Bruce Dickinson's new solo album The Mandrake Project features a cover of Iron Maiden's 2015 track "Eternity Has Failed" (titled "If Eternity Should Fail" on The Book Of Souls) midway through its runtime. Though as it turns out, it's actually Iron Maiden who covered Bruce Dickinson.
According to Dickinson in an interview with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, "Eternity Has Failed" was originally written as a Bruce Dickinson solo song. Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris heard the track as Iron Maiden was working on their 2015 record The Book Of Souls, and suggested the song be on that record first.
"Well, basically, I had a series of demos of tracks for the solo album. And my initial idea back way back when Steve heard it and said, 'Hey, you know, that would be cool with Maiden.' And I thought, 'Yeah, fine. Cool. Let's do it,'" said Dickinson.
"And it was always my intention to sort of repossess the song 'cause people said, 'Oh, you've covered a Maiden song.' I'm like, 'Actually no, it's the other way around. Iron Maiden covered one of my similar tracks, but you don't know that yet because the album hasn't come out.'
"So by this time when I re-recorded it, I kind of could reimagine the beginning a little bit, which was always my intention. I mean, Steve was happy with the, I played the keyboard at the beginning there, on the Maiden track, but that was for me. That keyboard was just like a kind of like a placeholder really. It was never intended to be the final thing.
"But Steve was like, 'No, that sounds cool.' I went, 'Okay, if you're happy with it then, you know.' But I wanted much more of his kind of weird, like, you know, 'Spaghetti Western' Ennio Morricone thing. In fact, what I want to do, and originally was mariachi trumpets, you know, but we ended up with the flute instead."
