Song of the Day Redux, Day 60: The Trooper

The Trooper - Cover of Iron Maiden

I'll do this for now. Somewhere early on, the band started playing The Trooper during the middle of Everything Evil as part of a medley including Devil in Jersey City. And then they had the opportunity to record this for the Kerrang! Maiden Heaven tribute album. So they decided to go for it and make an official recording. And actually, I might be wrong, but this might be the first studio quality song we actually got with Chris Pennie, post-NWFT.

The Content: Iron Maiden is obviously hugely important to the band, as a big influence and a band that commands a lot of respect in metal. And I guess songs like this one connect to Claudio, because of the storytelling. Here's the background on the song itself. It's about a soldier getting mortally wounded in a war.

The Music: The band does a few interesting things, but most of all just tries to stick to the song itself. Like they would do later for Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers, Claudio alternates with Travis on singing the verses. Travis has a great classic rock voice. There are a few subtle electric / phasing noises on the track, but other than that, there's not a lot of different stuff in here from the actual Iron Maiden track. It would be wrong to deviate very much from such a staple of metal. Very similar solo, because this is a time where the band was still trying to prove its worth in terms of metal musicianship. Also, Chris sure as hell knew what he was doing, and shows his worth here in a pretty cool way.

The Part: "And as I lay there gazing at the sky" - something about the way Claudio sings this is amazing to me.

You'll take my life, but I'll take yours too
You'll fire your musket, but I'll run you through
So when you're waiting for the next attack
You'd better stand, there's no turning back

The bugle sounds, the charge begins
But on this battlefield, no one wins
The smell of acrid smoke and horses' breath
As I plunge on into certain death, oh, oh

The horse, he sweats with fear, we break to run
The mighty roar of the Russian guns
And as we race towards the human wall
The screams of pain as my comrades fall

We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground
And the Russians fire another round
We get so near, yet so far away
We were meant to fight another day, oh, oh

We get so close, near enough to fight
When a Russian gets me in his sights
He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow
A burst of rounds take my horse below

And as I lay there gazing at the sky
My body's numb and my throat is dry
And as I lay forgotten and alone
Without a tear, I draw my parting groan, oh, oh

Next up: Faithfully (Journey cover)

I don't know, other than that it'll be roughly chronological. Do you guys want Feathers Glitch Mob remix next?