On February 13th, 1970, Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut album, inventing heavy metal in the process. But in September of that same year, they unleashed the genre’s bible. While Black Sabbath saw the quartet still working to fully define their musical path, Paranoid was the sound of a band that had tapped into the source from which all metal has flowed for the last fifty-plus years.
Black Sabbath wasn’t the first metal band I heard; that honor falls to Metallica. But I was lucky enough to hear them during my formative years, and while hearing “Black Sabbath” for the first time on a good set of headphones gave me the chills, it was the entirety of Paranoid that made me understand why Sabbath was the one true heavy metal godhead.
That’s because Paranoid is a murderer’s row of incredible songs, starting with “War Pigs.” Catchy without being conventional, progressive without disappearing up its own ass and heavy as hell, “War Pigs” is one of Sabbath’s greatest achievements, a deep, dark and tension-filled rumination on the evils of warfare. When one considers that the world was only a few years removed from the Vietnam War’s bloodiest period, the song takes on even more meaning. According to Wikipedia, bassist Geezer Butler has been quoted as saying that the song is “totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them.” The image of corrupt politicians being put to judgment for their corruption remains a powerful one, especially in the post-Trump era.
Kicking off your album with one of the greatest metal tracks of all time would be a ridiculously bold move for just about any other band, but Sabbath’s songwriting throughout Paranoid is so excellent throughout that it doesn’t that album doesn’t feel front-loaded. “War Pigs” is followed by the urgent title track, a short, sharp shock of a song that almost feels like proto-punk and then into the ultra-trippy “Planet Caravan.” “Paranoid” was written in the studio as a filler track, but if there’s one to be learned here it’s that a throwaway Sabbath track from this era of band blows roughly 99.9% of other heavy band’s best songs out of the goddamn water and as such it ended up becoming one of the band’s signature songs. “Planet Caravan” on the other hand is one of the Sabs’ most underrated tracks, a musical trip to the far reaches of space that sounds great when you’re sober but even better with the assistance of a dimly lit room and some primo weed.
“Iron Man” closes out side A of Paranoid and I’m not sure what more can be said about this track other than it is heavy metal personified. From Tony Iommi’s monstrous, world-beating guitar-work, to Ozzy’s maniacal vocals, to the mind-blowing outro that shows why Geezer Butler and Bill Ward are the best metal rhythm section of all time, “Iron Man” is yet another stunning achievement in the Sabbath canon and contains what is quite simply one of the greatest riffs ever written. “Iron Man” is also the track that most folks associate with Black Sabbath and with good reason.
Of course, as amazing as side A of Paranoid is, side B is certainly no slouch, beginning with the devastating duo of “Electric Funeral” and “Hand of Doom.” Taken together, these songs are the songwriting blueprints for pretty much every stoner doom band ever. “Electric Funeral,” begins with a creepy main riff and haunting vocals, becomes frantic around the two-minute mark and then settles back down into a dying man’s crawl before fading back into the abyss from whence it came. “Hand of Doom” on the other, uh, hand, is an atmospheric doom workout that makes excellent use of dynamics and is one my favorite songs from the Sab four. The way the different sections of the song flow into each other is nothing short of masterful, emphasizing yet again the band’s masterful songwriting and musicianship.
Whereas the the first thirty-five minutes and forty-five seconds of Paranoid are serious as a heart attack, the final six minutes and fifteen seconds showcase Black Sabbath at their most playful. “Fairies Wear Boots” is a tale of coming home late at night (presumably after one hell of a bender) to see “a fairy with boots on dancin’ with a dwarf.” The song sees Iommi and Co. returning to their bluesy roots with a shuffling rhythm and a lead-heavy central riff to finish out the album, perfectly capping off eight tracks of absolute metal mastery.
More than any other Black Sabbath album, Paranoid is the one that blew my young mind and in revisiting the album to write this piece, it’s pretty easy to see why. This is the goddamn urtext, nothing more, nothing less, ’nuff said, true believer!
THKD 