Aces High

"Aces High" is a song by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, written by the band's bassist Steve Harris. It is Iron Maiden's eleventh single release and the second from their fifth studio album, Powerslave (1984). The first B-side is a cover of Nektar's "King of Twilight", from their 1972 album A Tab in the Ocean. Their cover is actually a medley of the songs "Crying in the Dark" and "King of Twilight", the last two songs on the album. The Japanese 12" was mixed with the B-side covers from "The Trooper" and "2 Minutes to Midnight" singles. Song information The song's lyrics are written from the viewpoint of a British RAF pilot fighting during the Battle of Britain (1940), the first military engagement to be fought entirely with aircraft. The artwork depicts the band's mascot, Eddie the Head, in the cockpit of a Supermarine Spitfire, one of the principal aircraft to participate in that battle. The music video was filmed in Poland during their World Slavery Tour in 1984. Directed by Jim Yukich, the promotional video itself features some footages during The Battle of Britain which was first used in their Poland concert video called Behind the Iron Curtain. The black-and-white footages would later be used as the "jumpstart before the drum beat" starting in 2008 in their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, 2012's Maiden England World Tour as the encore part and in 2018's Legacy of the Beast World Tour this time, with new footages added for the tour.