Bruce Dickinson - What does this button do? - A review
Having been so enthusiastic about Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography “What Does This Button Do”, I can report that, having read it, I am now a little less enthusiastic about the book. My overall impression is that it was okay but could have been much more interesting.
Dickinson writes in an accessible, conversational way so the biography is easy to read. Some of the stuff about his childhood, growing up with his grandparents and going to public school is engaging (or “not wasted”, to paraphrase Bruce).
There are also some fascinating insights into Iron Maiden. It might be a band but it’s more of a business. I thought that the fellas in the group might be mates but, from the book, it seemed to me that Maiden is more like a company and the band members are co-workers. For example, there was no evidence of any real friendship between Bruce and Steve Harris, the two were presented more like sparring partners, think a sales director clashing with an operations director. When Bruce left Maiden and went solo, the prose was crafted in such a way that it felt like a change of job rather than anything more emotional.
When Dickinson writes about his later return to Maiden, I came away with the impression that his reinstatement was about business objectives more than comradery.
I was fascinated to read about Bruce’s battle with tongue/throat cancer. I wanted to know how it affected him, how he felt during the treatment and remission stages. What was included was thought provoking but, like a lot of other content in the book, more was about actions, events and facts than it was about feelings and emotions. Dickinson is an alpha male, arrogant, action man of an individual and it was one of the few times in the book that there was any real suggestion of vulnerability, but even in this scenario, it was more implicit than explicit.
Whilst some of the prose was bright and engaging, other elements were rather more prosaic. I’ll be honest, when Bruce was writing about the creation of various albums, I got a bit bored. I didn’t really care which recording studio was used in which part of the world. Even some of the Maiden tour content was rather bland and a bit too staccato.
Perhaps frustratingly for me, my lasting impressions will be about the stuff that only got touched upon, or the material that was missed out altogether.
To illustrate the former, lots and lots of references in the book to the movie “Chemical Wedding” but there was nothing about the critical success of the film and how Bruce felt about it. Most of what I have read elsewhere would indicate that it got panned, so maybe that is why.
He writes about the Balkan conflict forever changing his view on the value of human life – but never expands on it. There’s a poignant picture taken in Sarajevo of a dead child but it’s not referenced in the copy, maybe it was related to Bruce’s observation but you don’t know for sure.
Late in the tome, Bruce almost gets to grips with his difficult relationship with his dad. There was potential for some deeper soul searching (I thought “excellent, this could be fascinating") and then there wasn’t, the topic effectively parked.
With regards to the latter, there was nothing about him piloting “Ed Force One” into Japan as the tsunami and Fukushima disasters unfolded. From a fencing perspective, there was lots of coverage of that topic but … I have read that Bruce was good enough to compete for the UK in the Olympics but couldn’t because of Iron Maiden commitments. Not a mention of this (but then maybe it’s just an urban myth).
Most glaringly absent was anything about his immediate family. Personally I would have been interested to read about how he managed the demands of his careers with being a parent, how he managed to keep his marriage (the second one primarily) alive whilst being away for so much of the time. I’d like to have understood more about the qualities of his wife who must a real trooper herself (behind every great man and all that).
As a family man myself, balancing all the responsibilities of being a husband, father, son, brother, grandson, friend, employee, manager etc. is hard enough and I am just a no one who works in an office. How hard must it be for a celebrity polymath?
The absence of family orientated detail was bugging me but it got resolved (sort of) when I completed the book and got to the acknowledgements. Bruce makes the statement that he intentionally left out anything about births, marriages, divorces, deaths etc. That was a genuine shame in my opinion.
Bruce never goes into detail about his regrets (and he must have some), his failings (ditto), his weaknesses or his desires for the future. He, perhaps sensibly, avoids comment about politics, religion, but all those subject areas would have added much more human interest.
Bruce stated that his original work was about 800 pages long (the book is only 384 pages), with half the content side-lined, it’s perhaps no wonder that it felt patchy and incomplete in places. Bruce states that nobody would have bothered to read the thing if it was so long but I suspect the reading would have been more rewarding without so much cutting.
In summary, and in reference to the title of this post; for me, the button in question is one of those infra-red dimmer type switches that you can activate with your finger or a remote control. The lights can be bright and then fade to black at a touch. As an analogy, bright and then fading reflects how well I was gripped by the book.
Having stated that, it is still worth a read so why not get a copy and make your own mind up. But if you want some alternative recommendations, “I am Ozzy” is more engaging and funny. “White Line Fever” is more cerebral. Both are better reads.
