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in 1968, featured an anti-Vietnam war song called War Pigs. Like many songs of the era, War Pigs lambasts the military and political leadership, but unlike a lot of anti-war songs of the era, it does so accompanied by scorching power chords and begins with blaring air raid sirens. The band’s lead singer, Ozzie Osborne, pulls no punches, “Generals gathered in their masses/Just like witches at black masses/ Evil minds that plot destruction/Sorcerer of death's construction.” After describing ‘burning bodies’ and war ‘machines’, the band picks up the beat and criticizes the war’s uneven sacrifice, “Politicians hide themselves away/They only started the war/Why should they go out to fight?/They leave that to the poor.” Later the song goes on to imagine the generals and politicians bringing Armageddon to the world. In death, they ask for forgiveness, “Day of judgment, God is calling/On their knees, the war pigs crawling/Begging mercies for their sins/ Satan laughing, spreads his wings.” Sabbath would later delve into sword and sorcery, most notably through the song Neon Knights, from their 1980 album, Heaven and Hell, their first with new singer, Ronnie James Dio. Neon Knights begins with a love story interrupted by a cry of alarm. There follows three stanzas of quick paced lyrics, loaded with sword and sorcery references, a call to battle sung over a locomotive of power chords: Cry out to
legions of the brave Dio is also credited with pioneering the use of the ‘evil eye’, learned from his Sicilian grandmother, whereby one extends the pointer and pinky finger into the air, as a catch all symbol for Heavy Metal. The second great Heavy Metal band of the 1960s, Led Zeppelin, also hailed from northern England. But, rather than write protest songs, Zeppelin reached into England’s past for their inspiration. The Immigrant Song, from the band’s 1971 album, Led Zeppelin III, is sung from the point of view of a longboat full of Vikings, ‘We come from the land of the ice and snow/ From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow/Hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new land/ To fight the horde, sing and cry: Valhalla, I am coming!” And then the refrain, “On we sweep with threshing oar, our only goal will be the western shore,” a clear reference to the Viking raiding armies of the 8th and 9th centuries which landed on England’s coast. Zeppelin also sung about violent sword and sorcery. The Battle of Evermore, from the album Led Zeppelin IV, is accompanied not by an electric guitar but by a mandolin, giving it a medieval or renaissance feel. Like dozens of Zeppelin songs, the plain meaning in The Battle of Evermore is vague and open to interpretation. That said, the lyrics are packed with references to ‘tyrants’ and ‘dark lords’, and do seem to tell the tale of farmers dropping the plow and picking up the sword to fight a great battle at night, “Tired eyes on the sunrise/waiting for the eastern glow.” There are also unmistakable battle references: “Oh the war is common cry/Pick up you swords and fly/ The sky is filled with good and bad/That mortals never know.” In writing the song, lead singer Robert Plant borrowed heavily from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, singing, for example, “The drums will shake the castle wall, The ringwraiths ride in black.” The first line is lifted almost verbatim from Return of the King, while the second is a dragon riding demon which appears throughout Tolkien’s trilogy.
By 1980, a second wave of British Heavy Metal, led by Iron Maiden, was asserting itself. Formed in the mid 1970s, no band ever mixed martial glory and Heavy Metal like Iron Maiden. No band was ever quite so British either. Iron Maiden shows were (and are) packed with of imagery from Great Britain’s military past, from murals of the Crimean and the Great wars, to video montages of Winston Churchill and the British military during World War II. As such, the band wrote a trio of songs chronicling all three conflicts. The first song in the trio is 1983’s The Trooper. Written by bassist Steve Harris, The Trooper recounts the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, as commemorated in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous poem. “We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground/and the Russians fire another round/We get so near yet so far away/we won’t live to fight another day.” With an operatic style, Bruce Dickinson sings over a guitar duet evoking horse’s hooves pounding the ground. During live performances Dickenson dons a Victorian era redcoat and a white pith helmet, and waves a Union Jack over his head. The video for the song blends Iron Maiden performance footage with a silent movie production of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. Another classic Maiden war song,
Aces High, comes from their 1986 album, Power Slave.
Aces High is sung from the view of Spitfire pilot during the height
of the Battle of Britain. The band often opens its shows by playing
audio of Winston Churchill’s ‘Fight them on the Beaches’ speech
accompanied by montage footage of the British people, army, and the RAF.
