Bruce Dickinson is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, singers in the history of heavy metal. The frontman for Iron Maiden sat down with Eddie Trunk on the Eddie Trunk Podcast to talk about Senjutsu and all things Iron Maiden. During that interview, former Iron Maiden lead singer Paul Di’Anno got brought up. Eddie asked Bruce about what songs from the Di’Anno era of the band that he enjoys singing:

Yeah, there’s some stuff that I really like on those records. I love ‘Prodigal Son,’ it’s fantastic. If you want to see a Jethro Tull sort of influence on the early Maiden, that, and in particular ‘Killers,’ the track, and ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue.’

A couple of those songs aren’t a surprise, but to see that he enjoys ‘Prodigal Son’ is a bit of a surprise. Iron Maiden haven’t played that one live, ever! Check out the list of songs Iron Maiden has never played live here. They did do a tour of just music from their first four albums in the mid-2000’s, but that song didn’t make that cut.

What’s Bruce’s Favorite Song To Sing?

Trunk later asked Bruce the question I’m sure we all want to know the answer to. If you’ve been paying attention to Iron Maiden for awhile, you probably know the answer already. But the other songs he brought up might be more interesting for hardcore fans of the band.

One of the songs I really enjoyed doing – and in fact, because in lockdown, I was just trying to improve my Iron Maiden pinball score, and, of course, we’ve got some really cool tracks on the pinball machine, including ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ which we haven’t done for ages.

And I just love doing that song. The storytelling element of it is genius, and then the breakdown, the moody bit, then into ‘the curse it lives on in their eyes’ bit – oh, it gives me goosebumps just listening to it.

And I’m thinking, ‘Wow, we’re going to do that again one day, that’s just awesome.’ So stuff like that. I’d love to do one or two rarities, I’d love to do ‘The Prisoner’ again, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land,’ stuff like that. I like things that have a little bit of groove to them.

Of course it would be ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’! The whole band always brings that track up as one of their favorites to play, the last time we saw it was the Somewhere Back In Time World Tour, but that would be a killer tune for them to bust out on an upcoming tour. The one that should most excite fans is ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ though. The last time they played that track live was the Ed Hunter Tour when Bruce rejoined the band. They played it for a couple dates, and then dropped it from the setlist. Adrian Smith recently brought that song up as one he’d like to play live again.

Here’s hoping they can get both of them into the set for a future tour.

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Source: Eddie Trunk Podcast