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Snapping at the heels of the band’s 1970 debut album, the follow-up – released in the same year – continued to lay down the foundations of heavy metal with its molten-iron riffs and dark lyrical content. Just don’t ask about the cover art...

There are plenty of contenders for 'most influential heavy metal album of all time', but Black Sabbath's second LP, Paranoid, is surely in the leading pack. The horror rock sound they invented had partly been blueprinted by the trudging tritones of their self-titled debut album from earlier the same year, but with help from the title track's Top 5 chart success, Paranoid would launch them into hard rock's premier league. Its impact would also reach far and wide, captivating generations of fans who liked their music loud, scary and potent enough in the lower frequencies to feel like a punch in the stomach.

Speed metal

Paranoid also brought more focus to Black Sabbath's sound. The loose jams, cover versions and bluesy licks that reflected a group still firming up a sonic identity on their debut album were left on the touring circuit when – in the spring of 1970 – they reconvened to write new material. As for the short turnaround between albums, their record label was keen to capitalise on the success of Black Sabbath.

The band pictured on a poster included with Rhino's Super Deluxe Edition [R2 556692] from 2016

'If a band was starting to break, they told you, "You have to go back in the studio"', explained Sabbath drummer Bill Ward in 2024 on the occasion of Paranoid's 50th anniversary. 'Our first album was released in February 1970… and four months later, they said we had to do another one!'

Although the quartet had come up with some new material while out on tour, it wasn't sufficient to record an album, so adopting the tried and trusted 'get your heads together in the country' tactic, Black Sabbath headed to the live-in Monnow Valley Studio in Monmouth, Wales, to focus on writing new music without distractions. 'The idea was to go and live together somewhere where we'd feel less encouraged to do, er, other things', guitarist Tony Iommi said in 2020. 'It was good to be under one roof so everyone could be together, and actually get things done.'

The group pose for a publicity shot in 1973 (l-r): Osbourne, Butler, Iommi and Ward

This new work was all completed in a few days between gigging up and down the country, after which more shows were scheduled. Then the band had the relative luxury of six days (lest we forget, they recorded Black Sabbath in a single day) at London's Regent Sound and Island Studios.

'We said, "Blimey! We've got a whole six days! What are we going to do with that?"', Iommi recalled. 'We genuinely didn't know.'

One of the earliest songs written for the album was based around a dramatic, staccato riff that the redoubtable guitarist had come up with during a jam session more than a year previously at a 'terrible' residency in Switzerland where they played 'to about three people'.

Ozzy caught on camera in London in June 1984 before heading out on his worldwide ‘Bark At The Moon’ tour

Ward remembered: 'During the song "Warning" we used to jam that out and that particular night... Tony just went da-dunk!'. The new song's original lyric, however, saw it named 'Walpurgis', after the day that is celebrated as 'Christmas for Satanists', according to bass player and chief lyricist Geezer Butler.

'It was a term for a black magic wedding or something', Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne wrote in his autobiography I Am Ozzy. 'Then we changed it to "War Pigs" and Geezer came up with these heavy duty lyrics about death and destruction. No wonder we never got any chicks at our gigs.'

One for the masses

An embryonic version of 'War Pigs' aired on John Peel's Top Gear on April 26th, 1970, still with its pagan-inspired lyrics, but by the time the band came to record it as Paranoid's opening track, new lines were in place – although the connection between the dark side and the world's warmongers was still there from Butler's point of view.

'The Vietnam war was scaring the hell out of everyone', he told Wall Of Sound, and in a 2017 Mojo interview he expanded: 'Britain was on the verge of being brought into [the war]... protests in the street, all kinds of anti-Vietnam things going on. War is the real Satanism. Politicians are the real Satanists. That's what I was trying to say'.

Live in New York in 1977 at Madison Square Garden

While some have mocked the song's rhyming of 'masses' with, erm, 'masses' ('it wasn't a lesson in poetry', Butler has pointed out), its words have aged all too well. 'Sad that my lyrics remain relevant', Butler commented on X/Twitter in 2022. 'Maybe megalomaniacs like Putin should have another listen.'