When the Prime Minister says ‘we shall never surrender’ the footage
switches to nighttime anti-aircraft fire. The band begins to play, a
driving, heavy, rhythmic riff accompanied by a drum beat that reminds
one of anti-aircraft bursts. The first verse of Aces High
describes the beginning on an aerial battle; the scream of air raid
sirens, RAF pilots running to their spitfires. The second verse is about
aerial combat: “Move in to fire at the main stream of
Run Like The Trooper, Aces High does not glorify war. Instead it conveys the desperation of RAF pilots, the seemingly endless dog fights, and the impersonal and dehumanizing nature of aerial combat. The band’s 2003 album, Dance of Death, also features a war ballad, Paschendale. Once again the music sets the scene. This time, guitarist Dave Murray begins by tapping and pulling his fingers of the fret board, creating a gentle, though ominous, rain like sound. But, it doesn’t last. Guitars and drums combine to a make thunderous roar similar to that of a rolling artillery barrage approaching a trench. Like he does in when performing The Trooper, Dickinson dresses the part, donning a trench coat and World War One era helmet. He stands on a stage in front of a mural depicting the slaughter of the World War One battlefield. This time, Dickinson addresses the listener, inviting him to view the body of a young dead solider: “In a foreign field he lay/lonely soldier unknown grave/ on his dying words he prays/ tell the world of Paschendale.” After another stanza Dickinson switches to the point of view of the young solider, gruffly singing over a chorus of power chords: Laying low
in a blood filled trench After several more powerful stanzas and an orgy of guitar solos and power chords, the song returns to its beginning. The light fret playing returns, bringing back the sound of rain. There follows four simple, gentle stanzas to conclude the song, “See my spirit on the wind/Across the lines beyond the hill/Friend and foe will meet again/Those who died at Paschendale.” Along with their effort to chronicle Britain’s great battles, the band wrote songs about other conflicts. Maiden’s first important war song was Run to the Hills, off 1981’s The Number of the Beast, a song about the American Indian wars. Dickinson sings from both sides of the conflict. Run to the Hills begins from the Indian’s point of view: White Man
came In the second verse, Dickinson switches
to the U.S. Cavalry’s perspective: “Riding through dust clouds and
barren wastes/galloping hard on the plains/chasing the Redskins back to
their holes/ fighting them at their own game.” Like
One of Iron Maiden’s most stirring songs is These Colors Don’t Run, from their 2006 album A Matter of Life or Death. The album art is war related, with several skeletons clad in U.S. Army World War Two uniforms walking before, curiously, a Soviet T-72 tank. “These Colors Don’t Run” isn’t about British arms so much as it is about yeomanry, freemen fighting tyranny. In that sense, These Colors Don’t Run could be about any solider of democracy. The song conjures up images of the Union Jack, Canadian Red Ensign, Australian Southern Cross, or the Stars and Stripes flying in the wind. Dickinson sets the scene: It's the
same in every country when you say you're leaving After a bridge comes the triumphant, almost defiant refrain: “Far away from the land of our birth/ We fly our flag in some foreign earth/We sailed away like our fathers before/ These colours don't run from cold bloody war.” Helping to immortalize Maiden is their mascot, Eddie the Head. Eddie, as he is most often called, is a mummified skeleton, and has decorated the band’s album art from the beginning. Almost happy and jovial, he has been drawn in a Crimean War era redcoat complete with Union Jack and sword, a First World War soldier in full kit, and an RAF pilot in the cockpit. Eddie is all knowing and all powerful. The Number of the Beast album art shows him holding Lucifer’s decapitated head in the palm of his hand, a look of triumph and mischief graces his face. On The Trooper, Eddie charges toward the viewer, leaving broken cannons and shattered bodies in his wake. The Angel of Death looms in the background. Eddie repeats the scene for Paschendale cover art, wearing the kit of a World War One Era Tommy and charging straight ahead through a First World War moonscape. On Aces High, Eddie is shown at the helm of a Spitfire, teeth barred in determination, thumbs on the trigger, indifferent to the bullets that have riddled his cockpit. In the background, a smoldering German fighter corkscrews to the ground. During live performances a giant walking version of Eddie often appear on stage in various costumes. By the mid 1980’s, a new wave of
American bands burst onto the scene. These bands rejected some of the
slower tempos of early metal bands in favor of quick passed riffs and
called their genre Thrash Metal. In 1989, Metallica unleashed their
fourth album, And Justice For All. The fourth track, One,
