Iron Maiden Release Long-Awaited New Song ‘The Writing on the Wall’

Iron Maiden have just released a music video for the new song “The Writing on the Wall.”

The long-anticipated track is the first new song from the metal legends since releasing 2015’s The Book of Souls and comes in the wake of a cryptic teaser campaign that whipped fans worldwide into a frenzy as they frantically tracked down every possible clue in search of a greater significance to it all.

It had been suspected a new album was in the works as early as 2019, but more concrete hints didn’t begin to materialize until the spring of this year, where flyers for “Belshazzar’s Feast” began appearing in tandem with the letters ‘WOTW’ and wordplay based off this acronym (which we now can confirm stands for “Writing on the Wall”) that inundated Maiden’s social media and elsewhere.

Singer Bruce Dickinson later made a television appearance while wearing a shirt bearing the same design and, one week before the big announcement, he stood in a theater balcony and invited Maiden fans to attend ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ on July 15.

See our breakdown of the clues here.

The story of Belshazzar’s Feast is taken from the Book of Daniel in the Bible and is the origin of the everyday “to see the writing on the wall” phase, meaning that one is aware of certain events that are imminent.

Naturally, this imminence connected well with Maiden’s first new song in six years, which can be heard below. Find out the meaning behind “The Writing on the Wall” here and click here for fan reactions to Maiden’s new track.

Iron Maiden, “The Writing on the Wall”