B is for…Black Sabbath! ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’

Any one of the first six Black Sabbath albums could be considered their ‘best’…They are a musical and lyrical progression, bursting with ideas and raw energy. The world of Sabbath is introduced on their debut by falling rain and the toll of a distant bell, setting the scene for a riff powered by ‘the devil’s tritone’ and vocals to send shivers up your spine…Having mastered their craft as hard rock blues band ‘Earth’, John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne (vocals/harmonica), Tony Iommi (guitar/flute), Terry ‘Geezer’ Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums/percussion), recorded the first Black Sabbath album in an amazing two days! The blues influence dominates, infiltrated by many references to a (pre-Star Wars) ‘dark side’, both lyrically and musically. Butler exhibits his exquisite song-writing craft, perfectly foiling Iommi’s riffs, his own distinctive bass journeys, Osbourne’s haunting vocals and Ward’s jazzy and sometimes chaotic drumming.

The original Vertigo ‘spiral’ label
From the beginning, the references were misinterpreted as ‘satanic’ by the press – sometimes they were just an expression of the sense of humour of the young ‘Brummies’ e.g. ‘N.I.B.’ – ‘Nativity In Black’ or just the fact that Bill Ward’s beard looked like a pen ‘nib’ when you were off your face?! ‘Paranoid’, their second opus, took the music further, with harder-edged riffs, more metallic guitar tones and angrier, sometimes hallucinatory, lyrics spat out with more venom by Ozzy – The album is apocalyptic!

the upside-down cross from the first album sleeve – satanic?

‘Master Of Reality’ added yet another dimension – bludgeoning riffs played on down-tuned guitars, religious commentary and space references – It’s another very coherent package…By the time of ‘Volume 4’, Sabbath were very successful on both sides of the pond and their drug-taking had reached new heights – The album is unashamedly fuelled by cocaine, lyrically, musically and in the dedication on the sleeve to ‘the great COKE-cola Company of Los Angeles’!
”My eyes are blind but I can see
The snowflakes glisten on the tree
The sun no longer sets me free
I feel the snowflakes freezing me…”

The band’s fifth studio album ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ is a significant departure from ‘Volume 4’, creating a masterpiece in light, shade and imagery in its songwriting, production, arrangements and graphics.
Sabbath went to Bel Air in Los Angeles in summer 1973 after their Volume 4 tour to start recording but it all came to nothing…They returned to the ‘old country’ and set up camp in Clearwell Castle, in the heart of the beautiful Forest Of Dean, a venue previously graced by Led Zeppelin. In his book ‘Iron Man’, Tony Iommi reflects: “ We were just looking for something different. Everything in this place was dismal, especially its dungeons.” According to David Tangye and Graham Wright in ‘How Black Was Our Sabbath’, the castle is “a neo-gothic structure built as a stately home for the Wyndham family in 1727…The castle was perfect for Sabbath…” After various ‘haunted’ shenanigans and successful inspiration, the recording was completed at Morgan Studios in Willesden, North London in September and released on 1^st December ’73. At 42:35 minutes, the album is, like many releases of that era, compact with no room for filler. The gatefold sleeve is mainly black (as were the previous three album covers) with the title scribed in ‘SS’ style font and the band’s name in much smaller gothic text. If trying to ditch their ‘satanic’ media image, initiated by the upside down cross on the first album sleeve, the front cover of ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ is a strange way of going about it! It looks like some ritual from hell, with a skull and 666 (‘the number of the beast’?) adorning a bed with red-hued ‘devil figures leaning over a hapless victim, dying a horrible death in front of a yellow background…The back cover features the same victim on the same bed dying a more peaceful death with softer blue, brown and green tones highlighting the palliative scene.

The painting from the back cover – dying a more peaceful death?

The photo on the inner gatefold features Bill, Ozzy, Tony and Geezer superimposed in occult half-dressed glamour with entrancing poses over a period room furnished in occult style including four-poster bed and wood carvings, maybe about to perform some kind of ritual?

Bill, Ozzy, Tony and Geezer – working on some black magick?

