Kill for gain or shoot to maim

[simont]

When I was at school, a friend of mine wrote a program to delete lots of files at a time (since the school computer system neglected to provide a ready-made tool for this). He wasn't content with having it just delete files, though; he thought it would be cool to have it delete files while scrolling up the screen some thoroughly bloodthirsty-sounding lyrics which he said were from an Iron Maiden song.

Several of those lyrics have stuck in my head since then, and just occasionally bubble to the top of my brain when I'm doing bulk file deletion of my own. But last night – and I'm really not sure why it hasn't occurred to me to do this at any point in the intervening seventeen years – I actually got round to googling the bits of lyrics I could remember, tracking down the original song, and arranging to listen to it in full.

It turns out that the song in question is ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’, which surprised me a little because my vague memory was that he'd said it was called something like ‘Killer’. Several details of the lyrics weren't how I remembered them either, and worst of all the tune was noticeably different from my memory of it. It's unclear to me which of these various discrepancies were due to transcription errors originally made by Will, which were due to me not paying attention at the time, and which are due to distortion of my memory over the intervening decade and a half (although I suspect that the errors in the tune are largely attributable to the latter by way of my music theory training, which I've noticed before tends to obscure the fact that I can't remember how a certain bit of a tune goes by seamlessly making up a believable but uninspired substitute and pretending I can remember it going like that).

But the combined effect of all those errors is that although I recognised most of the song as being unquestionably the source material for Will's lyrics, I have a lingering feeling of not having listened to the same song I've really been thinking of all these years. Strange, and slightly annoying.

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for giving me the earworm :-). (Just the title of the post is enough)

[simont]

It's probably the only time you'll ever get a Maiden earworm from me; I'm familiar with none of their work apart from this particular song...

[lnr]

I've just been trying to work out what my earworm is, turns out it's Metallica and Carpe Diem Baby. Mike's been playing Reload on and off quite a bit lately I think.

[gerald_duck]

You think you've got problems? For the last couple of days I've had the Muppets theme as an earworm. Except that I've had "It's time to worship Satan" instead of "It's time to put on make-up".

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Killers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killers_%28song%29) is a different Iron Maiden song (and title track from the album).

[simont]

I did find that, but my own trawl of Wikipedia suggested that it was in fact the title track from a different album. 2 Minutes to Midnight is on Powerslave, isn't it?

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Indeed

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Several studies have made it pretty clear nowadays the great extent to which memory is actually reconstructive, not just recollective.

The classic study (if I remember rightly) was where a researcher showed students a (colour) film in which one of the characters was wounded, and quite significantly bled oil instead of blood.

The students were quizzed after seeing the film, and all related that they had seen a black substance, perhaps oil, bleeding from this character.

When quizzed again a number of years later, many students stated that this character had gushed red blood, not oil; a couple actually recalled seeing that blood stain a white tablecloth with a red colour, even though this detail had not been in the film. What's more, they were quite clear (and quite wrong!) that this was a memory, not just a guess.

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. Quirkology mentions an equivalent experiment in which they acquired some childhood photos from a friend of the test subject then photoshopped one of them to depict a fictitious ride in a hot air balloon. At first people couldn't remember the ride at all, but when asked a month later most had quite definite memories of it.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting study, thanks.

Also, you part-capitalise your href tags! I don't think I've seen that before. Personal style, or is a utility doing that for you?

[simont]

(I like the fact that only those of us who received an email notification of this comment would have known you wrote </geek> at the end of it :-)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

*wink*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I never believe those, I don't think they close properly.

[songster.livejournal.com]

My father has a very good example of this - a clear memory of staying up late at night talking to someone, watching the sun set out of the window behind them. 15 years later, he stayed at the same hotel only to realise it's facing in completely the wrong direction to see a sunset or sunrise at any time of year.

[gerald_duck]

You clearly need to form a band and record the piece you're annoyed at not having heard. Simon Tatham and the PuTTYettes?

[simont]

I thought for a moment that that was the single worst band name suggestion I've ever heard, but on reflection this is not in fact true; the 80s managed to produce several real bands with worse names :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Simon and the PuTTYvettes? Simon and the coeliacs? Simon and the solitaire army? :)

I do think optimistically imagining your version to be a synthesised best of Iron Maiden to be a good idea, though I don't know whether or not I'd test it.

[simont]

"Solitaire Army", now you mention it, actually does have possibilities as a band name. It's got that nice property of apparently being a contradiction in terms so that fans can argue about whether it's making a terribly profound philosophical point (or alternatively a profoundly terrible one), and it has a real meaning which isn't a contradiction at all which people can eventually find out about and satisfy their curiosity.

Also, I can see the cover of the eponymous album now. Big square of men in uniform standing at parade-ground attention, all of whom are me.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That was the only one I meant at all seriously, I was joking around, and then it popped into my head and I thought "That could actually be quite good" :)

I was imagining more a bunch of people like alice-in-wonderland playing cards for some reason :)

It's got that nice property of apparently being a contradiction in terms so that fans can argue about whether it's making a terribly profound philosophical point (or alternatively a profoundly terrible one), and it has a real meaning which isn't a contradiction at all which people can eventually find out about and satisfy their curiosity.

:) Yes.