![]() ![]() But people completely misinterpreted them, the way they always do… Sabbath even did a blatantly pro-God, Christian hymn type of song, After Forever, and people still took it the wrong way. We wrote a lot of science fiction lyrics, anti-Vietnam war songs, the occult was only dealt with in three or four songs. The bassist added: “Any lyrics that I or Ozzy wrote were actually warnings against Satanism, telling people that if you are going to dabble in that, just be careful… But we never, ever promoted Satanism or black magic, we only used it as a reference, and it wasn’t our only topic. If you think about the title Children Of The Grave, you may think that it’s a really sick song, but it’s clearly an anti-war song.” We didn’t want to be too easy, and no one really bothered to concentrate on our lyrics… At one point I was interested in magic, but we were never really correctly understood. Kerry King of Slayer has done the same thing on many occasions, arguing successfully (and rightly) that his band’s infamous song Angel Of Death, about Nazi camp doctor Josef Mengele, merely listed rather than endorsed its subject’s crimes.Įven more accurate is Geezer’s argument that his devilish songs were a mere vehicle or metaphor for his real target, the establishment: “We hid our real message in the Satanic lyrics: the message was very often about the war and the madness of it. This spin on essentially admitting that the songs were about Satan – that is, that the songs mentioned, but did not support, Devil-worshipping, or any of the other associated demonic stuff that gave so many middle English and middle American listeners the vapours – is convincing. And because I wrote most of Black Sabbath’s lyrics, some of that ended up in the songs… but it was never advocating Satanism. “But though I’d been taught about God and Jesus, no one ever went into what the Devil was all about, so when I was 16 or 17, I went about trying to find out. “I was brought up an incredibly strict Catholic, and believed in hell and the Devil,” he once said. Bassist and primary lyric writer Terry ‘Geezer’ Butler, the culprit behind most of Sabbath’s most memorably infernal songs (“Begging mercy for their sins/Satan laughing spreads his wings”) has spent a portion of every one of the thousands of interviews he has conducted since those early days protesting his innocence. What’s most amusing about Sabbath’s early, Devil-themed songwriting is that the band themselves didn’t really mean it – and yet their influence today on musicians who clearly do espouse Satanism is clear. We used to rehearse across the road from a movie theatre, and Tony Iommi said to us, ‘Isn’t it weird how people like to go to the movies and get scared? Why don’t we start making music that scares people?’ And he came up with the heaviest fucking riffs of all time.” ![]() Here’s us living 99 million miles away in Aston, Birmingham, an industrial city, and the world wasn’t happy. “It was the end of the 60s, it was all ‘If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair.’ What a load of old fucking happy hippie crap that is. “You’ve got to remember the time,” said Ozzy with resigned despair. Lord Of This World… you know the Satanic roll-call. Despite this, the ill-thought-out, pseudo-spiritual agenda of the day drove them to the dark side. If you don’t believe me, look at the backgrounds of the members of Black Sabbath, who grew up in conventional Christian homes and who, the grinding postwar poverty they suffered aside, lived what would be regarded as normal lives. Satan was invented by Christians, always the people who talk about him most earnestly. Read on… Perhaps he’s standing behind you, about to tap you on the shoulder.įirst things first. What’s more, Sabbath’s decision to use him as an inspiration for their songwriting has resounded into the present day with more force than you may think. Always has been, always will be – he had the best tunes for heavy metallers. ![]() Here, though, we’re going to look deeper into the dark side of Sabbath, one in which the Devil Himself features prominently. You read how they drank like sea monsters and went mad in LA, and set fire to their drummer, the rock-solid Bill Ward. ![]() You’ve read about their singer Ozzy Osbourne, who became a solo star when he left Sabbath in 1979 and an even bigger one when MTV named a reality TV show after his family 20 years later. You’ve read about the adventures of Black Sabbath, the quartet who wrote songs about the Devil and tuned their guitars low, inventing heavy metal in doing so. ![]()
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