Man of Sorrows

About Man of Sorrows

Man of Sorrows is the second single from Bruce Dickinson's fourth solo album, Accident of Birth, released on 3 June 1997. The song was originally written for a film called Chemical Wedding, which existed only as a script at the time (it was eventually filmed and released in May 2008). The original version of the song, included on The Best of Bruce Dickinson, was recorded in 1990, engineered by André Jacquemin (who is better known for his sound-engineer work for Monty Python) and featured Janick Gers on guitar. 1In interviews, Bruce Dickinson has stated that the song's lyrics are about the occult English writer Aleister Crowley. The repeated expression "Do what thou wilt!" refers to the motto of the Abbey of Thelema, which the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais invented in his philosophical work Gargantua. In this abbey, men and women live together in peace and harmony according to the principle: In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. more »