It's been more than half a century since Black Sabbath officially ushered in the dawn of heavy metal and changed the face of rock 'n' roll forever.
Four young working class lads from Birmingham, England - Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward - would combine to create a new sound that was as unholy as it was unearthly, providing a sonic template that's been copied, adapted and embellished by generations of musicians since. Let's be honest, though: even all these years on, it's still never, ever been bettered.
There were lineup changes, some successful, some disastrous. Ozzy came and went, and came and went again. Ronnie James Dio signalled a second but relatively brief golden age. Some still say the Tony Martin era is pretty underrated.
In fact, nearly 30 members have passed through the band's ranks across the decades, and yet despite some particularly turbulent years, Black Sabbath's legacy as godfathers of heavy metal remains intact. There was something particularly special and foundational about that first lineup, though, and so when it was announced that Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward would be sharing the stage one more time, for the first time in 20 years, for a final, epic send-off at Villa Park, there was jubilation.
With Sabbath's career together finally drawing to a definitive, celebratory close, these are the 40 very best songs ever released by the band, across many of their guises.
40. Changes (Vol. 4, 1972)
“A song rather than a frustration-reliever screamer,” is how Ozzy billed Vol. 4’s ballad, written about Bill Ward’s separation from his first wife. Ironically there’s no input whatsoever from the drummer on the track.
39. Zero The Hero (Born Again, 1983)
The seven-minute stand-out on the ill-fated, Ian Gillan-fronted Born Again album. A favourite of Tony Iommi, who reckons his central riff provided inspiration for Guns N' Roses: “When I heard Paradise City I thought, ‘Fucking hell, that sounds like one of ours!’”
38. Warning (Black Sabbath, 1970)
This 10-minute jam cover of the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation’s 1967 single originally featured an 18-minute Iommi solo, but it was chopped down by producer Roger Bain. With just 12 hours to record the whole album, there was no time to argue.
37. Never Say Die (Never Say Die!, 1978)
By his own admission, Ozzy had “given up” by the time the band recorded their eighth album, though the mordantly humorous title track sounds adrenalised. Plus it got Sabbath back on Top Of The Pops.
36. The Writ (Sabotage, 1975)
Ozzy’s acerbic open letter to former manager Patrick Meehan (‘Are you Satan, are you man?’), venting the singer’s fury at the legal “bullshit”. “I got a song out of it at least,” a more chilled Ozzy reflected later.
35. Dirty Women (Technical Ecstacy, 1976)
By 1976 Black Sabbath were in search of direction. For the closing track of Technical Ecstasy, inspiration came from the sex workers on the streets of Miami, resulting in a ‘tribute’ to the healing properties of ‘take away women for sale’.
34. Headless Cross (Headless Cross, 1989)
The title track from Sabbath’s 14th album Headless Cross, and their finest since Heaven And Hell. ‘There’s no escaping the power of Satan’, sang Tony Martin, making a convincing case for Sabbath entering the 90s as a band reborn.
33. Spiral Architect (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)
Closing out 1973's fearless Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Spiral Architect is a particular favourite of Opeth mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt. “It’s a beautiful piece of music," says the man himself, "mostly based around Ozzy’s voice, Iommi’s acoustic guitar and Will Malone’s string arrangements. It’s also the last one out on the record – an honorary spot, as everybody into vinyl knows.”
32. God Is Dead? (13, 2013)
Inspired by a magazine headline, Black Sabbath's 2013 comeback found Ozzy musing upon the existence of a higher power in the wake of terrorist atrocities committed in the name of religion. Taken from the album 13, generally regarded as a welcome return from the metal icons.
31. Wheels Of Confusion (Vol 4, 1972)
The opening track on Vol. 4 telegraphs Sabbath’s experimental mind-set. Out of their heads they may have been, but the interplay between Iommi, Butler and a brilliantly dextrous Bill Ward is pure joy.
30. Sabbra Cadabra (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)
This bluesy paean to Geezer’s then-girlfriend had its lyrical origins in Ozzy repeating porno dialogue, to his bandmate’s amusement. Rick Wakeman charged Sabbath a ‘fee’ of two pints of Director’s bitter for his incandescent piano playing. Money well spent, we say!
29. Planet Caravan (Paranoid, 1970)
Twinkling, tripped-out psychedelia, that betrayed Tony Iommi’s jazz influences. Included on Paranoid “to make the heavier tracks sound [even] heavier”, according to the guitarist.
