Iron Maiden - Run To The Hills

 

Artist: Iron Maiden
Track: Run to the hills

Year: 1980's

Director: Tim Kirkby

Genre: Heavy Metal

Main Audience:

Type: Mainly performance but does include narrative

Run to the Hills was Iron Maiden's sixth single and the first single from their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. The lyrics show the violence that happened to the native Americans back in the 19th century. Different lines appear to address the Sioux Wars, a conflict between the Lakota people and the United States in the Dakotas.

"Run to the Hills" was released as a video in the early 1980s, which was later remade in the late 90s/early 2000s. The first video consisted of the band performing, interspersed with comical footage featuring Indians from the 1923 James Parrott film Uncovered Wagon. The later video removed all the old film footage and replaced it with Flash animation of Cyborg Eddie (from the "Stranger in a Strange Land" cover) in a sci-fi Wild West setting, animated by Camp Chaos.'

Wikipedia 2011

The genre characteristics relate to the genre of heavy metal as their is the typical headbanging, low and high angles of guitars, dark colour, mysterious and foggy lighting and performance based. There are several references to the Sioux Wars in the lyrics such as 'Run to the hills, run for your lives' and 'Chasing the redskins back to their holes' to name a few.

There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, as Iron Maiden's lyrics are about the Sioux Wars, the visuals also show old clips from that time period. The old clips aren't fully serious as some of them mock it, for example the part when 4 men are on a 4 man bike, this obviously wouldn't happen back then, they have also speeded it up to keep in time with the music and it's flow. The relationship between the visuals and the music is spot on too, the genre is heavy metal so a performance based video is expected, also they are on a stage which again signifies the genre. Also the video is very fast paced and dark lighting, again signfiy the genre.

The effects used are straight cuts (not the type of genre to have fade ins, everything is harshly done), close ups, high angles, low angles of the protagonists guitars and the rest of the bands (typical for this genre). Also there are lots of close ups of Bruce Dickinson, his long hair sets the time period (early 80's) and his costume is very rocky with the wrist glove, leather jackets and studs.