Remember when we told you about that Iron Maiden song written about Robin Williams? Apparently, the only one who knew what it was about, at the moment of recording it, was Steve Harris, according to frontman Bruce Dickinson.
According to an interview with Corus Radio, Bruce Dickinson explains about the track “Tears of a Clown” and how he was not aware what the song was about until he asked Harris about the meaning of the lyrics:
Steve wrote the song, or Steve wrote the words to the song, and so we were recording it. He didn’t tell anybody what it was about, and I had no idea when I was singing the song that it was about Robin Williams. So I finished doing the tune, and I went up to him and I said, ‘These words are really cool. What’s the genesis of the tune?’ And he said, ‘Robin Williams.’ And I went, ‘Wow!’ And it surprised the hell out of me, because it was so specific. It’s unusual for Steve to be so direct about a subject matter. Like when he does something like ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ — okay, it’s an epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, yeah , fine. But to be so specific and direct about a recent tragic event and write a song about that guy, I was really surprised. It was kind of… It’s not really appropriate to say ‘pleasantly surprised,’ but it felt really good that he’d written in that way, because I think, in some way, he maybe felt some kind of affinity to the sense of isolation and things like that that Robin Williams maybe felt. There’s some speculation in there, in the song, about exactly what it feels like, but you get the impression that some of those things are maybe quite close to home with Steve himself. So, yeah, that was… I was, like, ‘Hmmm. Okay.’
If you still haven’t picked up their latest record The Book of Souls, we suggest you do that as soon as you can and listen to this track. It’s actually quite touching if you look into it.
[via blabbermouth.com]
