Bruce Dickinson reveals essential track that almost didn’t make it into The Mandrake Project

Bruce Dickinson revealed that “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”the apotheotic closing track of his solo album The Mandrake Project, was almost left out of the project. Confirmation came in an interview with Rolling Stonein which Dickinson recounted how the song — a nearly 10-minute lament about death — was almost discarded by him.

Prior to the actual execution of The Mandrake Project – project launched by Dickinson last Friday, 1st -, “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)” would have been conceived 25 years ago. According to the singer, he would have forgotten about the track, only to be reminded of it by his wife, Leana“who, fortunately for me, has pretty good taste in music.”

Dickinson says that it was Leana who anticipated that the song was “the most emotional thing” she had ever heard him sing. When he said he never considered releasing it, she politely asked if he was crazy.

Listen to “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)” below:

Composing “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”

According to Rolling Stonethe song came about as a jam session with his longtime collaborator, Roy Zwho has worked with Dickinson on nearly all of her solo releases since Balls to Picasso from 1994 (which includes the equally impressive power ballad “Tears of the Dragon”). The producer had watched the film about Beethoven, Immortal Belovedand spent an evening exploring the chord changes of the “Moonlight Sonata”. Neither he nor Dickinson knew what to do with it, but decided to take a risk by improvising vocals and lyrics.

“I was thinking about making some melodic noises, then I would write some words and rewrite them,” Dickinson said.

The creative process also involved visions of Beauty and the Beast, but the path was still unclear. Everything changed when the verse “For love has brought you here, and love will tear you apart” (“For love brought you here, and love will tear you apart”) came to him (who already came forward, saying that he is not a fan of Joy Divisionthe band that owns the hit “Love Will Tear Us Apart).

“This is life,” he says of these words. “This is tragedy. This is everything: love that should have been but was never meant to be.”

The Mandrake Project

Released last Friday (1st), the album The Mandrake Project by Bruce Dickinson was produced for approximately a decade, with some tracks dating back even before that. In addition to “Sonata (Immortal Beloved), it includes previously released singles such as “Afterglow of Ragnarok” and “Rain on the Graves.”