The cultural significance of Black Sabbath's song 'Black Sabbath' (University Re-upload)

Many refer to Black Sabbath as the ‘godfathers’ of heavy metal; they have influenced generations of musicians. With the release of their self-titled song, Black Sabbath, they introduced the world to a whole new perspective on music. Culturally and socially, I will assess the topics of media, class, world events and religion.

The origin of ‘heavy metal’ is an amalgamation of different musical aspects. In 2006, Ozzy is quoted saying the band “never used to write a structured song. There’d be a long intro that goes into a jazz piece, then goes all folky” (Stolz, 2017). The term “heavy metal” is still a term they refute today. The origin can be traced to a review in Creem in May 1971’s of Sir Lord Baltimore’s debut, Kingdom Come (Mercury) (Saunders, 1971, and Weinstein, 2014), over a year after the album release. The first time Ozzy heard the words ‘heavy’ and ‘metal’ used together was in the song ‘Born to be Wild’. “The press just latched on to it after that. We certainly didn’t come up with it ourselves. As far as we were concerned, we were just a blues band that had decided to write some scary music.” (Osbourne, 2010). With lyrics like “Satan's sitting there, he's smiling, watches those flames get higher and higher”, it’s clear to see what separated them from conventional blues bands, although they kept many of the same themes.

The “Heavy Metal” inclusion in George-Warren et al. (1983) read: it “was introduced into the pop vocabulary by Steppenwolf in their 1969 hit ‘Born to be Wild’ (with the lyrics ‘heavy metal thunder’) and subsequently redefined by critic Lester Bangs in the ‘rock-n-roll’ magazine Creem”. Although it’s disputed whether the origin lies with him, Bangs is also noted for critiquing Black Sabbath’s first album, where he relates well-known blues and psych rock artists: Cream and Vanilla Fudge (Bangs, 1970).

Black Sabbath’s musical inspiration could be the late 1960’s counterculture of the time. In Ozzy’s autobiography (2010) he recalls “The hippy-dippy shit that was all over the radio was also winding me up, big time. All these polo-necked wankers from grammar schools were going out and buying songs like ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’. On the bus back home the next day I remember humming the tune to ‘San Francisco’ and thinking, I should write my own fucking anti-hippy song. I even came up with a title: ‘Aston (Be Sure to Wear Some Glass in Your Face)’.” This distancing from popular culture may be attributed to one of the deciding factors in the band’s future direction, aesthetically and lyrically.

Black Sabbath can also be considered as ‘working-class idols’, with their unique sound being partly attributed to Tony Iommi’s hand injury coming from factory work like many working-class people at the time. The unique changing of his guitar strings to accommodate his injury detuned the guitar, loosening them so they were easier to play, which also invested a unique depth to the sound (Raul, 2009). The sound distorted, making it deeper and darker in resonance- the result of which became the melodical foundations for Black Sabbath’s unique style. For the song ‘Black Sabbath’ there were also anti-Christian messages woven into the melody. “I’ve since been told that Tony’s riff is based on what’s known as the ‘Devil’s interval’, or the ‘tritone’” (Osbourne, 2010). The tritone, which was played scarcely outside of classical music before 1970 (with examples like Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze being exempt) (Wiederhorn, n.d.), is a collection of notes that, when played together, create an unnerving atmospheric tune.

The melody was based on the ‘Devil’s interval’, however the lyrics of Black Sabbath are very pro-God/anti-Devil. The line “Oh no, no, please God help me” (Black Sabbath, 1970) shows the negative feelings the unnamed character felt when being taken by the Devil. However, the sleeve for their album vinyl boasted an inverted cross, representing satanic rituals (Ogechukwu, 2009), so although they stray from anti-Christian messages lyrically, visually this artwork implies otherwise.

In Sound of the Beast (Christe, 2003), Black Sabbath is linked to the then-current counterculture. In an extract taken in the first chapter, he states:

“Heavy Metal came into being just as rock and roll was in the midst of a disintegration. In April 1970, while Black Sabbath were marking the pop charts, Paul McCartney announced the breakup of The Beatles. Instead of comforting their audience in the uncertain world, rock giants Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison were all dead within the year from drug overdoses.”

He uses this to signify the end of the era of ‘hippy’ culture, and alludes to introducing a culture of violence and anger.

“As the nonviolent flower children gave way to the Black Panther party, Kent State campus massacres and increasingly violent street revolts by students in Paris ... it was out with the old hopes and in with new pragmatism.”

This counterculture meant that Black Sabbath gave an escape to the people at the time, with their anti-religious messages and dark, gothic themes. Although, it may be argued this ‘escapism’ wasn’t intended, as the band had openly avoided going to America at the time as to not appear as though they were in support of the Manson Family, who were notorious at the time.

In Not Abba: The Real Story of the 1970s, which was an autopsy of the decade’s societal values, Haslam (2005) notes the blandness and repetitiveness of media popularity at the time. This could push the idea that Black Sabbath were part of a counterculture, being it wasn’t a secret mainstream media didn’t ‘get them’, which may support the notion that they provided that sense of escapism from the world.

In conclusion, Black Sabbath were a band in the right place at the right time. Tony Iommi’s hand injury uniquely shaped the band’s sound and shaped an entirely new genre of music. Political, cultural and social movements at the time made the band’s appeal all that more appetising, with people finding refuge in the macabre lyrics and gothic aesthetics. The fall of hippy culture and the death of rock-and-roll pushed new alternatives in musical style and the infamy that came with anti-Christian messages and imagery made Black Sabbath one of the most talked about artists at the time- and made their song, Black Sabbath, one of the most important milestones in music.