Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath ( S1 )

"Black Sabbath" is a song by the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, written in 1969 and released on their self titled debut album. In 1970, it was released as a four-track 12-inch single, with "The Wizard" also on the A-side and "Evil Woman" and "Sleeping Village" on B-side, on the Philips Records label Vertigo.

History

According to the band, the song was inspired by an experience that Geezer Butler had in the days of Earth. Butler, obsessed with the occult at the time, painted his apartment matte black, placed several inverted crucifixes, and put many pictures of Satan on the walls. Ozzy Osbourne handed Butler a black occult book, written in Latin and decorated with numerous pictures of Satan. Butler read the book and then placed it on a shelf beside his bed before going to sleep. When he woke up, he claims he saw a large black figure standing at the end of his bed, staring at him. The figure vanished and Butler ran to the shelf where he had placed the book earlier, but the book was gone. Butler related this story to Osbourne, who then wrote the lyrics to the song based on Butler's experience. The song starts with the lyrics:

What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me

A version of this song from Black Sabbath's first demo exists on the Ozzy Osbourne compilation album The Ozzman Cometh. The song has an extra verse with additional vocals before the bridge. The guitar and bass are tuned down one whole step, resulting in the key position of A being played on the fretboard, but having the pitch as G (octave - D flat) to the listener. It's one of the band's most frequently performed tracks, being featured on every single tour of their career.

Harmony

AllMusic's Steve Huey said the song is an example wherein Black Sabbath appropriated the blue note from the standard pentatonic blues scale and developed a heavy metal riff. The main riff is an inversion of a tritone, constructed with a harmonic progression including a diminished fifth / augmented fourth. This particular interval is often known as diabolus in musica, for it has musical qualities which are often used to suggest Satanic connotations in Western music. The song "Black Sabbath" was one of the earliest examples in heavy metal to make use of this interval, and since then, the genre has made extensive use of diabolus in musica.

The riff was created when bassist Geezer Butler began playing a fragment of "Mars" from Gustav Holst's The Planets suite. Inspired, guitarist Tony Iommi returned the next day with the famously dark tritone.

The main riff of "Black Sabbath" is one of the most famous examples of harmonic progressions with the tritone G-C♯.

Music video

A music video was made for the song, as part of the band's 1970 performance on the German show Beat-Club. The video was filmed in a studio with a village on the foreground.

Cover versions

"Black Sabbath" has been covered by the following bands:

• Flower Travellin' Band in 1970, on their album Anywhere.
• Type O Negative in 1994, for the Black Sabbath tribute album Nativity in Black.
• Vader in 1994, on their albums Sothis and Future of the Past.
• Iced Earth in 2002, on their album Tribute to the Gods.
• Van Helsing's Curse in 2004, on their album Oculus Infernum.
• Gonga in 2014, with trip hop musician Beth Gibbons (under the track name "Black Sabbeth")