WHEN IRON MAIDEN’S MASCOT KNIFED MARGARET THATCHER

from: DM

Who doesn’t love the metamorphoses of Iron Maiden’s cover star, Eddie? (Don’t answer that.) To flip through a stack of Maiden LPs is to revisit his many guises: ancient Egyptian pharaoh, lobotomized mental patient, time-traveling cyborg, zombie shock jock, outer space alien, outer space alien outlaw in an outer space saloon, and so on.

But before he set out on any of these merry adventures, Eddie spent an unforgettable evening with Mags. There he is on the cover of the “Sanctuary” single—the one with Maiden’s best singer, the future inmate Paul Di’Anno, pleading for “sanc-choo-ree from the lahhhhhhhhhhhh-hawwwwwwwww”—there’s Eddie the Head, fresh from knifing the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on a desolate streetcorner. He does not appear extra jazzed that you, the viewer, have caught him in the act.

Neil Daniels’ Iron Maiden says the depiction of Thatcher was the band’s idea, some kind of goof on her nickname, “the Iron Lady.” In Run to the Hills: The Official Biography of Iron Maiden, Mick Wall places the image in the context of UK politics and tabloid reporting c. 1980:

A knife-wielding Eddie is depicted crouching over the slain, mini-skirted figure of a woman that, on close inspection, appears to be Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister who had been swept into power in Britain at the 1979 general election. Judging by the scene, Eddie had apparently caught the malingering PM in the unforgivable act of tearing down an Iron Maiden poster from a street wall, a crime – in Eddie’s mad, unblinking eyes – worthy of only one punishment. The blood is still dripping from his twelve-inch blade as we catch up with them. However, the single’s release had coincided with a series of highly publicised real-life acts of violence perpetrated by the various disaffected members of the British public against several top-level Tory government officials. (Lord Home had reportedly been set upon by a gang of skinheads at Piccadilly Circus tube station and Lord Chalfont was given a black eye by another closely cropped youth while walking down the King’s Road.) [...]

On 20 May, The Daily Mirror reproduced the uncensored version of the ‘Sanctuary’ sleeve under the banner headline “It’s Murder! Maggie Gets Rock Mugging!” Soon questions were being asked in Parliament. “Premier Margaret Thatcher has been murdered – on a rock band’s record sleeve,” reported The Mirror in shocked tones. Hilariously, it quoted a ministerial spokesman as saying, “This is not the way we’d like her portrayed. I’m sure she would not like it.”

 

On the advice of their publishing company, Zomba Music, Maiden’s next single was a cover of Skyhooks’ “Women in Uniform” recorded with AC/DC producer Tony Platt. (Can you guess what Zomba Music was trying to achieve, and in what part of the Australasian subcontinent?) The sleeve art picked up the continuing story of Eddie and Maggie: as the ghoul struts down the street with a girl on each arm, just around the corner, the PM lies in wait in beret and olive drabs, ready to cut them all in half with a few blasts from her submachine gun.

Take heart. Look how bleak Eddie’s prospects were around Halloween 1980, when “Women in Uniform” came out. Today, nearly five years have passed since the Iron Lady finally succumbed to the injuries she sustained on the “Sanctuary” sleeve, and Iron Maiden is still on tour.

Below, Iron Maiden plays “Sanctuary” on Beat Club, and Eddie cavorts with “Women in Uniform” in the band’s first video.