What Does This Button Do? An Autobiography

How can someone have the temerity to rate someone else's life story – a story that's been written in their own words, from their own memories and experiences? I feel a bit odd posting a review of this book at all, because, like any autobiography, it's simply a body of work that describes someone's personal body of work, and perhaps should just be taken at face value and enjoyed as such. Let's keep this in mind in the paragraphs ahead. I've been a rabid Iron Maiden fan since I was a young boy and I likely always will be, so a delve into Bruce Dickinson's colorful life after listening to him scream hundreds of tales to me through the years, thousands of times, was always going to be a sure thing. But while I'm glad that I read Bruce's story, I didn't find it particularly entertaining or well-crafted. Does that matter? No, it doesn't, because he's lived a huge life doing huge things and has faced major challenges with a varied array of successes and failures, just like all of us. That life can't be rated by anyone but the person living it. He's put many months into writing down these memories and a published memoir is yet one more accomplishment to be proud of. I have a lot of respect for the man and his talent with regard to so many facets of his world – Bruce Dickinson does a ton of things: he sings and performs, he fences on a world-class level, he flies commercial airlines, he convenes public seminars, he writes numerous books. Yet after reading his autobiography, I still don't really know who Bruce IS. And that's really what I wanted to learn from this book. Part of this can be attributed to the limited scope of the subject matter discussed within. Dickinson notes in the afterword that he wasn't at all interested in describing his relationships with anyone other than his parents, grandparents, and (cursorily) an array of men that he'd worked with while in various bands, in flight, on the road, in a war zone, etc. He has stayed totally clear of any whiff of romance, with not a single mention of partnership, marriage, or children, and we don't know why. Maybe he's had no relationships, or maybe they never worked for him. Maybe he just wanted to keep those things private. That's of course his right, but it's a glaring chasm in the story he's telling that makes him appear to be rather thin in the emotion department, or at least very detached from it. While disappointing, this is not entirely unexpected. Perhaps over time I've tired of the British tendency to couch everything in clever wordplay while conspicuously hiding the hint of any preciousness or emotion. Shit happens, I faced it, and here I am, out the other side. And how about my horrible taste in trousers, har-har? The distance with which Dickinson relates his exploits bleeds off on the reader and there's not much room for attachment. After over thirty years in a band with essentially the same people, all I'm really sure of is that Steve Harris is a control freak and that Nicko McBrain craps his pants when golfing. His personal comments about the people in his life feel gratuitous but hesitant, and I can't tell if he considers them – or anyone else – friends, or what he really values in them. This is not to say that Dickinson appears shallow; rather his guardedness in print is made the more opaque by his tendency to fill chapters with somewhat smug – though good natured – purple prose. By now it should be obvious that I had hoped for something a little more incisive and intimate, but that's my own issue to bear and not Bruce's. After all, I've spent the past two decades imagining how to make a website that teaches history through the lyrical content of Iron Maiden songs. I only blame myself for wanting to understand a little more about the man and how he fits in with the people around him. The only part of this story that was genuinely disarming was the final chapter, wherein he was diagnosed with and bravely battled head and neck cancer. This section hits like the opening to 'Where Eagles Dare' and is horrific to imagine. I think it's wonderful that Dickinson felt comfortable enough to solemnly recount not only the procession of this incredible challenge, but also his feelings and reflections as he was going through it all. I so wish the rest of the book had been written in a similar tenor, but it might have been a much longer and more vulnerable treatise in that case. Other than the final chapter, I would consider What Does This Button Do? to be but a half-pour of quippy anecdotes in a pint glass of passions and endeavors of the long-time singer of Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson is obviously much, much more than just that, but he never really gives us a chance to engage with him on the inside. With this considered, the book might have been titled What Does This Bruce Do? Because that's pretty much what the whole autobiography is about.