WCSX Classic Cuts : Paranoid
WCSX Classic Cuts
Black Sabbath: “Paranoid”
The Hook: The band needed one song to complete the album and needed to come up with something in two hours.
Year: 1970
Album: Paranoid
Writers: Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward
Stats: The group’s first single, even though it came from its second album, “Paranoid” reached number-61 on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached number-four at home in the U.K.
Background: Black Sabbath recorded its second album live-in-the-studio and only had a couple of days to do it. Bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne recall the circumstances that resulted in the final song they recorded for the album, which would also become its title track, “Paranoid.”
Black Sabbath bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne on how “Paranoid” came about. OC:…at all. :26
Geezer: “Had to do it quick. We had two hours to write it, record it, finish the whole thing.”
Ozzy: “We were in Island Studios in London, Roger Bain was still producing albums for us and we needed to finish the album. He says, ‘Just jam to something.’ And we just jammed and it just came out of nowhere, y’know. It was a gift. Some of the greatest things I’ve worked on over the years have been Just spur of the moment ideas. It just came to Terry, he wrote the lick, and we did it in no time at all.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGyXeRFLyE
