Extract from the book

Flying and fencing had little to do with his job as a musician, so there was a fair chance that he would be accepted as an autonomous person. But this was still not sufficient. There had to be many other opportunities to take advantage of once he was out of the band’s routine. Bruce had to leave Iron Maiden if he wanted to achieve personal fulfilment. In Tears of the Dragon, we get the feeling that he found the decision a hard one.
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In the refrain, Bruce describes the feelings he had when his departure was definite. He dived as it were into the unknown (“the sea” as a metaphor for life and future) – a step of which he was scared all the time before. To overcome this fear he had to let himself fall; let the wave overrun him. The personification of the dragon illustrates that the separation and the way all this took place meant something deeply sad for Bruce. It is well known that animals, and within that dragons (even though an animal of the imagination), are unable to cry. The fact that a powerful, ferocious animal like this shed tears emphasises Bruce’s inner conflict. Moreover, the dragon is a symbol for the untamed nature, chaos and concealed wisdom³² – the unconscious self. With the tears the inner self becomes manifest. To all intents and purposes it is his band colleagues (and perhaps the fans, too), and he himself that are alluded to when the character in the song states that the dragon cries for both sides.

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Excerpt of the interpretation of Solar Confinement (Skunkworks 1996)

After the dropping of an atom bomb in the previous song, Bruce describes its cataclysmic effects more precisely in Solar Confinement. The title arouses associations with ‘solitary confinement’ because of its phonetic similarity.

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The sun stands for the nuclear explosion in this song; the processes in a fusion bomb are the same as in the sun: hydrogen fuses to helium. But the “solar distress’” (chorus) is ambiguous. The character in the song must be one of the nuclear scientists, perhaps Robert Oppenheimer himself. He declines all responsibility for the disaster. Nevertheless, he spends day and night in the hell of his own conscience, which is expressed by a powerful metaphor in the last lines of the first verse. The scientist is represented as a solitary child; this underlines his naiveté. The associations evoked by the title have already made you think of loneliness and imprisonment, which is revisited in this verse. The scientist in the song is evocative of a dreamer creating his own nightmare. […]

Short excerpt of the detailed interpretation of Taking the Queen (Accident of Birth, 1997)

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The ambiguous title already suggests two of the main themes: sex and death. We can interpret it that her “immortal lover”¹⁰⁸ (l. 6) has taken the queen and subsequently abandoned her. This prince has taken the queen’s chalice of immortality. Therefore, he will not die whereas she is doomed to death. The prince does not appear personally in the song; it is only mentioned that he has left the queen. We can also understand things in a more literal way. The queen is taken away to the realm of the dead by the creatures of the night. Figuratively, this means her death, of course. In fact, both pass one after the other. But there is also a game in which the term ‘taking the queen’ is used: chess. Considering this, we can assume that there is a strategy behind the whole action. Everything that happens is planned by an unknown power which has set in motion the seduction of the queen to attain one single aim: the death of the monarch and the doom of her empire. So the happenings are not accidental; it is a murder in cold blood.

Hébert, Pierre Eugène Emile

Et Toujours! Et Jamais! (détail)

A85/754

Photo courtesy of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

The song starts with a question. The audience may initially feel puzzled, because it seems like a direct address. Instead of getting an answer, you realise that you are standing in the queen’s room together with some “acolytes” (l. 2), who perhaps are asking themselves the question. To verify that the queen is really dead, they use a mirror to see if it gets fogged, but there is no breath. In the last line of the first verse, we find an ostensible response to the question from line 1. The thief of the queen’s breath (another metonym for life) is the south wind. He is the wet, storm-bringing wind of late summer and early autumn.¹⁰⁹ The season symbolises the beginning of the end. A dead queen and scared acolytes in the twilight of flickering candles in a stormy night: all this contributes to a dark and eerie atmosphere. Quiet music and gentle singing, however, create an interesting contrast to this.

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Bruce tells us the tale of the death of a queen and her entire kingdom and we are sitting on the frontline, watching her die. A deeper meaning can be gleaned if we follow the clues pointing to Aleister Crowley. The god Ra-Hoor-Khuit, corresponding to the adult Egyptian god Horus, gives a call to arms to destroy the Old World and create a new one. […]