Iron Maiden Plays Other Band’s Songs Better Than The Originals
Iron Maiden 1986 – (from l-r) Dave Murray, Bruce Dickinson, Steve Harris, Nicko McBrain, Adrian Smith
Like Metallica who seem to excel at playing cover songs, Iron Maiden has covered songs from many well known groups including Led Zeppelin, The Who and UFO. But it is usually the lesser known bands that Iron Maiden have been able to bring to the limelight with their covers, usually improving the song substantially in the process.
Of course it certainly helps if the song you’re covering is a good song to begin with. Many of these songs are just that: well written songs.
Here in no particular order are the five best Iron Maiden cover songs where Maiden generally took the original song up a notch.
1) I’ve Got The Fire (1981 and 1983) – originally done by the band Montrose featuring Sammy Hagar on lead vocals. This is the only Iron Maiden cover song recorded by both the original Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno and his successor Bruce Dickinson. First Paul Di’Anno:
Next, Bruce Dickinson’s version which was recorded in 1983.
2) Women In Uniform (1980) – originally performed by the Australian band Skyhooks, Maiden’s version bumps the tempo up and improves immensely from the original. Paul Di’Anno does the singing in this live version.
3) Juanita (1986) – written by Steve Barnacle and Derek O’Neil for Marshall Fury, Bruce Dickinson covered this little known song in the studio in just one take. Another interesting thing is that Adrian Smith plays all guitars and the bass on this track with Nicko McBrain supplying drums.
4) King of Twilight (1984) – This is one where the original by progressive rockers Nektar from 1972 rivals the cover by Maiden. Maiden’s version is really a combination of two Nektar songs Crying In The Dark and King of Twilight. Either way this is a very underrated song.
5) Rainbow’s Gold (1984) – Originally by Beckett, Maiden probably did not improve this song because Beckett’s version is really good. It makes you wonder why Beckett is virtually unheard of. First Iron Maiden’s version:
Next, Beckett’s version
Iron Maiden has cut down on its cover song catalog and compared to the 1980’s they rarely release new covers.
Considering Iron Maiden never play any cover songs live anymore it would be a total fantasy to see them play an entire show of covers.