28. After Forever (Master Of Reality, 1971)
Featuring a mocking anti-religious lyric from lapsed Catholic Geezer, the romping After Forever is one of the most musically sophisticated songs in Sabbath’s early canon, and is a result of the quartet feeling the pressure to follow-up the No.1 success of Paranoid with a more ambitious sound.
27. Hand Of Doom (Paranoid, 1970)
“It’s funky, riffy, sinister and uplifting all at the same time," says Blackberry Smoke man Charlie Starr, who picks out Hand Of Doom as his favourite Sabbath song ever. "It’s like two songs for the price of one, really. I got a cassette of Paranoid from a friend when I was in seventh grade, and started, like everyone else, to learn all those amazing riffs. Secretly I wanted to be a drummer so I could play that funky drum lick in Hand Of Doom.”
26. Electric Funeral (Paranoid, 1970)
Loaded with stark, apocalyptic imagery of nuclear annihilation (‘Robot minds of robot slaves/Lead men to atomic graves’) and souls burning in hell, Electric Funeral sounds like the ultimate bad trip, although the funky turnaround at two minutes 17 seconds is inexplicably uplifting.
25. Supernaut (Vol. 4, 1971)
“When I listen to songs like Supernaut I can just about taste cocaine,” Ozzy noted of this Vol. 4 piledriver in his autobiography. Ferociously funky, with a ear-worm Iommi riff, Supernaut is the supercharged sound of a gifted band at the peak of their powers.
24. Killing Yourself To Live (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)
The mid-song ejaculation to ‘Smoke it! Get high!’ gives a clue as to the source material for this anxious song about a soul adrift in a world of ‘pain, suffering and misery’. Ozzy later noted that the hash the band were smoking at Morgan Studios during the album sessions was “phenomenal”.
23. The Mob Rules (The Mob Rules, 1981)
The title track of vocalist Ronnie James Dio’s second album with Sabbath, a cautionary tale about blindly accepting authority, was written in John Lennon’s house Tittenhurst Park, originally intended for the soundtrack to the animated film Heavy Metal, just days after Lennon’s murder in New York. The film was shit, the song is a Sabbath classic.
22. The Wizard (Black Sabbath, 1970)
“Back then we did a lot of dope,” is how Tony Iommi prefaces his explanation of the origins of The Wizard, the hard-driving second track on Sabbath’s debut, inspired equally by Tolkien and the band’s “magic” drug dealer. Ozzy doubles up Iommi’s main riff on harmonica – an inspired touch, which showed Sabbath were not the music Neanderthals they were made out to be by the music press.
21. Megalomania (Sabotage, 1975)
Almost 10 minutes long, layered with studio trickery and featuring some of Tony Iommi’s most hook-laden riffs, Megalomania is a gloriously over-the-top exercise in labyrinthine excess. Bonus points are awarded for Bill Ward’s exemplary cowbell work.
20. Falling Off The Edge Of The World (The Mob Rules, 1981)
With its gorgeous orchestral intro, searing Iommi riff and whisper-to-a-scream dynamics, the centrepiece of the Mob Rules album laid down a blueprint that acolytes Metallica would subsequently take to the bank. Sabbath biographer (and Classic Rock writer) Mick Wall calls this “journey-metal”, a most apposite description of the song’s ebb and flow.
19. Hole In The Sky (Sabotage, 1975)
Bearing in mind how embattled Sabbath were at the time they recorded Sabotage, its opening track is a master class in straight-to-the-point metal. Sabbath truly swing here, displaying a lightness of touch few of their contemporaries – or followers – could emulate.
18. Sweet Leaf (Master Of Reality, 1971)
“It’s heavy and super-funky," says Metallica bassist Rob Trujillo, who knows a thing or two about both of those ingredients. "I first heard it at my friend David Santana’s house around 1975. His older brothers would play tons of Sabbath. Sweet Leaf was a favourite – his brothers were Latino stoner musicians from El Salvador. I remember one of them trying to play it on his black Ovation electric guitar which was shaped like a bat.”
17. The Sign Of The Southern Cross (The Mob Rules, 1981)
A slow-burning epic from The Mob Rules, The Sign Of The Southern Cross has Ronnie James Dio all over it, with its references to crystal balls, sailing ships and ‘a rainbow that will shimmer when the summer falls’.
