All rivers in the kingdom of heavy metal flow from one source: Black Sabbath. Join me on the dark Hajj through their discography, one album at a time. This is the way.
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| (1970) |
I was prepared to begin by saying that Paranoid has to be the best album to come out in 1970, simply on account of how iconic, timeless, and acclaimed it is, but then I refamiliarized myself with all that came out in 1970. That was a hell of a year for new albums. (Hell, Black Sabbath isn’t even the only band to put out two new albums that year.) I’d still put the band's self-titled debut and Paranoid in my top five albums of 1970, but I’m unreasonable. I doubt, however, that it's controversial to suggest it's a classic beyond my personal reckoning.
This one should be pretty easy to write about since every song is five stars. One could quibble about this one or that one, but why? A weird hill to defend, never mind die on or be obliterated by the rock artillery fire of something like “Iron Man.” (Which as I type these words is playing as loud as I can get away with, in my office behind closed doors, while my daughter is in her remote classroom in the living room. If I'd been in second grade and my Dad was in the other room cranking Black Sabbath... I don't even know how to finish this sentence. The possibility is not even remote; it's beyond the realm of mathematics. Even nowadays mathematics.)
Let’s look at that cover. Is "WTF" the appropriate question? Ozzy thought so, saying in 1988 “WTF does a bloke dressed as a pig with a sword in his hand got to do with being paranoid, I don’t know.” Black Sabbath has some of the coolest covers going and some of the wtf-iest going. The cover was again designed by Keith McMillan (no relation). They missed an opportunity to get the cover model from Black Sabbath back and make a trend out of it. At least if it was her in the samurai armor (or whatever the hell you want to call this get-up) there’d be some kind of continuity. Ill-considered, sure, but continuity.
Side one opens up with “War Pigs,” which was originally titled “Walpurgis,” as in “the Satanic version of Christmas,” according to Butler. I don’t know if that's what it is, exactly, but who am I contradict Geezer Butler? “Satan isn’t a spiritual thing, it’s warmongers. That’s who the real Satanists are, all these people who are running the banks and the world and trying to get the working class to fight the wars for them. (But) the record company said “Too Satanic!” So I changed it to ‘War Pigs.’” Ozzy adds (this is all from the Wiki) “Geezer just wasn’t interested in your average ‘I love you’ pop song.”
Ever hear Faith No More’s version of it? Not bad. I used to have it and “Woodpeckers from Mars” on a lot of mixes 1994-ish. Hell, 1994-1995 I was listening to Faith No More all the time. I haven't in awhile; I should.
“Paranoid” is “Paranoid,” what can you say? One of the best opening riffs/ first verses in metal history, and one of those I-can’t-believe-they-whipped-it-up-on-the-spot sort of deals. Except I can believe it, because that happens so often in music. (See "Dancing in the Dark," "Sweet Child of Mine," so many others.) Anyway, I suspect if you owned an electric guitar in the 80s and were in any way a metal fan, this – and a lot of this album, or as much as you could – was one of the first things you learned how to play. (And if you were like me, once you mastered the riff to "Paranoid," you announced yourself as a "guitar player," even if it was the only thing you knew how to play. It's fun to be fourteen. Usually.)
“Planet Caravan” is the quiet number, a tradition for (most) Sabbath albums to come. This is one of those songs that probably sounds a lot better if you’re high. I mean, most songs do. Not all songs. Faster Pussycat is a notorious exception to this rule. This is a cool mellow, either way, but there’s a certain float-through-the-universe feeling that seems tailor made for marijuana. I love the little bass-and-pan-flute runs that punctuate the melody.
“Iron Man” Isn’t it funny that this song exists and has nothing to do with Tony Stark? That’s true of a couple of Iron Man named things, I guess, but it’s an uncommon enough example of two iconic things sharing the same space.
“The song “Iron Man” was originally entitled “Iron Bloke.” Upon hearing Iommi play the main guitar riff Ozzy remarked it sounded like “a big iron bloke walking around.” Butler wrote the lyrics as the story of a man who time travels into the future and sees the apocalypse. In the process of returning to the present, he is turned into steel by a magnetic field. His attempts to warn the populace are ignored and mocked. This causes Iron Man to be become angry and vengeful, causing the destruction in his vision.”
So says the wiki. Some reactions: (1) ”Iron Bloke” is funny. (2) I love that one of the lyrics is “He was turned to steel in the great magnetic field” but there’s an explainer about how he was turned into steel by a magnetic field. Kind of literal, there. That goes for all of them. And (3) Metal rules. I think it diffused along the culture enough now where it wouldn’t be weird to see just about do a cover, but one of the things I loved about the genre as a kid was how metal could do a cover of anything but not everything could do a cover of metal. Madonna couldn’t just turn on a dime and sing to her audience about all of the above. Ricky Nelson couldn’t sell “Paranoid” to his audience. But Black Sabbath (or Megadeth) was free to do anything it basically wanted to do (so long as it didn't have keyboards. Obvious keyboards.)
Like I say, it’s changed, but I still hear a little bit of “my gang” in this song and I love it. This is the kind of metal shit (along with Van Halen’s “Everybody Wants Some” and any number of other examples) that defined my adolescence. Kids in the 70s and 80s and maybe even the 90s might have all had that in common, as there was a shared “finishing school” of metal iconography that included things like "Iron Man" and there was just no way around it.
“Electric Funeral” opens side two. This song is possibly my pound-for-found favorite Sabbath song. That’s a tough one. I don’t know, truthfully, what my favorite Sabbath song is, and part of this project is nailing it down some. (You better believe I’m keeping a spreadsheet!) The lyrics are so disturbed-kid-back-of-class-back-of-the-bus-notebook-full-of-mushroom-clouds-y, that riff and slog is just so dirtbag-metal-y, and the fast-break-out part with the frog-voiced “E-lec-tric fyun-ral…” over and over is just great.
And then you get “Hand of Doom.” Good lord this song. I was driving around the other day and this was playing and it was lightly raining in the late afternoon – dwindling light, long shadows. It really drove home how perfectly it captures the “bleak” light, and how underutilized it is for the right sequence in a movie. Not necessarily a drug overdose montage either. (In my head I see snowy, cold 70s streets like The French Connection or something, some kind of cross-montage, steam rising from coffee cups, weary eyes on stakeout, girls with heroin eyes in minidresses flanked by sailors, etc.) Just fantastic, and another example of Sabbath having all the freedom in the world (and bestowing said freedom on the genre itself) for choice of topic or exploration of mood.
“Rat Salad” is a cool little break in things. Bill Ward letting the others catch a smoke break off stage. And then things end with yet another staple of both early metal and early Sabbath, “Fairies Wear Boots.” Tell me this isn’t among the coolest so-many-seconds in metal. They should've gotten into the Hall of Fame based on that minute of music alone. Another one I never appreciated as a kid because I had very specific ideas of what fairies should look or sound like. Seems funny to me now. Apparently Ozzy meant the term in a derogatory way towards some skinheads who jumped him after a show. The past is a different - but familiar - country.
An iconic finish to an iconic side of an iconic album – just icons all the way down.
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And there you have it! Black Sabbath must’ve been a hell of a band to see in 1970 if this and Black Sabbath was their playlist.
