Judas Priest Lyrics!
Bonus:Iron Maiden's "Dance of Death" Retroactive Review!
Judas Priest is one of my favorite bands. There music is catchy, diversified, sometimes heavy and almost always fun. Like most bands that have been around for as long as they have been the music is not as great as it once was but there
is still the occassional gem of a song. A few years ago their vocalist Rob Halford left the band and they hired replacement singer Tim "Ripper" Owens who sounded almost
just like him. The replacement singer quit or was fired (I don't know which)
and Rob Halford has rejoined the band and now we await a new album from the
reunited Judas Priest. Will it be any good? Who cares! We are here to make fun
of Judas Priests lyrical content!The first time Rob Halford was in the band he was keeping his sexuality a secret least he scare off Priest fans that might be homophobic. The picture below depicts his effort to do this.
Anyway a few years ago Halford made it public that he was gay. During his first tenure with Priest he wrote the lyrics and has since then even admitted that many of them were about his sexuality. The famous lyric from their song "Rapid Fire" takes on new meaning with this knowledge in mind.
"Punding the world like a battering ram
Forging the furnace for the final grand slam"
At first glance they are "cool" metal lyrics but knowing Halford wrote them makes one want to question what they are really about. I am scared. There are many other Priests songs with questionable lyrics such as these. Let me take this oppurtunity to say when I say "questionable" I am not saying there is anything wrong with the lyrics. I am aware that Rob Halford is a homosexual and I have nothing but the utmost respect for this man. He can sing better than I will ever be able to but I think the potential hidden messages in these lyrics are fun! When I say "questionable" I mean that the lyrics here may not mean what they appear to mean. Lets take a look at another set of lyrics from "Touch of Evil".
"In the night
Come to me
You know I want your touch of evil"
The first time I heard "Touch of Evil" I thought it was a really cool song and I still hold that opinion but at first I just thought it was about an "evil force" or something. Now I am of the opinion that is some sort of sexual metal love song and it is even cooler for it. Halfords lyrics may have been a little misleading but he was easily the best person to write their lyrics. Sometimes he could write some cheese ball metal lyrics such as these from "Metal Meltdown".
"Here comes the metal meltdown
Run for your lives
Here comes the metal meltdown
No one survives!"
Nonetheless when he left the band the band suffered heavily in the lyrical department. The guitarists Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing then wrote the lyrics for the replacement singer Tim Owens and quite frankly Halfords lyrics shows them to be chumps in this department. Check these terrible lyrics from "Death Row".
"Oh! No! - I won't go
You'll never get me down to
Death row
Say a prayer, best beware
It's not very nice in the electric chair"
Check out JP's two albums with Tim Owens (Jugulator and Demolition) for more cheese like that.For what its worth I thought Owens was a great vocalist Now we await Judas Priests new record with Halford once again at the helm. I look forward to the lyrics!
Iron Maiden's "Dance of Death" retroactive review.
Sigh. I've been putting this off for a while because I hate to say one thing and then say another. Back in September I reviewed Maiden's latest disc. I was not nice to it. As it turns out I quite like Iron Maiden's "Dance Of Death" CD. Upon the first couple of listens I WAS quite underwhelmed but this CD is a weird one. It leeches on to you. Songs you thought sucked at first ("Gates Of Tomorrow", "Age Of Innocence")actually become more interesting the more you listen to them. The CD blossoms the more you listen to it. It's not a "grower", it blossoms. Check it out if you still love Maiden. I have learned a valuable lesson for anything else to choose to review in the future. Let it sink in first.
