all the troubles in their old life.

My opinion is that the story is not directly related to any historical event - it seems more mystical/fantastical than concrete. As someone previously suggested, this feels to me like the flip side of Ghost of the Navigator - kind of like the same story from different sides; The Talisman being from the perspective of some poor shmuck that's been taken on as a passenger and has to be strapped in for the ride.

Jonszat

Trooper

GotN had lyrics by Bruce whilst this has lyrics by Steve. The Charlotte the Harlot series overlapped lyricists but I don't see it as a trend here.

Ranko

I'll shoot the gunner first!

My opinion is that the story is not directly related to any historical event - it seems more mystical/fantastical than concrete. As someone previously suggested, this feels to me like the flip side of Ghost of the Navigator - kind of like the same story from different sides; The Talisman being from the perspective of some poor shmuck that's been taken on as a passenger and has to be strapped in for the ride.

Nice interpretation, one could say that this is a variation of the theme, but GotN has a much more allegorical meaning, about a guy "navigating on the seas of life" (as Bruce often said it himself), not knowing what to do of himself, with "West is where I go" as a symbol for moving towards the afterlife, i.e. the end of one's life.

The story of The Talisman seems to me much more concrete, without much allegory, as Steve does tend to write his songs (opposed to Bruce who often adds an allegorical level to it all). The West in this song actually means North America.

The lyrics tell a captivating story that revolves around a traveler who embarks on a dangerous journey in search of a mystical talisman. Throughout the song, Iron Maiden showcases their signature sound, combining intricate guitar riffs, powerful bass lines, and soaring vocals. The guitar solos in "The Talisman" are particularly impressive, showcasing the skill and technical prowess of the band members.

Lyrically, the song explores themes of adventure, perseverance, and the search for something greater. The traveler in the song faces various obstacles and challenges but remains determined to find the talisman, which represents a symbol of hope and power. The lyrics evoke a sense of mystery and excitement, as the listener is drawn into the story unfolding in the song. Iron Maiden's performance in "The Talisman" is characterized by their trademark energy and precision. The band members work together seamlessly, creating a powerful and cohesive sound. Bruce Dickinson's vocals soar above the instrumentation, delivering the lyrics with passion and intensity. "The Talisman" is a prime example of Iron Maiden's ability to craft epic and captivating songs. It showcases their musicianship, songwriting skills, and ability to create an immersive musical experience for their listeners. The song has become a fan favorite and is often performed live during their concerts. Overall, "The Talisman" is a standout track in Iron Maiden's discography. It exemplifies the band's unique sound and showcases their ability to create memorable and engaging music. Whether you are a longtime fan of Iron Maiden or a newcomer to their music, "The Talisman" is definitely worth a listen..

Reviews for "Exploring Iron Maiden's 'The Talisman' as a Protest Song"

1. John - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "Iron Maiden: The Talisman". The story felt convoluted and lacked a clear direction. The characters were one-dimensional, and I couldn't connect with any of them. The writing style was also inconsistent, ranging from overly descriptive to rushed. Overall, it felt like a missed opportunity for a great story.

2. Sarah - 1 star - I really struggled to finish "Iron Maiden: The Talisman". The pacing was incredibly slow, and it felt like the story took forever to get to any significant developments. The dialogue was also lackluster and didn't contribute much to the overall plot. I found myself constantly losing interest and having to force myself to keep reading. It's a shame because I had high expectations for this book.

3. Michael - 2 stars - "Iron Maiden: The Talisman" had an intriguing concept, but the execution fell flat for me. The world-building was confusing and inconsistent, making it challenging to immerse myself in the story. The plot had potential, but it was filled with unnecessary side-quests that didn't add much value. Additionally, the characters were forgettable, and I didn't feel invested in their outcomes. Overall, it was a disappointing read for me.

4. Emily - 2.5 stars - I had mixed feelings about "Iron Maiden: The Talisman". While the premise itself was intriguing, the story lacked depth and failed to live up to its potential. The pacing was uneven, with slow sections dragging on while exciting moments went by too quickly. The writing style was average, and the descriptions were often repetitive. Although it had its moments, I ultimately found the overall reading experience underwhelming.

5. David - 1.5 stars - "Iron Maiden: The Talisman" was a letdown for me. The characters felt flat and lacked development, making it difficult to feel any connection or empathy towards them. The plot meandered, and there were too many unnecessary subplots that distracted from the main story. Moreover, the writing was dull and lacked any distinct voice. It was a struggle to finish this book and, unfortunately, did not live up to its potential.

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