He… even had to sing from lyric sheets at live performances. The band states: “ was, when he was a member of IRON MAIDEN, notorious for forgetting lyrics for the band’s songs, or missing out words, or singing the wrong words. IRON MAIDEN has admitted that Willcock changed three words of “Prowler” and two of “Charlotte The Harlot” but has questioned whether he can remember writing them. But in the documents served to the High Court, Harris and publisher Imagem state: “The lyrics for were written by Mr Harris in or around 1977 to accompany music written by Mr Murray, who had joined IRON MAIDEN in late 1976.” Since it first appeared on MAIDEN’s debut LP, the track has been solely credited to guitarist Dave Murray.

In addition, the band admits the songwriting credit on “Charlotte The Harlot” is wrong. In a formal written response to Willcock’s legal action, Iron Maiden claims bassist Steve Harris, not Willcock, actually penned the lyrics in question. Willcock claims to have written the words to the tracks “Prowler”, “Charlotte The Harlot”, “Phantom Of The Opera”, “Iron Maiden” and “Prodigal Son”, which were recorded and released by MAIDEN on their first two albums, 1980’s self-titled effort and 1981’s “Killers”.

Iron maiden phantom of the opera lyrics