This is a favourate track from the Somewhere in Time album. Often mistaken for being about the marvellous Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, this is in fact a story of exploration in icy places, an area similar to where Frank Worsely of Akaroa made his name - a name shared of course with the pioneering farmers of Worsely Spur.
The lyrics are about an Arctic explorer who dies and is frozen in the ice. After a hundred years his body is found preserved by other people exploring there.[2] Adrian Smith was inspired to write about this song after talking to an explorer who had had a similar experience of discovering a frozen body.
For the trainspotters:
Eddie's appearance on the single cover is an homage to the Clint Eastwood character "Man with No Name".[3] Though it can also be seen as a mixture of "Deckard"[4] from Blade Runner and "Man with No Name". This version of Eddie would later be used in the Camp Chaos music video for "Run to the Hills".
- In the top-right corner of the cover (slightly right of Eddie's lit match), the time on the clock appears as "11:58". This is a reference to a previous Iron Maiden single, "2 Minutes to Midnight".
- Several cards can be seen falling from the table. One, (orange background, next to red coloured card) contains a picture of the Grim Reaper, like that on the Trooper cover.
- Just under one of the stacks of cards, on the edge of the table, Derek Riggs' signature can be seen.
- In the music video for a later song, "The Angel and the Gambler" (from Virtual XI), then-singer Blaze Bayley dressed up like this Eddie.