What ho.... sed de ting!
Welcome to "not alot of people know that, part 5." Yes, you lot out there, ah you're so
lucky again! How can you be getting so lucky, my God! Flight of Icarus in those grubby
dirty by now horribly sticky little fingers and hands and grubby palms, and oh what else is
grubby, I don't know. Flight Of Icarus, I've Got The Fire! Wooo, I have right now thinking
about this, oh my goodness the memories for this, my very first exotic jaunt over to the
island of Jersey, followed by a swift little airplane ride 3000 kilometres due...east of
ah...well no, no, got that wrong, due west of Watford. My goodness, I go the wrong way
and get to bleedin Russia, it'd be all over. Yes, due west of Watford, 3000 odd bloody
miles -- forget this kilometre stuff, where do you think you are, bleedin France? No
thanks very much, I'm right here!
Anyway, Flight of Icarus, doo dee doo! Flight Of Icarus, my first single, released the 11th
of April 1983, chart position number eleven...da de de da! Didn't quite get to number ten,
did it? Anyway, my first record with the band...I starred in the video! Did you see that?
Did you see that handsome geezer with the blue chops? Wasn't half cold out there!
Anyway no! We did this...ah, fantastic! First trip to Jap... uh... from Jersey to Nassau to
do the album, we had five weeks rehearsal in Jersey....well, we had two weeks really
because ended up three weeks partying at the bar. My goodness, we had the only
24-hour bar on the island, and we ah...funnily enough we managed to cram 25 hours in a
day, hahaha! So there we are, fifteen days before we're supposed to leave....fifteen
days! We hadn't even written any...well, the boys had written some....but we really
hadn't rehearsed anything cause we was partying to much and having a good time, and
all that good stuff. So there you are, we get this....most of the song's written, get to
Jersey, boom!
Oh, by the way, when we first arrived in Jersey, the first place we went to was a place
called The Traveller's Rest. Dear Tony Wiggins our tour manager, he told us all about this
place because he checked it out before us. Said "here look, you've got to come in this
place before we go" and that's the first thing we did, got of the plane, picked the
suitcase up, "HILLO!" they said, "HOWWYOU!", "we're fine", "Ok you can come through".
So we go through, get in the cabs...off we go, Traveller's Rest. Stopped in the
Traveller's Rest. "You've gotta have a banana daquery" says Tony Wiggens. Well allright,
lets have a drop.. banana juice... we says, banana juice... it's a poof's drink! So, fair
enough, so there we are sitting at the bar, and there's five poofs sitting at the bar, us!
Hahaha! Drinking these daqueries. Hahaha, no! So, the first one goes down, we thought
"f'king great, nothing to it, lets have another one!" F'king second one goes down...
fifteen minutes later we're on our third banana daquery. Now, we're talking serious
alcohol here but you don't taste it because it's a frozen drink, it's bunged in a blender,
loads of ice, ton of banana liqueur, na...banana, lot of lichee, and lots of wizzing around
of varous parts, and you stick it in a glass and stuff it up with a straw. For about...three
of these as I said later, ...quarter of an hour goes by ... half an hour, we try to stand up
and leave. I mean, it was like, you know, "Gaaaahh, where we goin?" Ah, we were gone!
We, we, we spent many a night down in that place, but only after an hour...we did have
a party after we actually recorded Flight of Icarus... we went down to the pub and ah,
tried to get it and gave up. The next day it weren't happening, but we went after we
celebrated... we went out and celebrated the first single being recorded.
But just before we did this, recorded the song. Steve said to me, he said, "don't you
think we ought to speed it up a bit?" I said, "Yeah, I think it should be a bit faster." And
Dave and H....um, Bruce and H, sorry, had written this song. And they were like very
adamant about the tempo of this thing, they didn't want it sort of speeding up or
anything like this. So 'Arry said "play it a bit faster." I said "yes, I'll nuts it up, don't
worry" So we get in the studio and rehearsed it, we done it once or twice and it was,
you know, happening. But not so...f'king hell, I'll boost it up a tad... I'll pump it... you
know. So I'm out there, "boom do do da do do doom do do da! do do doom..." you know,
allright we go... hah! and ah Bruce, Dave and H going "aah Nick, what you.. f'king...
what'd you doing?" You know, I said "Nothing!", and I thought to myself, "Ah there we
go, the new boy in the band, and they think he's only been in the band f'king two
months and he's speeding everything up, you know." Anyway, as it turned out, it's great,
wasn't it? It was really a good song.