16. A National Acrobat (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)
Tony Iommi called Sabbath Bloody Sabbath “a great leap forward”. With dueling guitars and Ozzy’s double-tracked vocals, A National Acrobat is an overlooked example of the band’s burgeoning confidence - 15 years later, Metallica would mash it with Sabbra Cadabra on their riotously fun Garage Inc album.
15. Die Young (Heaven And Hell, 1980)
With Dio on board, Sabbath genuinely sounded born again on Heaven And Hell. Tony Iommi claims that Die Young was guided by an invisible “fifth member”. The fact he also says there were “drugs galore” present in Miami during the sessions might undermine such mysticism, mind.
14. Snowblind (Master Of Reality, 1971)
Sabbath's mischievous but strangely moving ode to coke is a major fan favourite; System Of A Down would give it a high-tempo update in the early 2000s and it remains a top tier choice for Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx. “My favourite Black Sabbath song is Snowblind," he confirmed speaking to Classic Rock. "The perfect song to be a teenager to of any age.”
13. Children Of The Sea (Heaven And Hell, 1980)
First attempted, with different lyrics, while Ozzy was still in the band, Children Of The Sea was finally realised with Dio singing. Iommi envisaged a full choir in the album’s grandiose mid-section; in the end he had to settle for one chanting monk. “We were in stitches,” the Dark Lord admitted.
12. Fairies Wear Boots (Paranoid, 1970)
One of Sabbath's more whimsical but ultimately enduring anthems, we'll let Mike Bordin of Faith No More explain why it holds up so well: "It has so many elements of a classic Sabbath song – killer instrumental passages that evolve as they go, that swing feel, and the monster riffs from the great Mr Iommi. And it’s so much fun to play. How can you go wrong?”
11. Neon Knights (Heaven And Hell, 1980)
That Sabbath gained a new lease of life with Dio is evident from Heaven And Hell’s roaring album opener. With Ronnie singing of ‘circles and rings, dragons and kings’, Iommi delivers a scything riff that elevates the track skywards, Sabbath hadn’t sounded this alive or vital in years.
10. Into The Void (Master Of Reality, 1971)
During the recording of Master Of Reality, Tony Iommi took the decision to tune his guitar down three semi-tones in order to give Sabbath a weightier, heavier sound. That decision would eventually birth the entire stoner rock and grunge movements. One of Iommi’s favourite Ozzy-era recordings, Into The Void’s lumbering riffs and tempo changes gave it a jarring, dislocated feel. That Soundgarden, Kyuss, Melvins and Monster Magnet would all later cover the track is a testament to its influence and enduring power.
9. Symptom Of The Universe (Sabotage, 1975)
Few bands have carried Sabbath's influence forwards as loudly and proudly as London stoner metal veterans Orange Goblin, and perhaps we should be surprised that their frontman Ben Ward picked this crushing Sabotage banger as his favourite Sabbath cut of all. “It’s heavy, it’s savage, it’s aggressive, it’s melodic and it’s beautiful," he explains. "It is everything that’s great about Black Sabbath rolled into six-and-a-half minutes. It’s probably the greatest and most brutal riff that Tony Iommi has ever written, Bill Ward’s drum fills are phenomenal, Geezer Butler’s bass lines are genius and add another layer of heavy, and Ozzy delivers what I think is his greatest vocal performance of all time. Lyrically it’s mysterious, intriguing and brilliant, and the structure of the song couldn’t be better.”
8. N.I.B. (Black Sabbath, 1970)
Geezer Butler’s instantly memorable, fuzzed-out bass riff might have been blatantly indebted to Cream, but N.I.B. found Sabbath inventing a new vocabulary for heavy, blues-based rock. Honed during the band’s early residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, the song moves from that simple opening riff into a crunching descending chord pattern overlaid with a sparkling Iommi solo before resolving back to that intro.
Written as a tongue-in-cheek “satanic love song” by Butler, the song was originally titled Nib, a nickname bestowed upon Bill Ward on account of his pointy beard. Butler added in the punctuation marks to make the song sound more “intriguing”. A joke it might have been, but it worked.
7. Iron Man (Paranoid, 1970)
“I’ve always been huge on Planet Caravan, but I gotta stay the course, as typical as it may be, and say Iron Man," says Scott Holiday of US rockers Rival Sons when asked for his favourite Sabbath song. "I’ve homaged the guitar solo in one of our B-sides. The main riff could be one of the most important riffs in the history of heavy metal. I first really heard it on cassette, then I rummaged through my folks’ vinyl and found it.
