Well, I thought that I’d talk about how a cover version of a song can make you appreciate the original more.
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I’m going to have to add a content warning before I go any further though. This article will discuss a slightly older song, a criticism of a grim part of US history, whose lyrics include (in a “This was what the bad guys thought…” context) dated/dehumanising language, as well as grim – but brief – verbal descriptions of war crimes (including sexual violence). Whilst I won’t directly quote these parts of the song here, I’ll be discussing the song’s themes, why I believe that the song has artistic merit and how my opinion of this song changed over time, in part due to a modern cover version of it.
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Anyway, this was something I ended up thinking about in early-mid November last year when I stumbled across First To Eleven’s cover version (warning – slow flashing lights, the stuff mentioned in the content warning earlier ) of Iron Maiden’s classic 1982 heavy metal song “Run To The Hills”.
Despite being an Iron Maiden fan for more than two decades, I always used to find it bizarre that – out of all of their many masterpieces – “Run To The Hills” is their most famous one. Not only was this because I preferred some of their other songs but also because I first heard this song during the early-mid 2000s.
Whilst I first heard Iron Maiden’s music on a computer game soundtrack – a moment which instantly turned me into a metalhead – the very first Iron Maiden CD I ever bought was, ironically, the 2002 charity single of this exact song. However, I was about thirteen at the time and I didn’t really have the intelligence or maturity to fully understand what the band were trying to do with this song. In my youthful ignorance, I mistook it for an “edgy for the sake of edgy” song and also worried about various lines from it getting stuck in my head if I listened to it on repeat too much.
The song is about US history, focusing on how European-Americans oppressed Native Americans. The song focuses on a historical conflict between these groups, with a heavy emphasis on how outnumbered/out-gunned the Native Americans were and on atrocities committed against them.
Whilst the song shifts perspective for a couple of chilling verses, in order to show the horrific and dehumanising mindset of the people inflicting these atrocities, the song – as a whole – empathises with the Native Americans.
In this regard, the song was probably slightly ahead of its time. It’s a lot closer to a modern interpretation of this part of US history than, for example, many of the “wild west” films which were released in the 1920s-70s.
In fact, to hammer this point home, the original music video for the song actually includes clips from these older films. It’s a cynical counterpoint to the “traditional” narrative about US history which was more common during the 20th century.
The song was released on Iron Maiden’s 1982 album “The Number Of The Beast” and it also has an interesting thematic connection to another song on the album called “Invaders” – which describes a brutal Viking raid on ancient Britain from the perspective of the Britons.
Both songs make a strong criticism of war and conquest, mostly because of the decision to focus heavily on the perspectives of people defending themselves against overwhelming aggression. They also both make the point that – in the context of war – the worst elements of human nature always inevitably emerge.
The band also wrote something of a follow-up to “Run To The Hills” on their 2021 album “Senjutsu”. The song “Lost In A Lost World” is a slightly more melancholy and slower-paced song, seemingly focused on the after-effects of everything described in “Run To The Hills”.
Anyway, First To Eleven’s cover version of “Run To The Hills” finally made the song “click” for me, in part because it was being covered by a US band. There was something to hearing this song about US history being sung in an American accent which made me think more about the historical themes of the song and suddenly “get” why the song is considered one of the band’s masterpieces.
And, listening to the original afterwards, I found that I could appreciate it a lot more than I could when I was a teenager.
This is one of the great things about cover versions. Because they are different to the original – because they might have a different emphasis, or a different style or even just be sung in a different voice – they can reveal things about the original song which you might have missed if you’ve only listened to the original version.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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