This week’s Maiden single is the second from the Fear Of The Dark album. And given the missing singles from my collection, this one will be a major exit point for the band, but I’ll get to that later on in the post.

The cover sleeve lacks Eddie and is either a band shot from the video or Satan with a motorcycle and a bunch of people hanging out, which my version is. This was only the second time they’ve done a cover photo like that, though it does come up again here and there in the future. Note that there is a different cover for one of the many, many different versions of this single.

This one really has a lot of different variations and content across the differing formats. I have a 12-inch vinyl with the single and two B-sides. I would consider the 4-track CD single a great one to have as it holds a second special B-side, perhaps someday I’ll track that one down. There are also etched records and other vinyl variants with some different B-side content on them.

From Here To Eternity

The single is another hard rocking cut, it gives off a “biker” vibe which was not something you’d normally get with Iron Maiden. I do think it’s a case where Maiden succeeds in the hard rock arena. This one is simple and catchy, yet still sounds like Iron Maiden. They weren’t always “on” in the ’90’s but this is one example of them getting their new direction right.

The song is about a motorcycle ride, but not just any random one. This is the final ride of Maiden’s other character, Charlotte the Harlot. A lot of people are familiar with her song of the same name from the debut and also the sequel 22 Acacia Avenue from The Number Of The Beast. Not quite as known are Hooks In You from No Prayer For The Dying and this one, marking the final two chapters of Charlotte’s story.

And Charlotte goes out with a bang – she heads off into the sunset on the back of a motorcycle piloted by none other than heavy metal’s best friend, the devil himself, Satan. This doesn’t mark a “fall” for Charlotte as opposed to a match made in, uh, Hell I guess. The former resident of 22 Acacia Avenue heads off with her new lover into eternity.

At some future point I’ll have a post covering the Charlotte saga in its entirety.

Roll Over Vic Vella

This B-side is available across most versions of the single except for a few 7 inch pressings with a different cover instead. This song is a bit of a cover, obviously being Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven. The altered lyrics pay tribute to the band’s long-time roadie Vic Vella, and the spoken bits at the beginning and also interspersed through the song are a conversation between Vic and Steve Harris.

While this comes off like a cheap gimmick, as the band had been having a run of through the ’90’s singles, this one actually works pretty well. The song itself is pretty good, a pretty high octane rendering of the original that won’t win awards but also gets the job done. And it’s a nice tribute to a long-running crew member, it’s a pretty cool thing for the group to do.

No Prayer For The Dying

For the real treasure of this single, we get a live cut of the title track from the prior album. This was recorded at the Wembley Arena in London during December 1990. It’s a great sounding performance and was captured very well.

The great thing about this B-side? Unlike most other Maiden B-sides, this one is truly not available anywhere else. This is the only place to get it. The band with almost as many live albums as studio records did not issue an album of this tour and this song was not included on any of the three live albums that came out after Fear Of The Dark. This is a true rarity among B-sides and makes this single release very special.

And the CD version I mentioned earlier has another cut from the same album – Public Enema Number One, one of the better cuts from No Prayer… It makes that CD version very special.

There is one other single from Fear Of The Dark and also a few singles from the following live albums. However, I don’t have any of those and that means for the purposes of this series, it’s time to say farewell to Bruce Dickinson. Bruce would leave Maiden after the touring behind Fear… in order to dive fully into his solo career. There are indications that Bruce wasn’t happy in Maiden and Steve wasn’t always happy with Bruce, but a lot of that is secondhand information that I won’t go much into.

It would mark the band’s most drastic shift, only behind when Bruce first joined and gave Maiden a voice to match their musical ambition. Bruce would go on to a critically acclaimed yet not commercially glamorous solo career. For Iron Maiden, their story after Bruce can be told on the next single of this series. And while Bruce was gone for six years, in terms of this series he’s only gone for one single. Until then.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity (you are here)

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet

Rainmaker

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds