Talk:The Number of the Beast (song)

Since the early days suffix

It had originally said that Bruce Dickinson has not been able to re-create the pitch of the scream in the song live. It has since been changed to say that the scream has not been re-created at that pitch live since the early days. I disagree - listen to any of the recordings of the song played live in the early days, and even then the pitch is not hit - including 'Live after Death' and 'Beast over Hammersmith'. Can we get rid of the "since the early days" suffix? - GurTheFred 17:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC).

It has the same meaning. With or without the "since the early days" suffix the sentence still has the same meaning. BTW, next time use the "+" tab to start a new discussion and not the "Edit this page" tab. — Prodigenous Zee - 02:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the mythical stories you hear about Iron Maiden are really just tid-bits and exagerations generated for publicity. It is a well known fact in recording circles that Bruce Dickinson's voice was sped up occasionally on record for effect. It's a common practice in the recording industry and there's no shame involved. Maiden however are not one to admit to studio trickery. Remember Tommorrow is a good example of the band's secrecy on the issue. To this day Smallwood doesn't officially admit that Bruce sang to Di'Anno's live version. It's only the hardcore fans that noticed the simliarities between both versions and came to the conclusion.

If you listen to Bruce sing live there are tons of notes that he doesn't recreate outside of the studio. I don't think this diminishes his status as one hell of a vocalist, but you gotta be realistic about it. As good as he is he's not as good as on record.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.116.181.3 (talk • contribs) 12:18, 9 December 2006.

The problem with the above is the same problem with interesting little facts scattered all around Wikipedia's articles on songs and bands of the last 75 years - nobody cites sources as they're supposed to. Whoever can cite a good source on Bruce's pitch is going to be the person who "wins" the debate. Tempshill (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

And I'm not citing a source but I think he hits nearly that high of a pitch at the end of "Aces High". Tempshill (talk) 19:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If you search and listen to You Tube video clips of the Number of the beast live from this tour you will see infact that Bruce could hit the earlier day notes very well while playing live. When you sing at that level one or two tours is about all your voice will get. By the Live After Death tour Bruces voice was already on the downward slope in some ways. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.83.71.166 (talk) 08:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge

So, is this still going to be merged into the regular The Number of the Beast (song) article? I think it should be, since it's the same song, and just different versions of the single. Look at The Trooper, there it works too. Tokus 09:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I would agree. It does look a little lonely by itself. --DrBob 12:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. A re-release of a song (even a great song) doesn't really need a separate article of its own (featuring much of the images etc.) --Legis (talk - contributions) 18:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Video

Personally I'd like it a lot if someone can cite a source for the cost of the unfortunate video for this song. Tempshill (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Notb.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned references in The Number of the Beast (song)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Number of the Beast (song)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "IRL":

• From The Number of the Beast (album): "Search the charts". The Irish Charts. IRMA. Retrieved 3 October 2008.
• From The Final Frontier: "Top 100 Artist Albums". IRMA. 3 September 2010. Retrieved 3 September 2010.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 13:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Woe to you

The spoken introduction takes the first 25 seconds of the song in the album.

The Number of the Beast – Introduction

Woe to you, Oh earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short ...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty six.

– Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast

At first glance it seems that the introduction of the song was copied from the Revelation 12:12 and 13:18, mostly based on Revised Standard Version or its Catholic Edition. A closer look reveals that it is not so simple. There are exceptions. Most notable of them is the wording "the Devil sends the beast with wrath", which does not appear in Rev. 12:12 in any Bible translation. It may refer to Rev. 13:1–10, although without asking from Steve Harris one cannot be certain about that. The other and smaller exceptions are: (1) a removed word "that", which could be based on Contemporary English Version or New International Reader's Version, making the speech slightly shorter, (2) one "his" replaced by "the", which seems to be made by Iron Maiden (ie. probably Harris) and (3) one "has" replaced by "hath", which makes the text look older, such as in King James Version. There were small differences in punctuation, but I did not see them worth of any analysis, because one cannot hear them sung. –Nikolas Ojala (talk) 22:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Since December 2013 no one has questioned the accuracy of my analysis, and righteously so, because I studied what I wrote then. —Nikolas Ojala (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Though it is not an exact quote, I think the article text should be switched to reflect that it was a modified quote of Revelation 12:12 and 13:18. Also, a foot note linking to an online bible might be beneficial (like this).

Apologies for my tardiness to the discussion, but I just wanted to make a couple of points. Firstly, the album liner notes do not mention 12:12, they state that the quote only comes from 13:18. To state that 12:12 is quoted (which it obviously is), we need a reliable source- I've found many (such as http://www.nme.com/news/iron-maiden/61182) which I suspect have just been copied from Wikipedia, but I did find this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gilmour/iron-maiden-book-of-revelation_b_1141164.html, which appears to have been written by a professor of biblical literature so would be a good source to use.

In regards to the "the Devil sends the beast with wrath" line, it is most likely modified from 12:12. I don't have many versions to look at, but all variations I can find refer to the Devil himself going/coming down ("the devil has come down to you with great wrath"/ "the Devil has come down to you in great fury"/ "the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury"), rather than sending the beast. Not being a biblical scholar, I cannot affirm whether this is a modification (just to increase references to "the beast" to fit the song title) or if it appears in an edition which I cannot find. I suspect the former is correct given ch.13's reference to two separate beasts ("A beast out of the sea" and "A beast out of the earth"), the last of which is given the number six hundred and sixty-six. Nevertheless, without a reliable source stating that the line was modified (although the Huffington Post article to which I linked earlier does contain the original version), we cannot state that it is an alteration as this would violate Wikipedia's No original research policy.--Nerdtrap (talk) 14:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I have not filled my book shelves with English translations of The Holy Bible. Instead I used online sources, especially http://www.biblegateway.com. You may find the relevant texts (Revelation 12:12 and Revelation 13:18) there easily. See also Revelation 13:1–10. ——Nikolas Ojala (talk) 23:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I am trying to make this case as clear as possible, so although this could not be written in the article due to the no original research rule, everyone who reads this will agree with me about the fact.

The Number of the Beast – Introduction, 1st line

Woe to you, Oh earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short ...

– Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast

The Book of Revelation, 12:12

But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!

– BibleGateway, Book of Revelation, Revised Standard Version

Now, simply look at those two excerpts. ––Nikolas Ojala (talk) 04:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

References