“The Number Of The Beast” by Iron Maiden

"The Number of the Beast" is the title track of Iron Maiden's 1982 album and the second single lifted from it, the band's seventh single in all, and it's a full-throttle blast. Steve Harris wrote it alone, and Bruce Dickinson tears into it with a scream that could strip paint, while Dave Murray and Adrian Smith trade twin-guitar fire over Harris's galloping bass and Clive Burr's hammering drums. Martin Birch produced and engineered.

It plays like a horror movie: a riff that charges like a runaway hearse and a chorus built for a whole hall to bellow back. It reached number 18 in Britain on first release and came back strong later, hitting number three when it was reissued in 1990, packaged with "Run to the Hills" in The First Ten Years box set, and again when it was reissued in 2005.

Maiden have played it on almost every tour since, and it has been covered many times over and turned up in films and video games.

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