"It sounded way cooler on vinyl. Much creepier. I immediately learned the whole song on guitar over the next few days. This was basically my introduction to using drop tunings for ‘heaviness’ rather than blues, slide or folkier stuff. It left a lasting impression.”
6. Paranoid (Paranoid, 1970)
An obvious pick this high up the list? Maybe, but it's one of the most instantaneous and simplistically brilliant metal songs ever written - and when the godfather of shock rock wants to pick it as his fave, you let him.
“It is just so blatantly Black Sabbath," explains Alice Cooper. "It is so distinct; Tony’s guitar tone is so dirty and powerful. It’s become such a staple for Sabbath, which is ironic because according to them it was written as a filler for the album. I must have heard it right when it first came out in 1970.
"In those days all the new stuff coming out was floating around everywhere. If you were in a band you knew what everyone else was doing. That was back when people used to buy albums and sit and listen to them start to finish. Music was much more important in those days.”
5. Children Of The Grave (Master Of Reality, 1971)
In his 2009 autobiography I Am Ozzy, the Double O hails Children Of The Grave as “the most kick-ass song” Sabbath recorded on their first three albums. That random Americanism aside, he has a point.
Chugging in on a classic, down-tuned Iommi riff, it’s both a song of its era (with Ozzy sounding not entirely convincing in his delivery of Geezer’s flower-power pleas for hopes and dreams of a brighter tomorrow for the children) and a blueprint for what would become the NWOBHM and later thrash metal. Stretching out suited Sabbath, and here their balance of brute force and fluid dynamics is showcased perfectly.
4. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)
“It’s a toss-up between Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Supernaut, so I’m going for the former," says Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot on why he's picking the title track from the Sabbs' fifth album as his favourite. "Great opening riff, great arrangement, and Ozzy at his best. I think I first heard it on the Alan Freeman rock show, although I didn’t actually own it until I was in my mid-twenties!”
3. Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath, 1970)
“I first heard this live at the Marquee club in March 1970," reveals Uriah Heep's Mick Box when quite rightly appraising the song that started it all as one of the very best. "From the opening sounds of a storm, torrential rain and church bells, Tony Iommi starts with a trill riff that sends chills down your spine. The song is just plain heavy.
"Two-thirds of the way in it breaks into a now trademark up-tempo Iommi riff, with a guitar solo at the end that is right in the pocket, and finishes on a Bolero theme. Six minutes 17 seconds of pure evil, and pure brilliance.”
2. Heaven And Hell (Heaven And Hell, 1980)
Majestic. Other epithets can be applied to the title track of the rejuvenated Sabbath’s first record with Ronnie Dio, but ‘majestic’ pretty much covers it. Introduced by a thumping unison riff from Iommi and Butler, the track quickly drops down to bass/drums to showcase RJD’s remarkable voice, before exploding into a widescreen chorus, a choral midsection, a dazzling, effects-laden Iommi solo and an exhilarating, galloping coda rounded off by several classical guitar flourishes.
Epic, adventurous, dramatic and uplifting, it’s little wonder Dio cited it as his favourite-ever recording.
1. War Pigs (Paranoid, 1970)
It’s ironic that Black Sabbath were often painted as misanthropic harbingers of destruction and misery, when in fact there was a hypermoralist, humanist core to many of Geezer Butler’s early lyrics.
Originally titled Walpurgis, a title rejected by Vertigo as “too satanic”, War Pigs was born out of conversations Butler had with returning Vietnam veterans on American military bases in Germany. The bassist was trying to paint a fantastical, Hieronymus Bosch-style vision of hell on earth, skewering “war-mongers… the real satanists… the people trying to get the working classes to fight their wars for them”.
Spawned from a club jam session, the track began to coalesce when Tony Iommi hit upon its iconic two-chord riff, Butler and Ward’s swinging, jazzy rhythm acting as a counterpoint to the stop-start dynamic. Producer Rodger Bain and engineer Tom Allom also made an important contribution, underpinning Iommi’s spiralling solo with a contrasting guitar line and speeding up the end of the song to accentuate its chaotic feel – a decision the quartet were initially uncomfortable with, but let go, believing that no one would listen to them anyway. And with that, a doomy heavy metal masterpiece was born. And people were listening.
Black Sabbath's final show takes place Saturday July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham. Tickets are sold out, but find out how you can still watch it here.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
