1. "You've Got Another Thing Coming" is a great song
2. "Breaking The Law" is a fun song
3. Lots of people like them, and
4. Their lead singer, Rob Halford, is gay (notable only in context of his hyper-macho surroundings).
Figuring there was no time like the present to familiarize myself with these iron titans of metallic might (note to self: no more metaphors ever) I went out and got British Steel, their classic album from 1980. After repeated listens my conclusion is as follows: they're not very good. I mean, the singing and shredding is more than proficient, but the songs are, for the most part, forgettable and the riffs sound like they were all written in the same afternoon.
However, one track in particular stood out to me as a worthy candidate for a feature post here, a song by the name of "Rapid Fire." First off, musically this song is one of the better ones on the album. It sounds exaaaaactly like "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead (not featured here due to a rule I just made up: if a song is in Guitar Hero, it isn't featured here) but slightly worse in every department. Still, "Rapid Fire" came out half a year before that song did, so you gotta give Priest at least some credit - it's pretty thunderous, the solos in the third verse pack some serious whoopass, and Halford's yell at the end is truly blood-curdling.
But the music is not what grabs me here, oh no no no. The lyrics. The lyyyyyyyrics. Oh my god. I mean, I don't normally ask a lot from metal lyrics - generally anything that mentions death and swords and fire and motorcycles will suffice, bonus points for Tolkien references - but this song . . . it enters a whole new realm of awesome stupidity. I think I'm intrigued most by the weird mixture of lines that actually do kinda work followed by lines that are so absurd they border on surreal. I'll point out my favorites and leave it to you to enjoy the rest.
Rapid Fire - Judas Priest
From British Steel (1980)
- "Forging the furnace for the final grand slam" - Uh oh. Firstly, forging the furnace? What? Isn't this kind of like saying "digging the shovel" or "running the feet" . . . or something? Also, the phrase grand slam only look slightly out of place until you realize that they don't have baseball in the UK, which then makes it look reaaaly weird. What sort of grand slam are they referring to, exactly? My money's on the one in contract bridge.
- "Leaving a trail of destruction that's second to none" - Hm, this is what I meant before. "Trail of destruction" is very appropriate. But "second to none"? Are Judas Priest trying to sell me a car or something? I don't think trails of destruction are easily compared and contrasted, anyway.
- "Shattering blows crashing browbeating fright" - Browbeating. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I always figured that word meant mild intimidation, as in: I was browbeaten by the chess club president into playing the 3rd board. Whatever, it's practically Shakespeare when placed next to this one . . .
- "Fast devastating and desolisating the curse" - Yes. You read correctly. Desolisating. Rob Halford made up a word in his song. I assume he meant "desolating" or something like that, but . . . I just stare in awe at this line. I tip my cap to it. I salute it. Congratulations, Judas Priest; thanks to you the English language has indeed reached a new nadir. Never before has subtraction by addition been made so painfully clear.
- Oh whatever, I can't even bring myself to look at the third verse after that. Have fun with the rest of the song. If you need to reach me, I'll be bludgeoning myself unconscious with Samuel Johnson's dictionary.
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