Don't keep the Wicker Man waiting...

During the years when Bruce Dickinson took time away from Iron Maiden to pursue a solo career, he recorded a Wicker Man song of his own. Like The Golden Girls, these Iron Men love their wicker! Bruce's "Wicker Man" is from 1997, a few years before Iron Maiden's was recorded, and follows the plot of the movie it's named for more closely than theirs.

If you haven't seen the original 1973 The Wicker Man (NOT the 2006 Nicolas Cage remake, and also NOT THE BEES!!!), fix that ASAP. Christopher Lee considered it his best film, which is saying quite a lot when you look at all of his classic performances. The movie follows a policeman investigating the disappearance of a girl on an isolated Scottish island called Summerisle. I won't give away the many surprises of the film, but it turns out these friendly island folk adhere to a very old religion that involves some very peculiar practices.

Like the movie, Bruce Dickinson's "The Wicker Man" is about an ancient pagan ritual for renewing the earth. With all of the vengeance nature has been wreaking lately, maybe one of those old rituals would do us some good today. All we need is a giant wicker man and a willing, king-like, virgin fool. Clearly from the photo above, Iron Maiden has the giant wicker man thing covered, but where does one find a virgin these days, let alone a willing and king-like one? Maybe one (or a few) of those Duggars will do.