So, they asked me to do the video. So out we are, and they said, "look do you want to
do the video? You can be the old man in it." I said, "Old man? Look here, look here who
do you think you're talking to... old man! Give us a break!" They said, "well you are,
aren't ya." F'king cheek! Swift kick up the jackseat for that! ah boof! That gave them
one right up the bum, didn't it? So there I am, I'm out there, they said...I said, allright I'll
do the video. And they said, yeah but ahhh.....we gotta blue your chops. I said "what?"
They said, "we gotta put blue makeup on your face." I said, "you can piss off! I ain't
having none of that!" They said, "You f'king will, if you wanna star in the video!" Neeah!
So there! You wanna do it or not? I thought, "well....f'king 'ell, I am the new boy, and I
should do it really, it'll be a bit fun." And it was, it turned out to be the most amazing...
fun... I tell ya, we really had a good time. Couple of dodgy moments when I was standing
on the edge of this little cliff looking down at the...or looking out to the ocean. The wind
was blowing, no the wind. I mean, I was (farting noise) as well, certainly, but
nevertheless. It was... I was crying a lot of that, sixty... fifty... sixty feet down to the
ocean! F'king great big waves rolling in there, I mean I only needed to fall over and that
was it! Goodbye, no f'king Icky to help me out with the wings....c'mon dad, watch this!
Anyway, that leads me on to I've Got The Fire, which is on the b-side as you know, of
Flight Of Icarus. Now, for you boys and girls out there who've been paying attention and
doing your homework, and buying the first, second, third, and fourth box set of the new
singles, et cetera, or the old new singles. I've Got The Fire was recorded on the very
very first Maiden single which was Running Free, now we've already talked about that.
But the boys decided to do it. Steve said, "I'd like to have the penultimate... or not the
penultimate, the definive... de... DEFINITIVE version of this, studio version wise, lets do
it again." So that's why we bunged that one on the Icarus single.
Now moving on slowly but surely to The Trooper. Now that's a great old.... oh man,
that's a song to play, man! (hums and drums in the background).... All that, yeah! Gosh!
Bringing back some.... I wanna go out and do it. Based on a charge of the light brigade!
Watch out! My goodness, woah, never has there been so many to fight so few! Or
whatever, I don't know, that was Winnie, the wrong one. Aces High, that's coming up
next kids. Yeah, well that's you know, in the next box set if you go out and buy it, you'll
hear it on the next "Nicko's uuh, you didn't know... you know not a lot of people knew
that..." Right? Number six I guess it'll be then. But anyway, yeah, oh I remember.... in....
what was it? What was it? Into the valley of death rode the however many it was, that
was what I was trying to think of and I got the Winnie quote down the wrong way.
Nevertheless! Yes, great song.
Cross-eyed Mary. Ian Anderson wrote this song, Jethro Tull played it. We recorded it...
the b-side. Did I tell you it was released the 28th of June 1983? Chart position 12? Well if
I told you that once already, f'king too bad! So what! Nyah! See. Had to get that one in.
And as a matter of fact, the Cross-eyed Mary received.... gosh, I mean, ultimates
ultimates lots of loads of and indies and outsies of U.S. airplay, I tell ya, this was one of
the biggest... THE song to be played the most on U.S. airplay from Iron Maiden. Ain't
that funny. It's the best one that they ever played. Well I guess their answer would say
that's f'king life, innit.
Oh by the way, just before I sign off... because I've gotta go now... you know, there's a
beer waiting for me down the road in the bar. So I thought I'd better go in and have
myself a little liquid libation, being I'm half way throught these little box sets here. Did
you hear the one about the queer shepherd? No? Well, he kept mounting goats!
Hahahahahaha! It's stupid, innit? I love it though... oh gosh! Ok, take care of yourselves,
see you later allright? Bye