Iron Maiden Epics - Their 8 Best Songs Over 8 Minutes Long

The eight best Iron Maiden songs over eight minutes long don't just give you a double album's worth of top-class heavy metal — they offer lessons on history and literature that span centuries.

Iron Maiden have long been one of metal's most verbose bands, given bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris' prog-rock proclivities and love of history and mythology. These are not easily summarized topics, so it makes sense that Maiden would flesh them out among their longest songs.

As the band grew older, their songs routinely swelled to even more epic lengths. To date, Iron Maiden have written a whopping 30 songs over eight minutes long. And while some of the songs on this list date back to their classic era, several come from their 21st century output as well.

Read on to see the eight best Iron Maiden songs over eight minutes long.

READ MORE: Iron Maiden's Six Best Rock 'n' Roll Songs

8. "Paschendale" (Dance of Death, 2003)

Dance of Death was widely considered a step down for Iron Maiden after the triumphant reunion album Brave New World, but fans disregard it at their own peril.

It contains one of the band's most grandiose epics in "Paschendale," a powerful recounting of the Third Battle of Ypres (or the Battle of Passchendaele) during World War I.

The tapped guitar work marked a change-up for Maiden and the soaring chorus cuts through the grisly horrors of war detailed in the verses. Several years into their reunion, Maiden were clearly still firing on all cylinders.

7. "Sign of the Cross" (The X Factor, 1995)

It was a bold move for Iron Maiden to open their first post-Bruce Dickinson album with this 11-minute epic — a decision vindicated by time, as "Sign of the Cross" is one of the few Blaze Bayley-era tunes the band kept in their set upon Dickinson's return.

With its myriad musical movements and larger-than-life chorus, it's easy to see why. Bayley proves his mettle on the studio version of "Sign of the Cross," but for our money, the Rock in Rio version with Dickinson at the helm can't be beat.

6. "The Talisman" (The Final Frontier, 2010)

Contrary to The Final Frontier's intergalactic artwork, "The Talisman" tells a harrowing tale of a group of passengers who leave their homeland and embark on a treacherous ocean voyage in search of a better life, guided by the narrator's talisman.

That they ultimately succumb to storms and scurvy is beside the point.

This slow-burning epic features some of Dickinson's most devastating vocals and the band's most aggressive instrumental performances — the two-minute acoustic intro is a haunting and necessary lead-up to the metallic maelstrom that follows.

The ship's passengers may be doomed, but "The Talisman" is a gorgeous epitaph.

5. "The Book of Souls" (The Book of Souls, 2015)

You want dynamics? The Book of Souls' mighty title track has them in spades.

Nicko McBrain shines in this 10-minute epic, moving from crushing quasi-breakdowns to one of his patented gallops with ease. Dickinson's operatic vocals know no bounds and all three guitarists trade characteristically dizzying solos and leads.

The song and album are loosely focused on the Mayan belief that souls live on after death — but Iron Maiden sound nowhere close to the end on this monstrous song.

READ MORE: Ranking the Opening + Closing Song on Every Iron Maiden Album

4. "If Eternity Should Fail" (The Book of Souls)

Just prior to Dickinson's cancer treatment, Iron Maiden upped the ante with their first-ever double album, The Book of Souls.

You couldn't ask for a more triumphant opening track than "If Eternity Should Fail." Dickinson begins his solo composition with a captivating a cappella showcase before the band comes crashing in with a mighty, swashbuckling groove and soaring leads.

Indelibly catchy and full of dynamic twists and turns, "If Eternity Should Fail" reasserted Maiden's uncanny ability to defy the laws of aging.

3. "Alexander the Great" (Somewhere in Time, 1986)

If we really wanted to nitpick, we could argue that the lyrics to "Alexander the Great" feel a bit academic, telling the story of the ancient Macedonian king without offering any new perspective. But it hardly matters when the music is so damn good.

The lean, mid-tempo gallop and harmonized guitar leads are Maiden at their finest, while the futuristic synths offset the centuries-old subject matter. The proggy mid-section features some of the band's most sublime guitar work before they bring it home with one last epic chorus.

2. "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, 1988)

We're approaching peak Maiden — and peak heavy metal — now. The title track to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is a primer on everything that makes Iron Maiden one of the genre's all-time greatest bands: operatic vocals, fantastical storytelling, labyrinthine arrangements, blazing guitar solos, et al.

With its head-spinning musical shifts and prominent keyboards, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" shows Maiden at their proggiest without sacrificing an ounce of muscle or melody. It also capped a breathtaking, decade-long hot streak that few artists of any genre have matched.

1. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Powerslave, 1984)

"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is such a brilliant and quintessential Iron Maiden song that it's almost become parody at this point.

The band's epic reinterpretation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's classic poem swells to nearly 14 minutes and it held the record for the band's longest song for more than 30 years. (The Book of Souls' "Empire of the Clouds" now takes the cake.)

The tale of a reckless sailor who kills an albatross and reaps the consequences is rife with drama, symphonic in scope but relentless in its spectacular riffage and nimble drumming.

The cautionary tale is no less potent today. As Dickinson explained on Live After Death: "The moral of the story is what not to do if a bird shits on you!"

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