Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here
Lost my love, lost my life, in this garden of fear
I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother love is no more, bring this savage back home

Wilderness house of pain, makes no sense of it all
Close this mind dull this brain, Messiah before his fall
What you see is not real, those who know will not tell
All is lost sold your souls to this brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

Dragon kings dying queens, where is salvation now
Lost my life lost my dreams, rip the bones from my flesh
Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth
You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

Dying swans twisted wings, bring this savage back home

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Lyrics submitted by thekronic420
"Brave New World" as written by David Michael Murray Bruce Dickinson
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind

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 All Comment Types (28)General Comment (27) My Interpretation (1)  View by:

  • +7
    General CommentActually this song _is_ about the novel "Brave New World" by Aldeous Huxley, as the title suggests. Dickinson, iirc, also said in an interview with Rock Hard Magazin (rockhard.de) once that the phrase "Dying Swans twisted wings.." merely tries to create a feeling of senseless disgrace of beauty to lead into the song and the overall theme.

    The Verses:
    "Lost my love, lost my life
    In this garden of fear"

    I think this line refers to the Love of the Savage to a girl who looks innocent to him. This love dies when he discovers that she want's to have sex with him, as usual in the Brave New World society, on a basis of pure lust, which is immoral to him.

    "I have seen many things
    In a lifetime alone
    Mother love is no more
    Bring this savage back home "

    The Savage, he himself a child of the Brave New World born by his mother in the wilderness where she got lost on a holiday trip, has seen a lot of life and of misery and mistakes of civilization. His mother dies shortly after the Savage and his mother arrive at "Brave New World" (which is not it's real name though) and she immediately falls back into usual behaviour of BNW, especially taking drugs to drop out of the cruel real life.


    "Wilderness house of pain
    Makes no sense of it all
    Close my mind dull this brain
    Messiah before his fall
    What you see is not real
    Those who know will not tell
    All is lost sold your soul
    In this brave new world"

    The Savage soon discovers the real wilderness is civilization. He is considered some sort of messias, but his mind rebels against this thought. He also gets the impression that there is some sort of elite cast ruling the world knowing the truth about it's flaws but willingly accepting it.

    "Dragon Kings Dying Queens
    Where is salvation now
    Lost my life lost my dreams
    Rip the bones from my flesh
    Silent screams laughing here
    Dying to tell you the truth
    You are planned you are damned
    In this Brave new world "

    The Savage flees and finds shelter in a forgotten lighthouse(?), where he discovers pain as a way out of his misery. When he is found he commits suicide, hence "Dying to tell you the truth"

    I think the music of the song fits to the book, the theme is woven into the music and makes it a melancholy masterpiece.
    Necroxon September 30, 2004   Link

  • +2
    General CommentThis.....this is a beautiful song. Showed that Maiden or Bruce hadnt lost their touch at all.
    Lyrics are amazing aswell, mystical, special.
    BeastWithinon April 02, 2003   Link

  • +2
    General Commenti am a high school english teacher and use maiden's BNW while teaching huxley's dystopian masterpiece... the songs sets up tone, mood, and theme well as a precusor to the novel... then we come back to it at the end and tie it all back together...

    necrox... i share your views and use similar ideas when dicussing the song...

    cheers
    me-teach-engon January 18, 2005   Link

  • +1
    General CommentHmm, I've listened to this song, and once i get intrigued by a song, I have to learn to play it on guitar, once that happens I need to understand the lyrics; so bear with me as a pull this out of my ass.

