Die With Your Boots On Lyrics
Who says the ship is lost,
Another Prophet of Disaster
Leaving you to count the cost.
Taunting us with Visions,
Afflicting us with fear,
Predicting War for millions,
In the hope that one appears.
No point asking who's to go,
No point asking what's the game,
No point asking who's to blame.
'cos if you're gonna die, if you're gonna die,
'cos if you're gonna die, if you're gonna die,
If you're gonna try, just stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.
The Frenchman did surmise,
Through earthquakes and starvation,
The warlord will arise.
Terror, Death, Destruction,
Pour from the Eastern Sands,
But the truth of all predictions,
Is always in your hands.
If you're gonna try, just stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.
It's saying, don't die like a coward, but be a man. Lime in WW1, better to die with bullets in your chest than with bullets in your back.
Here's my take:
"ANOTHER prophet of disaster Who says the ship is lost"
Oh look! there's another 'end of the world' or major disaster disaster coming! As I type this, I'm recalling the 2012 Mayan calender panic. This song will probably remain relevant for some time yet.
"Another prophet of disaster Leaving you to count the cost"
Perhaps this is a pun: "prophet" for "profit"
There is money to be made in sensationalized gloom and doom. But if you get taken in by this stuff, there is a psychic price to pay because they are:
"Taunting us with visions Afflicting us with fear Predicting war for millions In the hope that one appears"
Perhaps all these prophets of disaster aren't merely cynical money chasers. Maybe some of them genuinely believe and got so attached to their theories that they cannot bear the thought of them being wrong, to the point that they lost perspective and would rather millions die than face the embarrassment of admitting they were wrong.
It can also apply to arms dealers. There's a lot of money to be made in preparing for the worst.
But then, it is hard to dismiss the prophets of disaster so easily. I remember it was even more so when the song came out. I'm assuming it was written in 1982-83 when the Cold War was still going strong, the Falklands War was going on, Vietnam was still fresh in everyone's minds and the year "1984" was almost upon us. They were frightening times actually.
A paraphrase: "No point asking when it is, who's to go, what's the game or who's to blame 'cause if you're gonna die, if you're gonna die, you're gonna die"
"If you're gonna die, die with your boots on If you're gonna try, well stick around Gonna cry, just move along If you're gonna die, you're gonna die"
Now the song turns the spotlight to the listener:
All this poring over old tomes and new tabloids, or even just worrying at the particulars of coming calamities is just a pointless waste of time and energy.
The way the points is in taking up some courage rather than in just optimism. So the world as we know it might come crashing down? So I'll just have to face it and keep my chin up. What else is there?
I just noticed that on the Piece of Mind album, this songs sits between The Trooper, which is about a historical battle; and Still Life which is about a personal descent into madness that ends with suicide. This song makes a great segue between the two on either side of it.
The chorus of this song could fit well in The Trooper. "No point asking..." echoes "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die" from the Tennyson poem, Charge of the Light Brigade, which is about the same battle and apparently inspired The Trooper. (link below)
The second verse seems to go along with the song that follows it. It starts off:
"In thirteen the beast is rising The Frenchman did surmise"
I agree with th previous commenters here that it is a reference to Nostrodamus, but not JUST to the old fortune teller. Some older fans will recall the Satanism hoopla surrounding their previous album The Number of the Beast. There was a lot of fear of devil worshiping going around at the time with concerned citizens listening for backward as well as forwards messages in all kinds of rock and metal songs. Heck, a lot of folks thought you could wind up possessed by demons by playing Dungeons & Dragons. I'm sure that was on Iron Maiden's minds when they were writing this song and Still Life, Which starts with a backwards recording of an impersonation of an impersonation of dictator Idi Amin gives us a clue that the song is, at least in part, a humorous response to all that. It also stands up as a sort of allegory about obsession. The narrator in that song stares at a pool until it consumes his (or her?) mind. Is that a warning to or about those people who look for the devil (or whatever nightmarish thing you can think of) in everything?
