"the ides of march" is near identical to "thunderburst", by fellow british nwobhm band samson, who featured a pre-maiden bruce dickinson on vocals. however, "the ides of march" was written during the brief time in 1977 in which future samson drummer thunderstick was a member of iron maiden. while harris took sole credit for "the ides of march", "thunderburst" is credited to harris and all four members of samson's "head on" line-up, bruce bruce, aka bruce dickinson, chris aylmer, paul samson, and thunderstick, aka barry purkis.