A year after Robin Williams tragically committed suicide, Iron Maiden released their sixteenth studio album, The Book of Souls. One of the last tracks on the record is the somber “Tears of a Clown,” about a sad clown who pretends to be happy in public despite being deeply depressed.
Vocalist Bruce Dickinson singled it out as his favorite song ahead of the project’s 2015 release, even though he didn’t write it. You can listen to the tune for yourself right here:
Bruce Dickinson Didn’t Know This Iron Maiden Song Was About Robin Williams Until After Recording It
“Tears of a Clown” was written by Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Adrian Smith, who didn’t tell the other members of the band what it was really about until after it was recorded. According to Dickinson, he had no idea when he was singing the lyrics that they had actually been inspired by Williams. Once they finished recording, Dickinson went up to Harris and asked him what the genesis of the tune was. Harris simply told him, “Robin Williams.”
The revelation surprised Dickinson because of how specific the answer was. As Dickinson went on to explain, it was unusual for Harris to be so direct about the subject matter of his songs, and especially so given how recently Williams had passed. Finding out that Williams was the inspiration for the track made Dickinson question how Williams could be so depressed when he seemed to be so happy on the outside.
“It’s not really appropriate to say [I was] pleasantly surprised, but it felt really good that [Harris had] written in that way, because I think, in some way, he maybe felt some kind of affinity to the sense of isolation and things like that that Robin Williams maybe felt,” Dickinson said during an interview with Corus Radio in 2015.
“There’s some speculation in there, in the song, about exactly what it feels like, but you get the impression that some of those things are maybe quite close to home with Steve himself.”
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