The meaning of "Dance of Death"
However, that being said, I do think there is an overarching theme to “Dance of Death,” albeit not one that applies to every song on the album: it’s socially-conscious. Of all the songs on this album, only three of them (“Wildest Dreams,” “No More Lies,” and “Dance of Death”) seem to have no obvious relevance to social issues or the call for a better world. All the rest of them pertain to social issues or social commentary in some way, whether this is immediately obvious or not. It’s certainly true that a good chunk of Iron Maiden’s albums have some socially-conscious songs or protest songs, but most of them don’t have quite so many, and the ones they do have are less likely to be presented this way in no uncertain terms. “A Matter of Life and Death,” for example, has a lot of songs about war and religion, but the number that are obviously making a social point is smaller. As a bonus, if my CD copy is to be believed some portion of the proceeds from the album are supposed to go toward rebuilding forests-or at least, that was true when the album was first released (I own a used copy).
Let’s examine the songs on the album. First of all, it’s lousy with protest songs: “Gates of Tomorrow,” about trying to find the truth in a web of lies (such as on the Internet); “New Frontier,” about the dangers of taking genetic engineering to extremes; “Face in the Sand,” about the Iraq War; and “Age of Innocence,” about rising crime rates. “Rainmaker,” the second song on the album, is basically an entreaty to make the world a better place, to learn from your mistakes and strive to heal things (“You tell me we can start the rain/You tell me that we all can change/You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away”). It would fit right into my book of folktales promoting peace.
“Montsegur” and “Paschendale” seem like still more tales of horrible things that happened in the past, the sort of thing Maiden have always done; but if you look closely, they’re protest songs too, of a different color. Both of them seem to cover ground that Maiden have trodden before, so it’s even possible to do a direct comparison. “Montsegur,” for its part, appears to be thematically related to “Sign of the Cross,” a song I haven’t ever actually listened to. However, from what I know of the latter’s lyrics, it seems to be kind of a Spanish Inquisition-style “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” with the narrator initially scared of his death, but eventually deciding he’s got nothing to fear because God will recognize that he is innocent and punish his murderers instead. Montsegur works rather differently-one of the major recurring points it makes is how we’re “Still burning heretics under our skies/Religion’s still burning inside.” In other words, the song is at least part cautionary tale about how history repeats itself, something which Bruce Dickinson has even confirmed explicitly. Certainly, the slaughter of the Cathars by the Catholic majority was not the last time someone was burned at the stake for going against the Catholic church, and likely wasn’t the first either.
Then there’s “Paschendale.” Unlike in “Montsegur’s” case, this song appears to be echoing other songs I actually have heard before, such as “The Trooper.” However, once again, “Paschendale” makes a stronger and more obvious anti-war point than “The Trooper” does. While “The Trooper” inserts the listener into the head of a soldier in the Charge of the Light Brigade and just goes, “Paschendale” has a slow, subdued opening where it introduces you to the soldier we’ll be following for the rest of the song, who is attempting to communicate what he went through from beyond the grave in order to ensure that nothing so terrible happens again (“Rust your bullets with his tears/Let me tell you ‘bout his years”). The entire point of the song, thus, is not merely to convey what happened in the war and be vaguely sad, but to make the point that this is something that cannot and should not be allowed to happen again-except when it did.
Then there’s “Journeyman,” a soothing song to close out the album. The song itself seems to be promoting the idea of living your life on your own terms and not wasting it, or sitting around waiting for death. It comes across as some sort of spiritual journey, which might one day help the narrator become a better person. Some of the people on Songmeanings.com have pointed out that this album was produced at a time when pretty much all the western world was mad for war, and so having this song last has the effect of calming people down in the hope that cooler heads can prevail.
So what does this all add up to? Well, to me at least, what you have with this album is a collection of about eight socially-conscious songs, with a few more sprinkled in for flavor. Two of those songs (“Montsegur” and “Paschendale”) are exposes on how ugly things can get when people allow their ignorance and hatred to blind them and lead them to fight; two of them (“Gates of Tomorrow” and “New Frontier”) are warning of the dangers of allowing science and technology to get the best of us (the internet in the former case and genetic engineering in the latter); two of them (“Face in the Sand” and “Age of Innocence”) are commentaries on real, tangible problems that were afflicting the world at the time the album came out; and two of them (“Rainmaker” and “Journeyman”) are appeals to the better nature of humanity to do the right thing and help the world become a better place.
Iron Maiden, everyone!!