Black Sabbath

I grew up on ABBA, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Billy Joel, Barbara Streisand, and Judy Collins when I was younger. Throw in The Fifth Dimension, the Hair soundtrack, and a healthy amount of disco, and you got yourselves the 70s. Pop and Yacht Rock were staples of my childhood. I heard KISS, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, and AC/DC as time passed. The connection was immense. Finding your music is one of the greatest gifts you can find. It’s one of the most incredible things I possess.

One day, as grade schoolers, we returned to the school playground to hang out; Mike, Scott, and I rode bikes and bonded(not that I knew that then). Boys will shout out nonsense from time to time. It’s our thing, yet I’m still trying to figure out why. We may want to share, and that’s all we know. Anyway, Scott was at the top of the slide, and he mooned Mike and me. He then yells “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”! Meanwhile, I’m like, “What are you talking about?”. Scott shouts, “Sabbath!” Hmmm, that sounds interesting.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that I’m a completist. I went to Samsondale Plaza in West Haverstraw, NY, and headed to the record store. I asked the guy who owned it what the first Black Sabbath /album was. He gave me the self-titled release. Now, by that time, I heard Iron Man and Paranoid, but I hadn’t heard the First Sabbath Album. I was about to hear history. Until then, I listened to the grooviest and heaviest material was AC/DC. I’m hittin’ next level here. I unwrap it and put the cassette in the player.

Black Sabbath—the storm—the bell—so ominous. Oh no, no, please, God help me. Around 4:35, I’m thinking, where are you going? It brings you to an early climax with a blistering solo and enough groove to make Kool and The Gang take notice.

The Wizard starts. As you hear the breathing in and out of the harmonica, come and get ready for what is to come. Then, it takes a twist into the Southern bluesy jam. Then, at the 55-second mark, it kicked in and got a little heavier, but I still didn’t know where it was going to go. The drumming is spectacular. The vocals are right on the brink of distortion. You even hear a little cowbell. Sabbath is a lot more than just Iron Man and Paranoid—a lot more.

Behind the Wall of Sleep. This song hits me in the gut, well-drenched in ’70s proto-doom. Where am I now? I hear another layer; I’m intrigued by the solo saunters and sachets with heavy aplomb. You expect a hearty romp, but you get a groovy slide that fits into any occasion.

Next up is NIB. The song’s title has long been a source of speculation, with some fans interpreting the title as meaning “Nativity in Black” or “Name in Blood.” In the early 1990s, Geezer Butler claimed that the title was a reference to a drummer’s beard at that time, which his bandmates felt looked like a pen nib. Butler states, “Originally (the title) was NIB, Bill’s beard. When I wrote NIB, I couldn’t think of a title for the song, so I just called it NIB, after Bill’s beard. To make it more intriguing, I put punctuation marks in there to make it NIB. By the time it got to America, they translated it to ‘Nativity in Black.'”

Though “Nativity in Black” is a disputed title, they released albums with the name for Black Sabbath tribute albums in 1994 and 2000. The guitar work is superb, and Ozzy mentions Lucifer. I’m buying what they’re selling.

Evil Woman has a slightly different feel. The chorus has a bounce, separate from the rest of the song. Doom funk? I don’t hear many people choose this song as their favorite Sabbath song. It covers a Crow song 1969: less brass and more metal horns. Don’t get me wrong, the original track brings this dripping of Chicago, jazz, and a touch of bluster.

Sleeping Village, damn, Ozzy is feelin’ it. A deep vocal, then an echoey guitar to lead you in.

At about .54 seconds in, it goes into a bluesy jam, and as a kid, I imagined them joining Aerosmith onstage for an extended jam combining their songs. Then, at about 2:06, they go for broke. At 3:05, they change the tempo, sway away from blues, and get back into a groove to finish it out.

Warning, this is a long song. It took a while for young me to wrap a long song around my head. The blues hits at about the 1:30 mark. It has you shaking your head while putting on your best guitar face. I didn’t know until recently that it was a cover of The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. I remember hearing this and thinking there’s a bit of Led Zeppelin in there, or vice versa. According to Aynsley, the song deals with heartbreak and betrayal.

Wicked World, I’m ready to end the release strong. Big until the 50-second mark. Ozzy sounded like he was out of his mind. It’s kind of like he walked into the studio, heard a jam, and thought,” I can sing over that”! Slinky, bluesy, and full of sacred smoke.

Black Sabbath is yet another notch in the belt that holds my pants up(yes, it’s leather—not the pants, the belt). The album was released on Friday the 13th in 1970. It must’ve been a kick in the pants to the hippo generation. Either way, Black Sabbath has a better ring to it than Polka Tulk Blues Band. Thanks, Scott, for unknowingly changing my life.