THE VIDEO Iron Maiden, "Wasted Years," Somewhere in Time, 1986, Capitol
SAMPLE LYRIC "Sooooh-oooooh-ooooh / under-sta-a-and / don't waste your time always searching for those was-ted years! / Face uh-uppp, make your sta-a-and / and re-a-lize you're living in the gol-den years!"
THE VERDICT Some people think this song is really cheesy, but you know me — I love me some inspirational metal. I have two reasons I wanted to talk about this video, but first, well, let's talk about the video. What happens here?
Well, the video for "Wasted Years" is a mix of stuff — remember that Somewhere in Time shows Eddie as sort of a badass futuristic space dude, so the entire video is framed with this sort of artwork of the video being played on screens in Eddie's space ship. But that's only at the very end. For most of the video, we just see footage of the band performing more or less for each other in a dark, empty space.
Unlike Iron Maiden's usual video staging — with, if not a real arena stage, then a fake one — here the boys are just hanging out, a la Tesla. They play the song sort of facing in toward each other, in a loose circle.
That's the least interesting part of the video though.
More interesting is all the nostalgic Iron Maiden stuff woven all through it. First, there are the old photos of the band. We see them posing in different parts of the world (Japan, Brazil, Poland), and lots of them — especially Dave Murray — wearing silly hats, making silly faces, silly poses, etc. There's even a sequence of photos of their crew members and management — it's a family affair here in this video.
Also in the mix is behind-the-scenes footage of the band, some of which appears to be a photo shoot, but more generally seeming to show their hobbies. We see them all playing soccer football. Weirdly, we don't see anything to do with Bruce Dickinson and planes, but we do see him practicing archery and fencing.
Another theme woven throughout this video is footage from Iron Maiden's other videos. They mix in brief clips of a bunch of stuff, most notably "Run to the Hills", "The Number of the Beast", "The Trooper", "2 Minutes to Midnight", and "Aces High."
There are also bits of live footage — some of this might be from other videos, but I mostly don't recognize it. In any event, it shows off their epic stage sets to very good effect. I think my favorite is a giant, mummified Eddie shooting sparks out of his eyes as part of the Powerslave sphinx Eddie stage set.
My very most favorite part of this video though is all the montages of Derek Riggs' artwork. These are so, so cool. You get to see the evolution of Eddie, from a Edvard Munch-inspired-looking wraith to a very stylized sort of skinless dude. I like that the montages go forward in time and sort of build up as they go, leading to a mega-montage that introduces Adrian Smith's solo. (Adrian, btw, wrote this song, but I love that despite this, Steve Harris sings along while he plays as he always does.) It's basically the Eddie from each of their singles, and to see them all together rules.
So okay, why did I want to talk about this song? Well, we'll do the deeper one first. Lately I have really been in an introspective, reflective mood. Though you can tell obviously from this blog I am big into nostalgia, lately I feel like for the first time in my life I am really looking to the future. Until recently, I feel like I've been one of those people who's always like, "oh, this was when things were cool or my life was good or whatever," and kind of going over things like that constantly.
But lately, I'm finding a shift in myself toward a more present-focused orientation. I feel like it's probably a really healthy thing.
So anyway, yeah, while I can't relate to the parts of this song that are about being on tour (which as metal bands are always having to remind us, is just soul-suckingly hard), lately I find I can really relate to the chorus. Is it cheesy? Yes. But does a little metal motivation ever hurt? No. I'm busting out Oprah-style bitches, living my best life!
The other reason I thought to do this song is because of something amazing that happened to me recently. I was out shopping for clothes, which I only buy used (that's a whole other long story).
Anyway, I was on the very last rack of t-shirts, hadn't really found much, just some stuff that was maybe okay for work, when suddenly, I found... an Iron Maiden 1982 "The Beast On Tour" t-shirt in mint vintage condition.
You guys, when I saw that thing, it was like, you know the parts in Requiem for a Dream when the people do drugs, and they do all those quick cuts of like different stuff happening, and their pupils going all big and whatnot? It was like that.
I mean this shirt is approximately a vintage size small (it just fits me, and I'm a pretty small girl), baseball-style tee with a tan body, camo-printed sleeves, and Eddie artwork on the front and back. The front has circular artwork of Eddie stabbing a Union Jack into a globe, and the Maiden logo. The back has the Maiden logo with circular art of Eddie leaning casually against the flag pole, and says "The Beast On Tour 1982." Nineteen-eighty-effing-two! This shirt is almost 30!
I had seen one other shirt like this with the camo sleeves, and it was framed and hanging on a wall in a vintage store. This one, on the other hand, was $36. I bought it immediamente, practically hyperventilating I was so excited.
To put this event in perspective, my fiance and I also bought wedding bands that day, and I'm calling people like "You're not going to believe what happened to me! I found an Iron Maiden tee from 1982!!"
I've worn it once, but I am probably going to have to mostly keep it on ice. Why? Well, because once we were home, I went online to look at similar shirts, and find out what they sell for. We couldn't find my exact one (Iron Maiden made a lot of tees back in the day), but it turns out similar ones sell for like $500 - $1,000. What?!!?
Now I know, like my mom always says, it's only worth that much if someone will actually pay you that much much for it, and I definitely don't intend to sell it, but still. I'm pretty sure it's easily the most valuable shirt in my collection, though I haven't taken the time to actually figure this out.
In any event, that got me on a big Maiden kick. And given that my other Maiden shirt is a 1987 "Somewhere on Tour" tee (which I bought at the Salvation Army in 2001 for 99 cents!), I wound up at this album. Talk about living in the golden years!