Iron Maiden – The Trooper

The Trooper Video, 1983 from the Album Piece of Mind. The Trooper” is a song written by Iron Maiden bass player Steve Harris.

The song is about the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War, and is at least partially based upon Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, taking the viewpoint of one of the slain troopers, who, in the coverart, is perceived as a bald Eddie. It is known for the galloping triplet sound of its bass and electric guitar, as well as its catchy and memorable riff, and is a crowd favourite at concerts.

It is ranked #24 in Martin Popoff book “The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time”. Popoff put together this book by requesting thousands of metal fans, musicians, and journalists to send in their favourite heavy metal songs. Almost 18,000 individual votes were tallied and entered into a database from which the final rankings were derived.

The music video features clips of the charge from the 1936 film The Charge of the Light Brigade, which was controversial due to the deaths of 200 horses and an actor during filming. On the Visions of the Beast DVD, a newer version of the video replaces the film footage with Flash animation by Camp Chaos. In the animation, Eddie – dressed in 19th Century British uniform and wielding two sabers – battles multiple caricatures of George W. Bush, Al Gore and Tipper Gore in a parody of the 2000 US presidential election. At one point, Tipper Gore paints ‘RATED X’ on a cannonball; this is a mocking reference to Tipper’s involvement in the Parents Music Resource Center which successfully attempted to add warning labels to various records – many of them heavy metal – that they deemed inappropriate.

Duration : 0:4:32

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