059: Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)
Every cool riff has already been written by Black Sabbath. You're either playing it faster or slower or backwards, but they wrote it first.
—Rob Zombie
The song “Black Sabbath” on the album Black Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath is one of the rare occasions where the beginning of a new genre can be traced to one specific moment. We’re here to present the case that this is one of the most important records ever made, without which there would be no Iron Maiden, no Judas Priest, no Metallica, and no Def Leppard, and nobody wants to live in that world. Not only is it one of rock’s most influential albums, it still holds up incredibly well after 50 years. Just listen to that opening riff and try to say that isn’t one of the coolest things you’ve ever heard.
Miscellany
One story that Mike couldn’t find a way to fit into the episode is that Black Sabbath attracted a lot of spooky people to their shows, and on one tour, the halls of their hotel were filled with people in black cloaks, holding candles and chanting. Not knowing how to deal with this situation, Black Sabbath chose the best possible option: they all sang “Happy Birthday” and blew out the candles.
“Black Sabbath” the song originally had an unbelievably dark extra verse, which went as follows: “Child cries out for its mother/Mother’s screaming in the fire/Satan points at me again/Opens the door to push me in/Oh nooooooo!” It makes sense that they cut it, because otherwise the song would be around ten minutes long, but imagine how people would have reacted if they’d left it in!
For a long time, nobody knew who that mysterious figure was on the album cover, and some people even thought it was Ozzy, but her name is Louisa Livingstone, and she is alive and well and making ambient electronic music as Indreba.
Tony Iommi’s hand injury is often cited as the reason for Sabbath’s doomy, downtuned sound, and this is partially true. Iommi originally started tuning his guitar down in order to make the strings easier to bend, resulting in the guitar sound heard on this album. The massively heavy downtuning heard on albums like Master of Reality, however, was done mainly for aesthetic purposes.
The early black metal scene in Norway was extremely messed up and included arson, murder, torture, and many other examples of truly disgusting behavior. Proceed with extreme caution. (Immortal never did any of those things, though. They just scream about winterdemons and play guitars in the snow.)
In the discussion on “N.I.B.,” John actually meant to say that the Live Evil version of the track is one of his very favorite hard-rock/heavy-metal tracks full-stop, not just his favorite available version of “N.I.B.,” but he had a brain fart and somehow that didn’t come out. Anyway, the Live Evil version is awesome and you should absolutely hear it.
The idea to incorporate Bad Company into the teaser (over music from the introduction to the film Black Sabbath) came from how Bad Company and Black Sabbath are the most famous members of the “have a song title and an album title that matches the band name” club. Also John thought the idea of trying to make seagulls (the name of a deep cut on Bad Company) sound menacing was so stupid that it became hilarious, much like Black Sabbath at their best.
John mentioned that the live archive compilation Past Lives (which contains the live version of “Wicked World” clipped in the episode) is out of print, but it looks like he was mistaken, so you should absolutely look to buy it if you like Black Sabbath.
When Amanda quoted Almost Famous, her very favorite movie, she completely forgot that Stillwater was touring with….Black Sabbath. Oops.
Other links
They’re trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteously dumb! (YouTube)
Black Sabbath debut: Woman from cover finally identified 50 years on (Louder Sound)
Discord & Rhyme’s Black Sabbath playlist (Spotify)
Discord & Rhyme Roll Call
Mike DeFabio (host)
John McFerrin (moderator)
Phil Maddox
Amanda Rodgers
Black Sabbath tracklist
Black Sabbath
The Wizard
Behind the Wall of Sleep
N.I.B.
Evil Woman
Sleeping Village
Warning
Wicked World
Other clips used
Black Sabbath:
Paranoid
N.I.B. (Live)
Air Dance
Wicked World (Live)
Into the Void
Symptom of the Universe
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Hole in the Sky (Live)
Others:
Les Bexter - Black Sabbath: Main Title
Hexx - Terror
Beavis and Butthead - Electric Funeral
Def Leppard - Animal
Gustav Holst - Mars, the Bringer of War
Enigma - I Love You...I’ll Kill You
Cypress Hill - I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That
A Tribe Called Quest - We the People….
OutKast - Hootie Hoo
Beck - Hotwax
Jungle Brothers - Beeds on a String
Quasimoto - Return of the Loop Digga
Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman
Crow - Evil Woman
Ike & Tina Turner - Evil Man
The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation - Warning
Yes - The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)
The Doors - Wild Child
Blood Ceremony - Witchwood
Nazareth - Hair of the Dog
Immortal - Gates to Blashyrkh
Band/album personnel
Tony Iommi - guitar
Geezer Butler - bass
Bill Ward - drums
Ozzy Osbourne - vocals, harmonica
Credits
“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of:
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste
The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Herbie Hancock - Hornets
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen
Black Sabbath - N.I.B. (this episode only)
You can buy or stream Black Sabbath and other albums by Black Sabbath at your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for hosting, production, and original music. See you next album, and be ever wonderful.