The opening riff of the title track which starts Side One lulls the Sabbath fan into a false sense of security – It’s a full-on assault, played on guitars downtuned one and a half steps to C#, which wouldn’t be out of place on ‘Master’ or ‘Volume 4’, accented by pounding drums and bass before Ozzy’s unmistakeable tones attack the listener:
”You’ve seen life through distorted eyes
You know you had to learn
The execution of your mind
You really had to turn”
As Ian Cunningham puts it in his excellent book ‘Black Sabbath – Riff By Riff’, “Butler and Iommi vamp on this jackhammers from hell riff in heavy rhythmic bliss…” According to Ozzy Osbourne in his book ‘I Am Ozzy’, “It was that Dutch band, Golden Earring, that saved us in the end. We were listening to their latest album ‘Moontan’ and something just clicked in Tony’s head. A couple of days later, he came down to the dungeon and started playing the riff to ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’…From that moment on, there was no more writer’s block…”

After the riff, the music segues into a jazzier, funkier bridge section which signposts the feel of the album to come:
”Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reason why
They just tell you that you’re on your own
Fill your head all full of lies…”
There’s a sense of the anger which will reach fever pitch on ‘Sabotage’:
”The people who have crippled you, you wanna see them burn…”

The anger spills over at the end of the second bridge, as Ozzy screams “You bastards!”…In the closing section of the song, all hope of salvation is dashed over a wicked riff led by Iommi:
”Whe-e-ere can you run to? What more can you do?
No more tomorrow, life is killing you
Dreams turn to nightmares, heaven turns to hell
Burnt out confusion, nothing more to tell, yeah!”
”Everything around you, what’s it coming to?
God knows as your dognose, bog blast all of you…
Sabbath bloody Sabbath, nothing more to do
Living just for dying, dying just for you, yeah!”
So ends what was to become a Sabbath classic and a live favourite.
The second track ‘A National Acrobat’ has more of a medieval feel, with twin guitar parts and a more relaxed rhythm. In his book ‘Iron Man’, Tony Iommi confirms that Geezer Butler wrote the initial riff for the song. Butler’s lyrics get very existential:
”I am the world that hides the universal secret of all time
Destruction of the empty spaces is my one and only crime”
Is this about an omnipresent power and reincarnation?
”I’ve lived a thousand times, I found out what it means to be believed…”
The double-tracked vocal parts give the song an other-worldly feel…The musicianship is excellent as the band moves from verse to bridge then through a sequence of orchestrated riffs to an up tempo and abrupt ending.

Instrumental ‘Fluff’ changes the mood again with Iommi’s multi-tracked guitars weaving over a slow acoustic guitar pattern, augmented by piano arpeggios. Like ‘Planet Caravan’ (from ‘Paranoid’), ‘Orchid’ (from ‘Master Of Reality’) and ‘Laguna Sunrise’ (from Volume 4’), it’s a very reflective piece, offering the listener a break from the heavy chaos.
Side One finishes very strongly with the tour-de-force that is ‘Sabbra Cadabra’, a taste of some Sabbath (black?) magick! The catchy opening riff by Iommi starts the toe tapping in anticipation of the high energy intro, the whole band and multi-tracked guitars awaiting Ozzy’s vocal delivery:
”Feel so good I feel so fine
Love that little lady always on my mind
She gives me lovin’ every night and day
Never gonna leave her never goin’ away…”
Definitely rock’n’roll clichés revisited rather than soul-searching poetry from Butler, suiting the song’s raunchy, driving verses. Allegedly Led Zeppelin paid a visit to Sabbath during the ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ sessions and John Bonham wanted to play drums on ‘Sabbra Cadabra’, but the band ended up jamming with him on another tune, still as yet unreleased…The bridge features a punchy descending riff on keyboard, courtesy of Mr. Rick Wakeman, who had apparently chatted with Ozzy on a break from working with Yes (on ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’) in an adjacent studio, and agreed to play some piano and synthesiser parts in return for a few pints of ale! Iommi says “He wouldn’t accept any money…so we paid him in beer.” (according to ‘I Am Ozzy’, two pints of Director’s bitter to be exact) Ozzy’s high-register vocals soar over the instruments – “Lovely la-a-a-dy, mystifying eyes…” – as the song heads to its close, with some vocal adlib over guitar riffing and jazzy, sometimes dissonant, piano accompaniment.

lyric inner sleeve featuring Side Two

Iommi’s menacing riff starts Side Two opener ‘Killing Yourself To Live’, with lyrical comment on society (and perhaps Sabbath’s non-stop record/tour/record schedule in the lead-up to the album):
”You work your life away and what do they give?

You’re only killing yourself to live”
Sabbath, of course, had escaped the drudgeries of working in the factories of Birmingham and embarked on a life of rock’n’roll excess…
The world-view is not overly optimistic in the second verse either:
”Just take a look around you, what do you see?
Pain, suffering and misery…”
Iommi drifts off into a spirited multi-tracked solo before the bridge:
”I’m telling you, believe in me…” (Who isn’t exactly clear)
Ozzy advises us to “smoke it, get high”, before telling us “You think that I’m crazy and baby I know that it’s true.” Iommi conjures up more riffs in this song than most rock bands do over an entire album, adding a few more as the tempo increases and reaches a dynamic forceful closure. In complete contrast, the next track ‘Who Are You’ is keyboard-driven, featuring moog synthesiser parts written by Ozzy Osbourne. It’s all a searching interrogation, maybe of some real or fictional cult leader?

“Yes I know the secret that’s within your mind
You think all the people who worship you are blind
You’re just like Big Brother, giving us your trust
And when you have played enough
You’ll just cast our souls into the dust…into the dust”
More double-tracked vocal parts over the swirling synths create a haunting ethereal atmosphere in the second verse:
”I only have one more question, before my time is through
Please I beg you tell me, in the name of hell, who are you?”

Who are you??

Then a majestic piano-driven bridge with syncopated drum pattern leads back into the final verse, disintegrating beautifully and fusing into ‘Looking For Today’, launched by a drum fill by Bill Ward, who then grooves into a rolling pattern evocative of ‘Get Back’ by The Beatles. More soul-searching reflective lyrics dominate the songs:
”It’s complete, but obsolete, all tomorrows become yesterdays
In demand, but second-hand, it’s been heard before you even play…”
It’s a plea for slow-down and time out to live for the moment, maybe a reaction to the hectic touring before writing the album, or perhaps a more generic comment on western society – Alvin Toffler’s ‘future shock’? The verse gives way to a mood-changing pastoral bridge with acoustic guitars, tambourine and flute, but the lyrical sentiment contrasts with the backing:
”Everyone just gets on top of you
The pain begins to eat your pride
You can’t believe in anything you knew
When was the last time that you cried…”
Handclaps adorn the second verse with more comment on the speed of change before a repeat of the bridge then a descending riff from Iommi as Ozzy sings the song title. The third verse could be autobiographical?
”Front page news, but so abused
You just wanna hide yourself away
Overpaid, but soon you’ll fade
Because you’re only looking for today…”
Ozzy sings out the title over the fade-out as Iommi improvises with the descending riff…
A beautiful, wistful classical guitar figure sets the scene for the masterful album closing piece ‘Spiral Architect’. Acoustic and electric guitars pair up for the main riff as Ward sets the pace with tasteful percussion before Iommi and Butler’s descending progression…Butler’s lyrics are deep and full of fantastic imagery:
”Sorcerers of madness selling me their time
Child of God sitting in the sun giving piece of mind
Fictional seduction on a black snow sky
Sadness kills the superman even fathers cry…”
There is satisfaction at last as Ozzy reflects in a bridge enhanced with a string arrangement:
”Of all the things I value most of all
I look inside myself and see my world and know that it is good…”
The fantasy continues in verse two as Sabbath sail “silver ships on plasmic oceans in disguise”, then more reflection:
”Of all the things I value most in life
I see my memories and feel their warmth and know that they are good…”
After a playful, almost baroque string section, arranged by Will Malone, the last verse and bridge continue in the same positive vein and build to a crescendo with final string flourish. Overdubbed raucous applause greets Sabbath as they bow out to a funky bass-powered groove…

A Sabbath patch – soon to be burnin’ a denim jacket near you?!