These Colours Don’t Run is a track from the album A Matter of Life and Death which is the fourteenth studio album Maiden. It was released on 28 August.
How to play These Colours Don’t Run.
It is the first album in Iron Maiden’s career to enter the US Billboard charts in the top 10, achieving significant chart success in many other countries as well.
The song was written by Steve Harris, Adrian Smith & Bruce Dickinson.
While not being a concept album, war and religion are recurring themes throughout, as well as in the cover artwork.
The A Matter of Life and Death Tour was the tour in support of the album, during which they played the record in its entirety.
This is the band’s fourth studio record not to share its name with a song, following Piece of Mind, The X Factor and Virtual XI. Drummer Nicko McBrain and guitarist Janick Gers claim that the band originally intended to name the album after one of its tracks, with both “The Pilgrim” and “The Legacy” being considered. According to Gers, “sometimes a title will just leap out at you as the obvious choice, but it didn’t this time for some reason”, so the band decided on A Matter of Life and Death, which, according to McBrain, was amongst “two or three ideas which we were kicking around”. Neither Gers or McBrain can remember who came up with the title, which they state was thought up by either Harris, Rod Smallwood (the band’s manager) or “Drew” (an engineer at Sarm West Studios).
Supposedly he title of the song is inspired by Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson’s words during their performance of “The Trooper” during what is called “the Ozzfest incident” among fans. Despite their set and equipment being sabotaged during the festival in Florida, Iron Maiden continued to perform. Typically, Dickinson waves a British flag during the song. At this performance, a saboteur was on stage waving an American flag. This caused Dickinson to comment, “This is a British flag, and these colours don’t f–king run.” On the DVD for A Matter of Life and Death, Dickinson confirmed that the phrase refers to the colors on the British flag.
You can find the tabs below but before you go there if you enjoyed the lessons why not sign up for a free online guitar lessons with me.
Janick Gers Tablature:
Iron Maiden - These Colours Dont Run - Janick GersDave Murray Tablature:
Iron Maiden - These Colours Dont Run - Dave MurrayAdrian Smith Tablature:
Iron Maiden - These Colours Dont Run - Adrian Smith
