Hallowed Be Thy Name
by Iron Maiden
- 103
- BPM
- E minor
- Key
- 9A
- Camelot
- 31
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Steve Harris wrote "Hallowed Be Thy Name", the eighth and final track on Iron Maiden's 1982 album The Number of the Beast. Part of its lyrics came from somewhere else. The title is a line from the Lord's Prayer, and the song tells of a prisoner about to be hanged. A section of the words, though, was lifted from "Life's Shadow", a 1973 song by Beckett. Manager Rod Smallwood had been Beckett's agent, and a teenage Harris had seen the band play that song live.
That borrowing led to a legal fight. Harris and Dave Murray settled with Robert Barton, one of the credited songwriters of "Life's Shadow". The other, Brian Ingham, sued the band for his share of the profits after finding out about the matter in 2011. Barton had claimed to be the sole songwriter at the time of the first settlement.
The band's lawyers argued that Harris had used the lyrics as a placeholder and never had time to change them before the album came out. On March 12, 2018, it was reported that the case had been settled out of court. A spokesperson said it was done for pragmatic reasons and to avoid mounting legal fees.
Hallowed Be Thy Name runs at 103 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.33 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 583 ms. It is in E minor, Camelot 9A, which shares its notes with G major and mixes cleanly with A minor and B minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.