Saxon "Crusader"

Crusader is the sixth studio album by the heavy metal band Saxon released in 1984. The album sold over 2 million copies.

Of the title of the album and the title track, bassist Steve Dawson has said that "In England, there's a paper called the Daily Express, and on the logo at the top of the paper, there's a crusader, and there was a car made by Ford called a Cortina Crusader. That's what started it off. We just liked the name "Crusader". We didn't have any connotations of what it meant as far as history goes, but we just liked the name "Crusader", so we just wrote the lyrics to fit the title, really."

The album reached no.1 in the metal charts in Sweden, France and Germany. It also charted in the U.S. Billboard chart.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Saxon, except where noted.

Side one

1. "The Crusader Prelude" 1:05
2. "Crusader" 6:33
3. "A Little Bit of What You Fancy" 3:50
4. "Sailing to America" 5:03
5. "Set Me Free" (Sweet cover) Andy Scott 3:13

Side two

1. "Just Let Me Rock" 4:11
2. "Bad Boys (Like to Rock N' Roll)" 3:24
3. "Do It All for You" Biff Byford, Paul Quinn, Graham Oliver, Steve Dawson, Kevin Beamish 4:42
4. "Rock City" Byford, Quinn, Oliver, Dawson 3:16
5. "Run for Your Lives" 3:53

All songs written by Saxon, except "Set Me Free" written by A. Scott and "Do It All for You" written by Saxon and Kevin Beamish.

Recording information:

Recorded at Sound City, Los Angeles, Carlifornia. 

Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York.