Bruce Dickinson’s buttons, the Troxy and sycophantic tendencies
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Dickinson writes in an accessible, conversational way so the biography is easy to read. Some of the stuff about his childhood, growing up with his grandparents and going to public school is engaging (or “not wasted”, to paraphrase Bruce).
There are also some fascinating insights into Iron Maiden. It might be a band but it’s more of a business. I thought that the fellas in the group might be mates but, from the book, it seemed to me that Maiden is more like a company and the band members are co-workers. For example, there was no evidence of any real friendship between Bruce and Steve Harris, the two were presented more like sparring partners, think a sales director clashing with an operations director. When Bruce left Maiden and went solo, the prose was crafted in such a way that it felt like a change of job rather than anything more emotional.
When Dickinson writes about his later return to Maiden, I came away with the impression that his reinstatement was about business objectives more than comradery.
I was fascinated to read about Bruce’s battle with tongue/throat cancer. I wanted to know how it affected him, how he felt during the treatment and remission stages. What was included was thought provoking but, like a lot of other content in the book, more was about actions, events and facts than it was about feelings and emotions. Dickinson is an alpha male, arrogant, action man of an individual and it was one of the few times in the book that there was any real suggestion of vulnerability, but even in this scenario, it was more implicit than explicit.
Whilst some of the prose was bright and engaging, other elements were rather more prosaic. I’ll be honest, when Bruce was writing about the creation of various albums, I got a bit bored. I didn’t really care which recording studio was used in which part of the world. Even some of the Maiden tour content was rather bland and a bit too staccato.
Perhaps frustratingly for me, my lasting impressions will be about the stuff that only got touched upon, or the material that was missed out altogether.
To illustrate the former, lots and lots of references in the book to the movie “Chemical Wedding” but there was nothing about the critical success of the film and how Bruce felt about it. Most of what I have read elsewhere would indicate that it got panned, so maybe that is why.
He writes about the Balkan conflict forever changing his view on the value of human life – but never expands on it. There’s a poignant picture taken in Sarajevo of a dead child but it’s not referenced in the copy, maybe it was related to Bruce’s observation but you don’t know for sure.
Late in the tome, Bruce almost gets to grips with his difficult relationship with his dad. There was potential for some deeper soul searching (I thought “excellent, this could be fascinating") and then there wasn’t, the topic effectively parked.
With regards to the latter, there was nothing about him piloting “Ed Force One” into Japan as the tsunami and Fukushima disasters unfolded. From a fencing perspective, there was lots of coverage of that topic but … I have read that Bruce was good enough to compete for the UK in the Olympics but couldn’t because of Iron Maiden commitments. Not a mention of this (but then maybe it’s just an urban myth).
Most glaringly absent was anything about his immediate family. Personally I would have been interested to read about how he managed the demands of his careers with being a parent, how he managed to keep his marriage (the second one primarily) alive whilst being away for so much of the time. I’d like to have understood more about the qualities of his wife who must a real trooper herself (behind every great man and all that).
As a family man myself, balancing all the responsibilities of being a husband, father, son, brother, grandson, friend, employee, manager etc. is hard enough and I am just a no one who works in an office. How hard must it be for a celebrity polymath?
The absence of family orientated detail was bugging me but it got resolved (sort of) when I completed the book and got to the acknowledgements. Bruce makes the statement that he intentionally left out anything about births, marriages, divorces, deaths etc. That was a genuine shame in my opinion.
Bruce never goes into detail about his regrets (and he must have some), his failings (ditto), his weaknesses or his desires for the future. He, perhaps sensibly, avoids comment about politics, religion, but all those subject areas would have added much more human interest.
Bruce stated that his original work was about 800 pages long (the book is only 384 pages), with half the content side-lined, it’s perhaps no wonder that it felt patchy and incomplete in places. Bruce states that nobody would have bothered to read the thing if it was so long but I suspect the reading would have been more rewarding without so much cutting.
In summary, and in reference to the title of this post; for me, the button in question is one of those infra-red dimmer type switches that you can activate with your finger or a remote control. The lights can be bright and then fade to black at a touch. As an analogy, bright and then fading reflects how well I was gripped by the book.
Having stated that, it is still worth a read so why not get a copy and make your own mind up. But if you want some alternative recommendations, “I am Ozzy” is more engaging and funny. “White Line Fever” is more cerebral. Both are better reads.
Bruce Dickinson’s buttons, the Troxy and sycophantic tendencies
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