Rocktober '80s Song #21: "Am I Evil?" by Diamond Head (1980)

My birthday Rocktober selection for Halloween week is the third in a row from 1980.  Apparently that was a good year for spooky hard rock and metal.  It's another New Wave of British Heavy Metal classic, Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?"

Hailing from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, Diamond Head was another massively influential NWOBHM band, particularly on the thrash metal scene.  Metallica has covered and released several Diamond Head songs over the years, including "Am I Evil?" as the B-side of "Creeping Death" in 1984 (and later re-released on 1998's Garage, Inc.).

Diamond Head's 1980 debut album Lightning to the Nations is rightly considered a metal classic, full of energetic songs and heavy riffs.  Rolling Stone ranked the album #42 on its 2017 list of the 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time.

"Am I Evil?" is my favorite song off the album.  It's 7:43 of NWOBHM goodness.  The song starts off with kind of a military march feel, before lead guitarist Brian Tatler comes in with an Eddie Van Halen-esque ripping little guitar piece that leads into the fantastic, Sabbath-worthy riff.  The first line captures you:  "My mother was a witch / She was burned alive / Thankless little bitch / For the tears I cried."  You kind of feel bad for this little witch's kid, as he then spends the rest of the song recounting his murderous revenge.  

The chorus -- "Am I evil? / Yes, I am / Am I evil? / I am man" -- harkens the whole Meng Tzu vs. Hsun Tzu debate as to whether humans are born innately good and learn evil or vice versa.  Diamond Head seems to come out on the latter in this song.  Then again, maybe if this guy's mom wasn't murdered in front of him, he wouldn't have done the things he did and would've have answered the question "No, I don't think so."  That doesn't rhyme as well, though.

Due to some poor career choices -- inexperienced managers, not touring in the U.S., staying on an independent record label for too long -- Diamond Head didn't experience the commercial success that they deserved and that some of their NWOBHM brethren like Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Saxon had achieved.  The band split in 1983 after their third album bombed, reformed briefly in the early '90s and released another album, then split again before reforming in the mid 2000s and releasing another two albums, and then split again before reforming in the mid 2010s and releasing two more albums.  That was an exhausting sentence to write.  Anyway, enjoy the song and ponder the question.