“Aces High” by Iron Maiden

"Aces High" roars in from Powerslave, Iron Maiden's fifth studio album, and went out as its second single in 1984; it also turns up on the Behind the Iron Curtain EP that year. Steve Harris wrote it, and he puts you in the cockpit: the lyric is told by an RAF pilot fighting the Battle of Britain in 1940, the first battle fought entirely in the air. The sleeve finishes the picture, with Eddie at the controls of a Spitfire.

The single's B-side was a cover of Nektar, a medley of "King of Twilight" and "Crying in the Dark" from their 1972 album A Tab in the Ocean. "Aces High" became one of the band's most popular songs, covered many times over and heard everywhere from Madden NFL 10 to the mountain bike film New World Disorder III.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.