Earlier today, IRON MAIDEN revealed their brand-new track, “The Writing On The Wall,” with an eagerly anticipated global YouTube video premiere. The song was written by Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson, produced by Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Steve Harris.
“The Writing On The Wall” marks band’s first music since their 2015’s album The Book Of Souls.
“The Writing On The Wall” lyrics:
Across a painted desert lies a train of vagabonds
All that’s left of what we were it’s what we have become
Once our empires glorious but now the empire’s gone
The dead gave us the time to live and now our time is done
Now we are victorious we’ve become our slaves
A land of hope and glory building graveyards for the brave
Have you seen the writing on the wall
Have you seen that writing
Can you see the riders on the storm
Can you see them riding ~ can you see them riding
Holding on to jury is that all we ever know
Ignorance our judge and jury all we’ve got to show
From Hollywood to Babylon ~ holy war to kingdom come
On a trail of dust and ashes ~ when the burning sky is done
A tide of change is coming and that is what you fear
The earthquake is a coming but you don’t want to hear
You’re just too blind to see
Have you seen the writing on the wall
Have you seen that writing
Can you see the riders on the storm
Can you see them riding
Can you see them riding. . . Riding next to you
Bruce Dickinson initially had a concept for the video which came to fruition in collaboration with two Award-winning former Pixar executives and long-standing MAIDEN fans Mark Andrews and Andrew Gordon. With partners lining up to get involved with the project they chose BlinkInk, a London based animation studio.
In BlinkInk director Nicos Livesey, another long-time MAIDEN fan and kindred spirit, they found a man who shared the collective vision for the track — resulting in the final film which features the very first glimpse of a stunning new incarnation of Eddie.
Bruce comments: “I had a pretty clear idea of the concept to accompany the song and when I met Mark and Andrew, on Zoom, it quickly became clear we were all very much on the same wavelength, and this was reinforced with the addition of Nicos and his young BlinkInk team. Our weekly team Zoom meetings were then usually both highly creative and a lot of fun!
“I’m very proud of the way the video turned out, it’s more like a mini-film really. I knew it was going to work out as soon as Mark brought my treatment to life with his incredible storyboards — I thought we could make something very special together. I think we did and hope our fans will agree. In fact it it’s pretty much created by MAIDEN fans!!”
Director, Nicos Livesey takes up the story: “We quickly found the expertise we wanted, and people were literally throwing themselves at me to work on a MAIDEN video — we had more than 60 people in 13 countries from Brazil to France, & Romania to the USA to add something to the clip and I’d say their love, passion and understanding of the band shines through every frame.”
