Black Sabbath (Song)

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"Black Sabbath" is a song by the legendary hard rock/heavy metal pioneers of the same name. It was written in 1969 and put out on their debut album Black Sabbath. Ozzy often tells this story at concerts, and was retold in the VH1 documentary : "Before we were Black Sabbath we were a band called Earth, when one day Geezer noted how people pay money to see scary movies so we should try writing scary music. So we changed our band name to Black Sabbath." It should also be noted that there was another band called Earth touring England who sounded nothing like this band and that Black Sabbath is a movie with Boris Karloff from 1963.

The song by the lyrics appears to be about the protagonist facing the devil during the apocalypse. The protagonist is "the chosen one" and the devil causes much terror. This song is often thought of as the pioneer of heavy metal as it was "the first metal band's" first song. This song along with "N.I.B." caused the general public to think Black Sabbath as devil worshippers and perhaps associated rock altogether with the devil, albeit aided by Sympathy for the Devil.

The opening three notes of the song are a tritone, which have been referred to as "The Devil's Third". It is claimed these notes were "banned" in the Medieval era because their potential to summon the devil.

Black Sabbath is used as the opening track on both of the band's greatest hits (We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'N' Roll and and is a regular installment of their live shows. A video for it exists and can be found on the Black Box DVD.

Along with the songs Bad Company, and Iron Maiden, this is one of the few popular songs where the album, artist and song all have the same name.

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