What inspired Steve Harris to write Iron Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark”

One of the most famous Iron Maiden songs released in the 90s is certainly “Fear of The Dark” from the album of the same name released in 1992. Like most Iron Maiden songs, the lyrics were written by the founder, leader and bassist Steve Harris, who explained in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine back in 2019 the main inspiration for the song.

According to him, he used to live in a ultra-old Medieval house that actually dates back to 1400 and his kids were really afraid to stay alone in there.

What inspired Steve Harris to write Iron Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark”

“No (I was not afraid of the dark). I wrote it because I’ve lived for many years in an ultra-old Medieval house in the U.K. It isn’t a Medieval-style house; it actually dates back to the 1400s. My kids always used to say to me that the house could be a bit scary. I said, ‘Look, the scariest thing in this house is me.’ We used to joke about it.”

“But it’s a wood house and there were lots of creaks. If it were hot or cold, the wood would move and all the different nooks and crannies in the house would creak. People used to be a bit weird about it. It didn’t bother me because I was living there.”

He continued:

“But people’s imaginations run away from them. People like scaring the wits out of each other. So there’s an element of that in there. But it’s also about the house, since some people seemed to think there were ghosts there. Maybe there was,” Steve Harris said.

Although the song was one of the most famous ones from the album and the title track it wasn’t released as a single. The singles were: “Be Quick or Be Dead”, “From Here To Eternity” and “Wasting Love”.

At the time the band was formed by Steve Harris, Janick Gers, Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray and Nicko McBrain.