Founder and leader of the legendary Iron Maiden, the bassist Steve Harris is considered to be on the the best Heavy Metal musicians of all time. And now, you have to chance to hear his amazing isolated bass track on the band’s classic “2 Minutes to Midnight”.
Check it out:
The song
“2 Minutes to Midnight” is a song by Iron Maiden, featured on their fifth studio album, Powerslave (1984). It was released as the band’s tenth single, and first from the album on 6 August 1984. It rose to number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and number 25 on Billboard Top Album Tracks. The band’s first single to exceed five minutes in length, it remained their longest until the release of “Infinite Dreams” in November 1989.
A protest song about nuclear war, “2 Minutes to Midnight” was written by Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson.
The song title references the Doomsday Clock, the symbolic clock used by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which represents a countdown to potential global catastrophe. In September 1953 the clock reached two minutes to midnight, the closest it ever got to midnight, when the United States and Soviet Union tested H-bombs within nine months of one another.
The atomic clock, set at 12 minutes to midnight in 1972, regressed thereafter among US–Soviet tensions, reaching three minutes to midnight in 1984 – the year this track was released – and at that time the most dangerous clock reading since 1953. According to Dickinson, the song critically addresses “the romance of war” in general rather than the Cold War in particular. Currently, in the year 2019, the clock reads 2 minutes to midnight.
The band formation at the time:
- Bruce Dickinson – lead vocals
- Dave Murray – guitar
- Adrian Smith – guitar
- Steve Harris – bass guitar
- Nicko McBrain – drums
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