Stranger in a Strange Land

This continues to be of the sadly maligned and hugely underrated songs of the Iron Maiden catalogue.

This is followed by the second single from the album, Adrian's Stranger in a Strange Land, brilliant in simplicity, yet technically terrific drumming and guitaring.

Lyrically, the song is based around the discovery of bodies from an 1845 expedition to the Arctic who had been buried in the ice and were almost perfectly preserved 140 years later when discovered.

100 years have gone and men again they came that way to find the answer to the mystery.

Like all bands, Maiden's sound did change over the years since in accordance with what music trends were appearing, but they have never lost that quintessential Maiden attributes, and that is also true here.

While some experts were less enamoured by the changes after the previous three amazing albums, for me and those of us in our generation, the awesomeness of Somewhere in Time is never in question.

The anthemic lyrics of Wasted Years, Heaven Can Wait and Stranger in a Strange Land equal the emotional payoff of Caught Somewhere in Time and Sea of Madness and the loneliness of The Long Distance Runner.

And when you have one of your best mates who gets stuck in an ancient history exam and to get out of it, he simply expands on writing down the lyrics of Alexander the Great and gets three out of ten for the essay rather than none out of ten, which is what would have happened otherwise, you know Iron Maiden are still being the most awesome band in the world.

I like to hear Afraid to Shoot Strangers.

Stranger in a Strange Land, I guess.

That's just one of my

niche songs, I guess.

This opened up the need for more lyricists, and this is where we get wasted years.

He mentions Stranger in a Strange Land a few times in interviews, the story behind that being that he was at the dentist having a root canal, and when he got home he started playing music.

He saw a newspaper article about the explorer John Turrington being discovered in almost perfect condition over a century later due to perma-freezing, and in his heavily sedated state, just started writing it.

lastly in one interview he said that before made and get together to record an album he spends time at home in his own studio tinkering and usually comes up with about six to ten ideas in demo form from there he and bruce have a back and forth with bruce fleshing out ideas he says he comes up with titles and some ideas bruce liked the title of speed of light and the idea and wrote around it the writing on the wall has a similar story described now that's out of the way let's have a think about his writing style she does she's a very very thorough answer designer I thought I might be able to build a clearer picture by cloche-referencing Adrian's other musical projects.