Speaking with Metal Hammer about the origin of “Tears of the Dragon,” the soaring power ballad from his 1994 solo album Balls to Picasso, Bruce Dickinson set the record straight on a long-standing fan theory. While many believed the song’s soul-searching lyrics signaled a dramatic farewell to Iron Maiden, Dickinson insists it wasn’t a parting shot, it was something far more personal.
“It’s a bit deeper than that,” he said. “You know, ‘farewell to Maiden’ sounds like you’re thumbing your nose at them. But it was more introspective than that. It was really about self-doubt. I had a lot of that—because when I started the solo album thing, I realized I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was doing. Creatively, I just felt lost.”
In that moment of disorientation, Dickinson found his voice, not the air-raid siren howl fans had come to worship, but something raw, human, and painfully honest. “Tears of the Dragon” wasn’t about burning bridges. It was about staring into the void and trying to understand what comes next when the path forward disappears.
For an artist known for mythic themes and theatrical stagecraft, the vulnerability woven into this song hit like a different kind of thunder. And decades later, that truth still echoes, proof that even heavy metal legends aren’t immune to doubt, and that sometimes, greatness comes from getting completely, utterly lost.
Source: Original source