is based on Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 antiwar novel, Johnny Got His Gone,
and tells the story of a First World War Doughboy who has lost his
eyesight, hearing, and all his limbs in battle. Like a lot of metal
songs, One begins deceptively gently, with simple guitar
playing, but this is eventually supplanted by power chords. ‘Now that
the war is through with me/I’m waking up I cannot see/That’s there’s not
much left of me/ Nothing is real but pain now,” followed by a brutal
Darkness The song is also important because it was the subject of Metallica’s first music video and features montage footage from the 1971 film of Trumbo’s book. Though more than seven minutes long, One saw major airtime on MTV, a considerable accomplishment for the band which, up until then, had been largely ignored by TV and radio. War metal is not the exclusive province
of America and Great Britain. Perhaps the most joyous war song ever was
written is For Those About to Rock, We Salute You, by the
Australian band, AC/DC. While not specifically about war, For Those
About to Rock is loaded with militaristic imagery and elusions. The
title is a play on the old Roman gladiator oath to the emperor, ‘We who
are about to die salute you.’ The song begins with simple finger picking
by lead guitarist Angus Young, followed by ominous, grave sounding power
chords played by his brother, rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young. The last
stanza captures the song’s militaristic feel: “We're just a battery for
hire with a guitar fire/ Ready and aimed at you/ Pick up your balls and
load up your cannon/ For a twenty-one gun salute.” Then front man Brian
For over four decades Metal bands have sung of the horrors of war, protested military conflict, extolled the virtues of military brotherhood, and recounted some of history’s greatest battles. In all rock and roll their musical style is the best means of doing so. It has even made appearances on the battlefield. Heavy Metal has been played by American soldiers as they rolled into battle, and blasted at the enemy as they hunkered down against American attacks. AC/DC, played at maximum volume, has been used to extract information from Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners, making Heavy Metal a tool of war. To contact the author: William Stroock | 10 Simonson Lane, Bridgewater, NJ 08807 | wtstroock@yahoo.com 
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By 
Ride
out, protectors of the realm
While
Led Zeppelin dabbled in Viking mythology, an American band, Man o’ War
embraced it without apology or irony churning out albums based on Norse
heroism. Their 2007 release, God’s of War, is a concept album
devoted to the exploits of the Norse God, Odin. God’s of War
depicts the band members in black leather pants and spikes, with swords
held high and surrounded by naked, willing women. The band members play
the part, donning leather and chains and maintaining bodies rivaling
Greek Olympians. The brotherhood of men – knights and warriors - has
always been a central theme in Man-o-War’s work, with album titles like
Sign of the Hammer (another Viking reference) and The
Triumph of Steel. Earlier work dealt not only with Vikings, but
with general medieval war. Their 1982 song, Battle Hymn,
portrays an army of freemen on a night march toward an epic battle
against an unidentified evil enemy. The words are sung to typical Heavy
Metal power chords and accompanied by a military style drumbeat. “By
moonlight we ride ten thousand side by side/With swords drawn held high
our whips and armour shine/Hail to thee our infantry still brave beyond
the grave/All sworn the eternal vow the time to strike is now.” The
refrain is simply the spoken word “kill...kill” or ‘victory...victory”
backed by choir like singing. 
bombers/Let
off a sharp burst and then turn away/rollover spin round and come in
behind them/move to their blindsides and firing again.” There follows a
bridge sung over quick guitar riffs simulating machine gun fire:
“Running. Scrambling. Flying/ Rolling. Turning. Diving/ Doing it Again!”
And then finally the refrain: 
The
Trooper, the video for Run to the Hills uses performance
and old movie footage, this time a silent movie, The Uncovered Wagon,
depicting a farcical Indian attack on a wagon train, only the wagons
have been replaced with early automobiles and the Indians are riding
bicycles.
chorus,
‘Hold my breath as I wait for death/Oh please god help me.” The song’s
bridge features rapid fire riffs which seem to stimulate machinegun fire
followed by angry lyrics in which the listener is invited to place
himself in the protagonist’s fate.
Johnson
wails, ‘For those about to Rock- Fire!’ a Napoleonic era cannon fires
and then the chorus chimes in “We salute you!” For decades AC/DC has
ended their lives shows with For Those About to Rock, and even
brings mock up cannons onto the stage which are loaded with boom and
smoke producing pyrotechnics.