Iron Maiden has created so many great songs over 40 years they have been around. Run to the Hills, Wasted Years, The Trooper, Aces High, etc. One of my favorite songs from them was Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner was released in 1984. It is over 13 minutes long. I loved everything about the song. The music and lyrics were great. If you haven’t head it, hear it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7zk4as9kzA
Iron Maiden has written some great songs and I had this was one of their most impressive. Little did I realize until an English Literature class my junior year in college that Rime of the Ancient Mariner was actually a poem written in 1797-98 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I know some of you are probably wondering how I didn’t know that. Remember, we couldn’t just “Google” things back in the 80's. 😊
During that English Literature class we studied the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Because I had basically memorized the lyrics from the Iron Maiden version, I was able to pick up the general message of the poem for lack of better words fairly easy.
Come at the end of the semester and taking the Final for that class, 90% of the Final was doing an essay to write about and interpret a choice between two poems, one poem I can’t even remember or Rime of the Ancient Mariner!
All I had to do was sing the song in my head to help me write that Final essay. Whose says Heavy Metal is bad for you and pollutes your brain? 😊
When I got my grade back it was an “A”. No doubt I couldn’t have done that well without having the Iron Maiden version of Rime of the Ancient Mariner memorized. That is how Iron Maiden helped me Ace a Final.
If any of you have ever used what I would say is some “unconventional” methods to pass a test/final, I would love to hear about them. You can send to me at: edanielson@icansucceed.org
Have a great day!
