About The Song
“Can I Play with Madness” is a song by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The song is the sixteenth single released by the band. Released in 1988, it was the first single from their seventh studio album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988), and hit number 3 in the UK Singles Chart.
The song is about a young man who wants to learn the future from an old prophet with a crystal ball. The young man thinks he is going mad and seeks the old prophet to help him cope with his visions/nightmares. The prophet’s advice is ignored by the young man and they become angry with each other. The song was originally a ballad named “On the Wings of Eagles”, written by Adrian Smith.
Cash Box called it “raging, pulsating metal that should shake up a few speaker cabinets and damage eardrums.”
The video of the song, directed by Julian Doyle, was set at Tintern Abbey and Chislehurst Caves, and features Monty Python’s Graham Chapman; this would be one of his last appearances on television before his death in October 1989 of cancer. In the video, Chapman plays an irritable art instructor who criticizes a young student for including Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie in his sketch of the abbey ruins. The teacher then falls down a hole in the ground, discovers an underground vault and finally encounters an animated version of Eddie, who leers at him from inside a refrigerator. The band appears on a TV screen showing footage from “Run to the Hills” and “The Number of the Beast” promotional videos and the Live After Death concert film. Adrian Smith is shown playing left-handed, suggesting a reversed image.
Video
Lyrics
Can I play with madness?
Give me the sense to wonder
To wonder if I’m free
Give me a sense of wonder
To know I can be me
Give me the strength to hold my head up
Spit back in their face
Don’t need no key to unlock this door
Gonna break down the walls
Break out of this bad place
Can I play with madness? The prophet stared at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness? There’s no vision there at all
Can I play with madness? The prophet looked and he laughed at me, ha, he said
Can I play with madness? He said, “You’re blind, too blind to see”
Oh, said, “You’re too blind to see”, mmm
I screamed aloud to the old man
I said, “Don’t lie, don’t say you don’t know”
I said, “You’ll pay for this mischief”
“Ah, in this world or the next”
Oh and then he fixed me with a freezing glance
And the hellfires raged in his eyes
He said, “Do you wanna know the truth, son?”
“Lord, I’ll tell you the truth”
“Your soul’s gonna burn in a lake of fire”
Can I play with madness? The prophet stared at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness? There’s no vision there at all
Can I play with madness? The prophet looked and he laughed at me, ha ha, he said
Can I play with madness? He said, “You’re blind, too blind to see”
“Oh, listen to me, ” said the prophet
Can I play with madness? The prophet stared at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness? There’s no vision there at all
Can I play with madness? The prophet looked and he laughed at me, ha, he said
Can I play with madness? He said, “You’re blind, too blind to see”
Can I play with madness?