Iron Maiden Singer/Pilot Rescues Stranded Tourists

Iron Maiden to the rescue: Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden and pilot for charter airline company Astraeus, was called to emergency duty this weekend after the collapse of XL airways left 221 British tourists stranded in Egypt. "I was just doing my job," Dickinson said, not referring to the job that requires him to sing "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter." "I was called out like a lot of other pilots to help and I was obviously happy to do that." After saving the stranded tourists, Dickinson immediately went home and went to sleep, as five hours later he was called upon again, this time to pick up tourists stuck on the Greek island of Kos. This isn't the first time being a pilot has forced Dickinson into playing the role of hero: in 2006, at the height of the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, Dickinson flew into Lebanon to retrieve about 200 UK citizens. And no, although it would have been awesome, Dickinson did not save the stranded tourists with the band's very own, Eddie-branded Iron Maiden plane.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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