Rocktober Deep Cut I: "Murders In The Rue Morgue" by Iron Maiden

For "I," the obvious choice is Iron Maiden.  The band is insanely popular around the world (and has been for 30+ years), selling over 80 million albums worldwide.  In the US, their albums have done okay on the charts (8 Top 20 albums and 5 platinum albums), although they receive virtually no radio airplay, as evidenced by their one charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 (a live version of "The Trooper" released in 2005 that hit #67).  In the UK, on the other hand, these guys are monsters, with 14 Top 10 albums, 4 #1 albums, 35 Top 40 songs, 17 Top 10 hits, and one #1.

Admittedly, I got into Iron Maiden late in the game, but have been doing my best to catch up.  My favorite Iron Maiden album is their second one, 1981's Killers.  It happens to be their last with original lead singer Paul Di'Anno, before the band fired him and picked up Bruce Dickinson (the lead singer, not the fictional record producer who likes cowbell), who took the band into the stratosphere.

Killers is a dark and fantastic New Wave of British Heavy Metal classic, and my favorite song off the album is "Murders in the Rue Morgue," which is loosely based on an Edgar Allen Poe short story.  The song starts with an eerie, slow guitar intro that sets the stage for the song's subject matter, before the rest of the instruments come in as accompaniment for the remainder of the intro, which doesn't have much to do with the rest of the song.  

When the intro finishes, the song's tempo increases significantly, where it stays for the rest of the song.  The song is about a guy who finds two dead women on a street in Paris, and is accused of their murder, so he tries to escape to Italy.  Di'Anno spews out the lyrics at breakneck speed, while the rest of the band tries to keep up.  Were it not for the musical ability of the band and the literary theme, this could almost be considered a punk song.  It's fast, catchy, and interesting.  About two-thirds of the way through the song, guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith share a nice twin lead guitar solo, before the last verse reveals that, in the narrator's mind, he knows he's killed before.