    Basically my point of view is that a "Brave New World"
    is a world where even though knowing the old world failed, it's still keeping march forward with so much courage. It's a world which you are brought in to and made into someones shall we say "guinea pig" to live in a setting where nothing is for sure. In this case Society is that someone who owns you, society and secrecy.You have no leisures nor rights to freedom, so looks have no importance, here everyone is the same: dying by the hand and ignorance of that which owns you. Separatism probably plays an elaborate schism too which explains the losing of love, and a mothers love. My vision of a new world as this also depicts science being a method of introducing life onto the world hence, mother love is just a myth. Home would probably be the rejoicing heavens, so "bring this savage back home" could be a plea for death. "Wilderness house of pain" since it's in my personal experience I'd say a house of pain would be a place where one could drug oneself to ease a pain; with wilderness attached to it, the drug usage could most likely be overwhelming. House of pain, a place to negate all your basic knowledge and everything you think is not, as to make "no sense of it at all". Once again the "close this mind dull this brain" is explaining the usage of drugs. "Messiah before his fall" to me means that this person didn't ever dream of drugging himself bu- omg... It is true. Back to the matter at hand. Leaving it as a last resort so his mind can't be changed he drugs himself and gets ready. Ok, so society is hiding something and that's what makes this place so unforgiving. People have no longer right over their life, basically their souls aren't theirs either. "Dragon kings, dying queens" Dragons; symbolizing either royalty and importance, high caste etiqutte, ferocious beings. Queens falling; all this means to me is that while leaders of society bathe in the pride of their work, women die inside for loss of their children. Proving this to be a sin, salvation is looked at as a far achievement "where is salvation now". Life is lost to inhumane reasons, and so dreams can only depict what is truly unruly impossible. (being as it is a dream can be achieved yet this setting is so harsh that hope can't stand a chance against oppression). "rip the bones from my flesh" comes to me as a statement of challenging sarcasm, like saying "you can take my life, my love, my freedom, well heck you can surely rip the bones from my flesh (ironic for I can't imagine bones being ripped from- flesh... it would be the other way around but this gives you the image of how far this society can go in to cruelty.)" "Silent screams-- laughing here" Screaming is a freedom, and so this society takes your right to this, covering it with laughs. "Dying to tell you the truth" I can imagine a rebel or a rumored crazy person screaming out the truth about the world, and so is sent to execution. "You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world"
    Your life is already decided for you, and you have no word in it, so you are damned for that reason. the last verse "dying swans twisted wings bring this salvage back home" (truly ironic just read) Ok so we have established that beauty here is not an issue nor a right, so our character is committing suicide OR just dying by the hands of secrecy society, and is letting out a last "prayer" bring this savage home... Heavens... So ok here let me pretend im the character.

    (Dying, on the ground eyes closed)

    So I've done all of what I could to escape this society and to help others know about this unreal reality. I tried to give the chance of precise knowledge of the world we live in... this brave new world?
    Brave it is and new too... but can it be called a world?
    Have I failed so miserably? Is there no other price?
    Yes there is... I've earned my right to faith.
    In this place I pray to be saved, to be taken to a place far yet so near.

    -Flatline-

    "Bring this savage back home" the last prayer. The earned right. The eternal prize.


    Any comments? I probably will miss them here so, you can message me through myspace:
    myspace.com/…
    or i can get your email at
    gunthora_spades@yahoo.com
    gunthora91on August 11, 2007   Link

  • +1
    General CommentBrilliant song. Necrox, you cleared this song up for me neatly. I scheme I should get hold of the novel, will make me appreciate this great song alot more. Iron Maiden was, is, and always will be a fantastic band
    Slash Is Everythingon December 21, 2007   Link

  • +1
    General CommentI won't lie. I created an account just so I could post a comment about this song.

    I found the lyrics on another website and ended up buying the cd because I loved them so much. Brave New World and Thin Line Between Love And Hate remain my two single favourite songs on the album (among my favourites of all time).

    I was just listening to it today and every line spoke of my own life. Granted, Necrox was probably right as to Iron Maiden's interpretation, but I very much see myself and my life in it, from the queens to the swans to the messiah before his fall. I've lost my love and I've lost my life, I'm nothing but a savage but I'll keep going. I just hope someone (maybe me) can help me find my way back home.

    I just wish I could thank Iron Maiden personally for writing this "for me". It's amazing when you can find a song that can be interpreted in several ways, even more amazing when one way fits your own life so well, and this is one of those songs. I'm glad of it.
    Bard018on January 28, 2008   Link

  • +1
    General Comment'Dying swans twisted wings' I think is a nod to souls, beautiful, who are on their own trajectory but spawned into the 'brave new world' find themselves in uninhabitable conditions, over time their wings are twisted and they no longer are able to inhabit some plane of reality they toiled to arrive at. Lost in a 'garden of fear', there is a far-off imprint of paradise in the mind, but no one is seeing straight, walking in the shadow worlds of others instills a peculiar sense of fear, splicing, anxiety, uncertainty over what is what. "Wilderness, house of pain" consolidates this, the shadow world is a world of confusion, conflicting impressions, futile inner conversations, which is the reality of the situation, has become a house of pain, miasmic. 'What you see, its not real, those who know will not tell', dying swan are among us but silent trying to ride out an ecstatic dream while so many are lost in Hades. "Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth" speaks of the same theme.
    hehkateon March 10, 2012   Link

  • 0
    General CommentI think this song could be about the novel "Brave New World"; parts of it definitely make it seem that way.
    TwistedBon April 05, 2003   Link

  • 0
    General Commentwhy havent more ppl talked about this song its so beutiful
    darkpop2Dzombieon June 09, 2003   Link

  • 0
    General Commentyes this is such a good song, great timing to put out. the song starts out sad, and gets heavier telling the pain the person went through. the idea of this song is telling you, when all hope is lost you must get on your feet and move foward no matter what. Bruce's voices is amazing in this one
    Riley28on July 02, 2003   Link
Iron Maiden – Brave New World"Brave New World" as written by and Justin/heaton Sullivan....
Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here
Lost my love, lost my life, in this garden of fear
I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother love is no more, bring this savage back home