The one-two punch of the 'War Pigs' riff only comes in after a funereally slow passage of sludge-caked power chords, the sound of which pretty much invented the idea of alt. rock 'grunge' some 20 years early. Doomy hard rock of all stripes owe it and most of the other riffs here a huge debt, too, and the fascination with war, death and destruction set the template for some of thrash metal's most reliable go-to lyrical topics.

Boot camp

Not long before recording began, there had been gruesome scenes considerably closer to home that proved inspirational to one of the songs the band penned in the studio. After a show in Weston-super-Mare on June 13th, Butler had been set upon by a group of skinheads outside the venue, and the rest of the band (Ozzy allegedly armed with a hammer) came to his rescue. They made it back to the van and out of town, but not unscathed. Iommi ended up with a black eye, visible in the photographs taken soon after in the studio.

Shot of Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler issued in 2013 to promote the band’s final album, 13

Lyrics credited to Ozzy (although these days he claims to have no memory of writing them) thus adorn 'Fairies Wear Boots'. Yet the words have also been blamed on an acid trip, which tallies with the final lines: 'I went to the doctor, see what he could give me/he said, "Son, son, you've gone too far/'cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do"'.

Terrific riffs

The almost boogie-ish rhythm of this track makes for one of Paranoid's poppier moments, but even after it was laid down, producer Rodger Bain felt they needed one more to take the album's length to eight songs and over 40 minutes. The rest, as they say, is history: when the band came back from a lunch break, they found Iommi playing the deathless introductory riff to what became the album's title track.

'He was just playing it on his own in the studio', Bill Ward recalled in an interview with Mix Online. 'Geezer plugged in his bass, I sat behind my drum kit, we automatically grooved with him and Ozzy started singing. We didn't say a word to each other; we just came in the room and started playing. I think it was about one-thirty in the afternoon. Tony had the riffs, and by two we had "Paranoid" exactly as you hear it on the record.'

Art attack

In I Am Ozzy, Black Sabbath's frontman revealed that 'the moment the suits at Vertigo heard that song, the name of the whole album became Paranoid'. Other accounts have insisted that the title was always going to change, as calling the record 'War Pigs' risked unwanted controversy in the States at a time when Vietnam war protests were at their height. By that time, though, the cover art had already been commissioned. 'If you look at the album sleeve, it's got a guy in a pink leotard and a shield and a sword', Osbourne told Mix Online. 'That was supposed to represent the War Pig. A pink pig. They printed the album sleeve and changed it to Paranoid at the very last minute.'

The group in 1970 (l-r) Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne

Although other tracks on the album are key cornerstones in the development of heavy metal – not least the formidable 'Iron Man' – there is one that is a clear outlier, and it that showed Sabbath were considerably more versatile than they're sometimes given credit for.

'Planet Caravan' is a trippy, floating reverie in which Osbourne's voice is electronically treated to create an alluring psychedelic sheen to this starry-eyed ballad. 'We always knew we could do softer things', Ward told Kerrang! 'We put Ozzy's voice through a Leslie speaker and it sounded really cool. Tony was playing some nice jazz chords... a lot of people might not know that he's a great jazz guitarist.'

Ozzy on stage at the Belgrade Calling festival in June 2012

'We didn't want to come out with the usual love c**p'. explained Geezer Butler to Classic Albums. 'So it was about floating through the universe with your loved one, instead of "Let's go down to the pub and have some chips", or whatever... Just taking a spaceship out into the stars and having the ultimate romantic weekend.'

What Paranoid reflected most strongly, however, was a band peaking as a performing unit. 'We were very tight', Ward told Metal Hammer. 'We'd been playing together for over two years. You have to remember, this was a very good live band coming into the studio for Paranoid. I think we delivered our aggression and on-stage dynamics in the studio.'