Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Iron Maiden) Stephen, Percy, Harris
The Charge of the Light Brigade 1854 The Trooper 1983
Half a league, half a league, You'll take my life but I'll take yours too
Half a league onward, You'll fire your musket but I'll run you through
All in the valley of Death So when you're waiting for the next attack
Rode the six hundred. You'd better stand there's no turning back
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said. The bugle sounds as the charge begins
Into the valley of Death But on this battlefield no one wins
Rode the six hundred. The smell of acrid smoke and horses breath
As you plunge into a certain death
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed? Oh oh oh
Not though the soldier knew Oh oh oh
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply, The horse he sweats with fear we break to run
Theirs not to reason why, The mighty roar of the Russian guns
Theirs but to do and die. And as we race towards human wall
Into the valley of Death The screams of pain as my comrades fall
Rode the six hundred.
We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground
Cannon to right of them, And as the Russians fire another round
Cannon to left of them, We get so near yet so far away
Cannon in front of them We won't live to fight another day
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell, Oh oh oh
Boldly they rode and well, Oh oh oh
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell We get so close near enough to fight
Rode the six hundred. When a Russian gets me in his sights
He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow
Flashed all their sabres bare, A burst of rounds takes my horse below
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there, And as I lay there gazing at the sky
Charging an army, while My body's numb and my throat is dry
All the world wondered. And as I lay forgotten and alone
Plunged in the battery-smoke Without a tear I draw my parting groan
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian Oh oh oh
Reeled from the sabre stroke Oh oh oh
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
Inspired by the charge of the Light Brigade
When can their glory fade? at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854,
O the wild charge they made! which took place during the 1853 - 1856 Crimean War
All the world wondered. Lord Tennyson's 1854 poem
Honour the charge they made! 'Charge of the Light Brigade' inspired
Honour the Light Brigade, Iron Maiden's classic 1983 song 'The Trooper.
Noble six hundred! Below is a link to a reworked 2008 cover by Hellsongs.
Hellsongs kept Iron Maiden's lyrics unchanged, the chord structure is still there too, but they've clearly transformed the song by putting their own melancholic stamp on Iron Maidens song of rage. 154 years after the charge of the Light Brigade, The Trooper still echoes Lord Tennyson's patriotic ode to the fallen cavalry heroes.
The Elementary Penguins own song 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' 2017
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Richard Caton Woodville Jr., oil on canvas, 1894.
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Richard Caton Woodville Jr., oil on canvas, 1894.
https://soundcloud.com/hellsongsofficial/sets/hymns-in-the-key-of-666-1
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade
Hello Russel,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog very different in a good way. The stance you took on nothing being original and how artist steal from events and even each other, showed well. Especially with the Trooper by Iron Maiden since everyone seems to know that song without listen to metal. It proves that the author doesn’t matter since they stole the idea from Lord Tennyson’s 1854 poem and the actual battle. Do you think that knowing the Trooper is a stolen idea lessen the impact of the song?
Reading blog posts, yours took an interesting and unexpected direction. I had not considered that music is another form of literature, but lyrics are penned by an author, so to speak. I feel you excellently showed how the song was inspired or even stolen from an older poem. Is it your opinion that all music is stolen from somewhere else, or that it isn't original?
ReplyDeleteRachel ... We know from our proper art history lessons that painters have been inspired by stories. In their own way musicians such as Prokofiev, Wagner and Mozart have made symphonies and operas based on stories too. I wish more contemporary musicians would do the same. I only shared the lyrics because they have been written in such a way as to be comparable to a poem or story and although Iron Maiden's music is a bit OTT for me I can't help but admire Steve Harris' penmanship. TBH I think his lyrics are better without the music, but hey ho I guess that since the fall of Rome it's probably been a bit hard to fill a stadium by reading poetry alone. Gotta somehow find a way to get the paying punters through the door you know. Charlotte ... As for stealing, I'd call it inspired as music has been studied so well, possibly more so than the visual arts, by scientists who can mathematically follow the changes in similarities between songs over the years through comparing similar patterns in chord structures, tempo etc. as musical tastes and fads morph from one genre to another. It's a little bit like Darwinism where music evolves and is therefore all related to one another, but as time passes the genres get ever more distinct till they form separate categories. Jazz and thrash metal can both be traced back to the same early African American plantation songs and they also share the same links to European mediaeval Gregorian chants. We humans are different from cats and dogs, but science can still follow our ancestral roots back far enough into the dim distant past where we're all related to the same original bacterial ball of ooze that first inhabited the oceans. We might at first glance seem to be different but we're all related somehow.
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