Wilderness house of pain, makes no sense of it all
Close this mind dull this brain, Messiah before his fall
What you see is not real, those who know will not tell
All is lost sold your souls to this brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

Dragon kings dying queens, where is salvation now
Lost my life lost my dreams, rip the bones from my flesh
Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth
You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

A brave new world, in a brave new world
A brave new world, in a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world
In a brave new world, a brave new world

Dying swans twisted wings, bring this savage back home
  • Running 6:19, this is the title track to Maiden's 2000 "reunion" album, in which former band members Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to write new songs and perform music reminiscent of their "golden era".
  • The song is based on the 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley about a futuristic, supposedly happy world where everyone is controlled by a totalitarian system that completely and utterly manipulates their feelings and movements. The title was a quote of William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest from 1612: "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in't!"
  • Bruce Dickinson: "The Huxley thing was simply because I thought 'Brave New World' was a cool title for the record, because it sets up this kind of enigma in your head. Like, 'What's it about?' But having hit on a title, I then went, 'Well, we'll write the song about the book,' and so I reread the book and I was pretty scared about how bang-on he was."
  • The first line describes "Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here." Bruce Dickinson explained: "I remember reading about the extinction of these beautiful cranes in Japan, where the crane's like a national symbol, and nobody cared. And they asked, 'Do you care about all these cranes dying, 'cause of pollution?' And they went, 'Well, we have pictures of them in the museums, we don't care whether they really exist - just as long as the pictures of them exist in some way.' This is fu**in Brave New World." Although there are no dying swans in "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley wrote a book in 1939 called After Many A Summer Dies The Swan, which in turn got its title from the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem Tithonus. Said Dickinson: "I don't recall there being any dying swans in Brave New World the book, but I wanted an image that represented the tragedy and sadness of what Brave New World had done. Dying swans, twisted wings, you know, the agony, the death. Brave New World doesn't want to see that. It has no use for either the life or the death. All it has use for is the image because in the book, if you want excitement you go to the viddies; it's Aldous Huxley's premonition of virtual reality and I'm taking that and throwing it out there for discussion."
  • The album cover depicted Eddie's menacing face in the stormy clouds over a futuristic London. In the posters for the tour accompanying the album, Eddie's menacing face (now accompanied by long, claw-tipped hands) was now holding the Earth like a crystal ball. Eddie is the band's mascot.
  • The tour was called the "Brave New World Tour" in most places, but in Europe was called "Metal 2000." Like the "World Slavery Tour", it featured Eddie on stage. One of them was made of wicker (in reference to the first track on the album, "The Wicker Man") and contained young girls ("maidens", get it?). There was also the Eddie from the "Ed Hunter" tour (to promote the band's video game) who appeared during the song "The Evil That Men Do."
  • Bruce Dickinson replaced Blaze Bayley (real name: Bayley Cook) as lead vocalist. Bayley, a former vocalist for the band Wolfsbane, released some solo albums with his band Blaze and remained friends with the band. On the other hand, guitarist Janick Gers remained, and took turns performing on songs with previous guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith (fresh from his solo project ASAP).
  • The popular American band Styx had a 1999 album called Brave New World. In the early 1970's, there was a far less successful band in England also called Styx, and Bruce Dickinson was their lead vocalist. A decade later, he joined Iron Maiden.
  • The cover for their album Rock in Rio, taped at a concert in Brazil, featured the "cloudy Eddie" over the stage where they held the concert.
  • In 2000, drummer Nicko McBrain said that when he heard the name of former vocalist Blaze Bayley, the words "Elvis has left the building" came to his mind.
  • Shortly after Dickinson left the band, Kerrang! magazine asked if he would consider a Maiden reunion. Bruce's response: "I don't think it's a realistic possibility, but equally it's not something I'm dead against. A few gigs would be a really good laugh, but I'm not holding my breath." When asked what he thought of Blaze Bayley singing his songs, he replied: "Well, I sang Paul Di'Anno's songs. Blaze is a very courageous guy. It's a difficult job singing those songs. It was difficult enough for me and they were designed for my voice. I think he's done really well - good luck to him." He finally stated that, of all the new Maiden songs, he'd like to trying performing "Futureal" and stated: "Some of Steve's songs are a bugger to sing because the words are incredibly awkward. You want to leave out half of them, basically" (many of Steve's lyrics are inspired by artistic books and movies which many people find no entertainment in). Eventually, Blaze left the band to start his own, and Bruce returned to Maiden. He was allowed to sing "Futureal," as well as several other Blaze songs. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada, for all above)
  • The title of this song appears in the lyrics of Iron Maiden's 1986 hit "Stranger in a Strange Land," when Bruce Dickinson sings, "No brave new world, no brave new world." The songs have little resemblance to each other. (thanks, Damien - Edmonton, Canada)