Saturday, September 27, 2008

Daily Dose of Doom - 2 Minutes To Midnight

If ever there was a band unfairly blacklisted that succeeded in spite of the odds, it's Iron Maiden. Branded as satanists in the U.S. music press due to their public discussion of underworld topics near and dear to the ruling elites, they nonetheless made the Guiness Book of World Records in the mid 1980s for having the largest stage and sound system. Not bad for pissing off the Patricians, eh?

Students of conspiracy lore should then be tickled pink by all the clues sprinkled by Bruce Dickinson and the Boys in their classic 1984 video for "2 Minutes To Midnight." Note the special appearances of the Eye of Horus, the Goat of Mendes, missile/obelisk phallic symbolism and the interesting juxtaposition of obvious aristocratic settings with blatant occultism and malfeasance - just like in real life:



Given that in the time since this video was made the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union collapsed, Hitler's programs of extermination have been extended to the semitic peoples of the Middle East by the erstwhile Allied Powers and China is nearly the world's pre-eminent industrial colossus, what's scary is how easily this video could have been made today. To wit:

  • Never believe anything until it is officially denied
  • Gorbachev's remarks about letting the Americans fall asleep seem oddly prescient
  • Even recent allies can turn on each other
  • The arts of war have always had a tight relationship with the occult arts


It seems to me that the working class prophets in Iron Maiden nailed things a little too close to the bone for somebody's comfort. Read these lyrics then tell me they don't apply to today's turmoil:


Kill for gain or shoot to maim
But we don't need a reason
The golden goose is on the loose
And never out of season
Some blackened pride still burns inside
This shell of bloody treason
Here's my gun for a barrel of fun
For the love of living death.

CHORUS:
The killer's breed or the demon's seed,
The glamour, the fortune, the pain,
Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain,
But don't you pray for my soul anymore.
2 minutes to midnight
The hands that threaten doom.
2 minutes to midnight
To kill the unborn in the womb.

The blind men shout let the creatures out
We'll show the unbelievers
The napalm screams of human flames
Of a prime time Belsen feast...yeah!
As the reasons for the carnage cut their meat and lick the gravy,
We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies.

CHORUS

The body bags and little rags of children torn in two
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you.
As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song,
To the tune of starving millions to make a better kind of gun.

CHORUS

Midnight...all night.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome post. I'm looking forward to Dickinson's movie Chemical Wedding. Have you heard of it?

A. Magnus Publius said...

I've heard the name but I haven't looked into it yet. I do need to check it out when it gets released.

Anonymous said...

Up the irons!

Will have to check out that movie ;p.