Iron Maiden is always the focus of all things Bruce Dickinson but very few of us Iron Maiden fans pay much attention to Bruce’s solo material. From his debut solo album, Tattooed Milionaire to his last solo release, A Tyranny of Souls, Bruce Dickinson proved to be a strong and able songwriter in his own right.
It’s almost obvious while listening to this material just why Bruce left Maiden for a while. When you are a creative person in your own right yet you are part of a band where your own artistic contributions are kept to a minimum, at some point you are just going to explode and that’s exactly what Bruce did. His solo material at times is as good if not better than some of Maiden’s output and many of his songs could hold up in a one on one against some of Maiden’s best material.
Here, I have compiled 10 of my favorite Bruce Dickinson solo songs. This list started out with something near 25 or so songs so whittling it down to 13 was a feat in itself. If you aren’t familiar with much of Bruce’s material, this is the post for you so just sit back, enjoy, and prepare to have your face melted clean off your skull.
Back from the Edge – Skunkworks
When Skunkworks was released in 1995, it was cited as being a move into the “alternative” music. Of course this sent me running scared only to never pick up another solo Bruce album. In the 00’s my buddy James convinced me how great this shit was so I started w/ Skunkworks and worked my way down. This particular song is a fucking monster. Nothing alternative here. This is just Bruce expressing his own life in such a transparent way through the lyrics unlike he’d been able to ever do in Maiden. This song set the pace for what would be an awesome adventure into the unknown.
======================================
Son of a Gun – Tattooed Millionaire
Like most Maiden fans, I picked up Tattooed Millionaire the day it was released because the title track single was so fucking great. Even though a good bit of this album is pretty stupid (Dive Dive Dive, Zulu Zulu, Lickin’ the Gun, etc), there were some pretty fucking amazing moments on this album. “Son of a Gun” is a song that didn’t resonate with me until I was much older to truly understand the lyrical content. Learning later in life what a leftist Bruce was and his disdain for guns and his approval of more strict gun laws really comes across in this “based on true events” song. Just listen to those lyrics and they literally give me goosebumps. This is an absolutely brilliant track.
======================================
Kill Devil Hill – Tyranny of Souls
This song is hands down one of the greatest metal songs ever written. If I was Steve Harris and I heard this song knowing that it wasn’t a Maiden song, I’d cry like a bitch. This song is one of many by Bruce that touches on his love of flight. For those that don’t know, Kill Devil Hill is in North Carolina and is the site of the Wright Brothers first flight. Bruce tells this story as if he was one of the brothers himself with so much detail. You have to listen to these lyrics which, again, show just what an amazing lyricist Bruce Dickinson is on his own.
======================================
Tyranny of Souls – A Tyranny of Souls
One of the common things I’ve noticed in Bruce’s song is the lyrical subject matter. Where Steve Harris’ lyrics seem to come from a more literary and sometimes biblical theme. Bruce’s lyrical subjects seem to express his own feelings about things such has space/time, end of times, and darker themes of life. A Tyranny of Souls is a great example of that. This is one of my all-time favorite Bruce songs. It’s so dark and it’s pretty much the soundtrack for the end of days. As a matter of fact, this song is kind of eerily prophetic.
======================================
Born in ’58 – Tattooed Millionaire
I love that this is nothing more than Bruce’s autobiography put into 3:37. Tattooed Millionaire was received with mixed reviews from many Iron Maiden fans but I’ve loved this album since the day it was released. This song always hit me hard because it was Bruce being transparent. All of the sudden this godlike Heavy Metal icon was peeling back the wrapper only to show us that he was just a normal guy who grew up with struggles of being a kid just like many of us. It was this song that made me feel connected to Bruce in a way I never was and that connection lasts to this day.
======================================
Book of Thel – The Chemical Wedding
Much like with Maiden, with a lot of Bruce’s shit I find myself having to get myself educated. This song kicks so much fucking ass but what the fuck is The Book of Thel? I looked it up on Wikipedia like most people do when they don’t know shit and after reading about the actual Book of Thel I saw that it was credited that this song was Bruce’s own adaptation. Ok, Bruce is so fucking badass that he was like, “Move over ‘arry, I can do this too!” This song is beyond facemelting the lyrically it’s as strong as anything Maiden’s done. Let’s just honest here. Bruce Dickinson at times can match Maiden, lyric for lyric, hook for hook, and chorus for chorus. I wish more people would give his solo stuff more attention.
======================================
Arc of Space – Accident of Birth
“Arc of Space is concerned with those who look at aliens almost as a religion; wish fulfilment on a grand scale.” Bruce has always been a very cosmic kind of person especially when it comes to writing songs. His fascination with “the other side” of the cosmos and what not really comes through this song and the beauty of this song cuts me right to the bone. The amazing guitar playing of Roy Z, the emotive vocals of Bruce along with the cosmic elements of this song litearlly sweep me away every time. This is one of those songs that I just have to close my eyes and take in every time it comes on. It’s a truly special song without a doubt.
======================================
Inertia– Skunkworks
This is hands down one of my all-time favorite Bruce solo songs. Skunkworks was one of the last albums that I dove into after really exploring into this solo catalog but I quickly fell in love with this album. “Inertia” always had these lyrics that struck me but for some reason, I didn’t quite get what he was hitting one. When I watched the Bruce documentary Scream for Me, Sarajevo, I suddenly understood just what he was singing about. “These are the pictures, these are the feelings from the front line” basically documented his experience in Sarajevo during that horrible siege in the ‘90s. Proof once again the Bruce is such an amazing lyricist who is beyond observant.
======================================
R-101 – Skunkworks
According to Wikipedia, R-101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government program to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. I’m not quite sure what this has to do with this fucking fantastic song but it’s just an amazing song. This song appeared on the bonus disc of songs that didn’t make the Skunkworks album and it’s fucking brilliant. This is definitely showing Bruce’s Led Zeppelin influence and I also love that it shows yet another side of Bruce!
======================================
Machine Men – The Chemical Wedding
This is another favorite of mine from The Chemical Wedding. This is definitely an album that I found myself digging deeper and deeper into. The more I listened to this album, the more I found the lyrics to take a sort of double meaning. For instance, in this song, I can’t help but wonder if this song is somewhat of a reflection of his former bandmates in Iron Maiden:
Machine men, cannibals of rust
Machine men, iron bites the dust
They’re coming to sweep you all away
Iron, in the soul
Again, I could be reading too much into this song but this is a sign of a great song. A song that makes you think and that takes one whatever meaning or story you seem to be taking from it.
======================================
Tears of the Dragon – Balls to Picasso
Finally, here we are, the epic opus that started it all in my opinion. The first time I ever heard this song, I literally broke down in tears. When Bruce left the band, he obviously felt so creatively stifled but now he was free on his own, he expresses fear, sadness, and even optimism. Tears of the Dragon, much like “Machine Men” had these lyrics that I just couldn’t help but feel were directed towards Iron Maiden:
Where I was, I had wings that couldn’t fly
Where I was, I had tears I couldn’t cry
My emotions frozen in an icy lake
I couldn’t feel them until the ice began to break
Again, this could mean anything to anyone but knowing where he was coming from when leaving Iron Maiden, this song just felt like him exploding with emotion, passion, fear, and excitement of what was to come. Hands down one of the greatest metal songs ever written and one of my all time favorite Bruce songs.
About The Author
