Tuesday Metal Mania – Iron Maiden “The Number Of The Beast”

Remember when MTV stood for Music Television? They actually showed videos all day. Of course, the negative side to this is they also ushered in an age of music where it mattered more about how you looked than how you sounded, but for the sake of this article, that’s a moot point.

Every Tuesday, I give you classic Metal video featuring bands you know, some you may have forgotten about, and others that just bring back good memories. Have a suggestion for a video you want to see or share? Lay it down in the comment section, and your video may be next week’s featured tune. And now, today’s video:

Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

WIKIPEDIA-

"The Number of the Beast" is Iron Maiden's seventh single and the second from their 1982 album of the same name. It was also re-released in 2005.

Upon release in 1982, the song caused controversy in the United States where its religious subject matter caused outrage amongst religious groups. In spite of this, it remains one of the band's more popular songs, reaching No. 18 in the UK singles charts, and has been performed on almost all of their concert tours. On top of this, the song has been covered numerous times and has appeared in several video games and films.

According to the song's writer, bassist and band-founder Steve Harris, it was inspired by a nightmare he had after watching the film Damien: Omen II, in addition to the poem Tam o' Shanter by Robert Burns.

The song opens with a spoken word passage, read by English actor Barry Clayton, which quotes directly from the Book of Revelation. According to lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, the band originally asked Vincent Price to read the intro, but decided to hire Clayton after Price refused to do it for anything less than £25,000.

The track is known for its very long, high-pitched and guttural wail at the end of the intro, which Allmusic describes as "the most blood-curdling Dickinson scream on record". In the Classic Albums documentary based on The Number of the Beast album, Dickinson states that it came about through frustration with producer Martin Birch, who forced him to sing the introduction repeatedly for hours on end.