I might have digressed a bit there, but my point is that there are a lot of references packed into those two lines that are easily overlooked without the wider context of the album and the times.
"Through earthquakes and starvation The warlord will arise Terror, death, destruction Pour from the eastern sands"
Yes yes, more scary stuff.
"But the truth of all predictions Is always in your hands"
The final line urges us to not confuse the stoicism of facing a situation that might not go well for you personally with the fatalism that assumes we're completely helpless to prevent horrible things on a large scale in the first place. Remember the "IF" in "If you're gonna die..."!
Perhaps instead of spending a lot of time and money building a compound in the wilderness and stocking up on food and weapons, we would do better to work for sanity in our politicians, in our media, in our neighbors and in ourselves.
We need to put on boots, but maybe sometimes they should be work boots rather than combat boots. And maybe in the next panic our politicians should be more willing to face a danger to their careers by resisting fear mongering rather than "safely" going along with the madness. A little skepticism goes a long way.
Relavant links:
Charge of the Light Brigade http://web.archive.org/web/20070513072721/http://etext.virginia.edu/britpo/tennyson/TenChar.html
How many times must a world end?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
On the satanic scare in the 1980s and why a grain of salt is important.
http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/sat33.htm
I miss vinyl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backmasked_messages
GoonMan22 on youtube said this
"There's been terrorist attacks in Paris today Friday 13th November 2015... sadly, 130 innocent victims "Died with their boots on"... Iron Maiden (Nostradamus) astoundingly predicted this in the lyrics of this songs 2nd verse; 1:42
"13 the Beast is Rising, The Frenchman did surmise, Through earthquakes and starvation, The Warlord will arise, Terror, Death, Destruction, Pour from the Eastern sands, But the truth of all predictions, Is always in your hands."
According to this Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the warlord and ISIS are the terror from the eastern sands. What do you guys think? Very creepy."
I believe the just of it is:
Ignore people who claim to predict when the world ends.
When it does: If you die, die trying. (Die with your boots on.) If you try hard enough, you might just survive 'till Earth 2.0 (If you're gonna try, stick around!) If all you're gonna do is sit and mourn the old world, you're just gonna die with your boots off. (Gonna cry? Just move along!)
'Cause if you're gonna die, you're gonna die. May as well die trying, 'eh?
Earth 2.0 eh? that a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference? Either way, I agree.
Earth 2.0 eh? that a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference? Either way, I agree.
I think the message is the very Iron Maidenish "live your life, fight the good fight, never give up" kind of thing.
One thing I realized, during the Bush era of the early 2000s,- the whole thing about the "prophet of disaster . . .predicting wars for millions in the hope that one appears". That was a perfect analysis of the "War on Terror." Bush (and, I'm assuming the British leaders, who seem to be in sync with America's often enough) was always reminding us to watch out for the terrorists - and keeping the country in constant fear made people support him and give him more power than if nobody was afraid of such "the enemy". In the early 80s, when this was written, America (and, I assume, also Britain?) had a similar issue with terrorists from "the eastern sands" (as well as the cold-war threat of Communists), and the government was always reminding us about the impeding doom.
Im not sure but i thinking this song is about if your gonna die, die do something good in life or die doing something useful or doing something you love.
It's about predictions of nostradamus: "In 13 the Beast is rising, THE FRENCHMAN DID SURMISE, Through earthquakes and starvation, The warlord will arise." this one is currently playing itself out: "Terror, Death, Destruction, Pour from the Eastern Sands, "
I can't see what that's got to do with anything.
Oh right, I see it's one of the lyrics. Sorry, I thought you were just randomly quoting things. Ha, sorry about that. Right then. After making a fool of myself, I'm gonna go.
It's about the end of the world and how we should be brave when it comes to the end. The song is based around what various prophets have prediction to be the end of the world.