Judas Priest's cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Green Manalishi'

On Killing Machine — retitled Hell Bent for Leather in the United States — Judas Priest included a cover of an early Fleetwood Mac song, “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown).” The choice reached back to Fleetwood Mac’s pre-Nicks era and the band’s founder, guitar virtuoso Peter Green.

“The Green Manalishi” began life as a non-album single later added to deluxe editions of Then Play On. Peter Green wrote it after an LSD trip in which a green dog, which he saw as both the devil and money, became a symbol of the band’s profit-driven tensions. Green’s fixation on giving away the band’s earnings and his heavy LSD use contributed to his departure from Fleetwood Mac shortly after the song’s release.

Judas Priest drew on those blues-rooted elements and pushed them toward metal. By 1978 their sound was more focused than two years earlier; they sped up the tempo, hardened the tone, and let KK Downing and Glen Tipton trade solos at high speed.

United States

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