by: Isaac Crawford
By today’s standards, Black Sabbath’s music is fairly tame. It’s easy to forget that they came to this country in 1969. Think about it, during the “summer of love” they were singing songs like “Black Sabbath,” “NIB”, and “Wicked World.” Not only were the songs in a minor key, they were dark and heavy. They sang about Satan and evil things. This last attribute would give them problems throughout their career in the USA. I’ve always thought that they have gotten a bad rap in that department, and I’m going to try to explain what I have gotten out of their music.
It’s funny how little of their music gets played on the radio. About all you’ll ever hear is “Paranoid” and “Iron Man.” Black Sabbath is right up there with the Velvet Underground and James Brown in the hugely influential but never played category. Heavy metal was born the day “Black Sabbath” was released. Some will say that Led Zeppelin was the birth of heavy metal, but in 1969 they were more Yarbirds than the rock and roll juggernaut that they’d become later on. No, a whole new genre of rock was born with the first song on that album. The song “Black Sabbath” (yes on the album “Black Sabbath” by the group Black Sabbath) was both a tale of some unfortunate being thrown into Hell and a cautionary tale about what was to come. Not the standard musical fare in 1969! They actually mention Satan by name on two different songs on the album, “Black Sabbath” and “NIB”.
If you read up on what was being said about them back then, you’ll see many people decrying “Devil Worship” and warning that the youth could get sucked into evil things by listening to the music. It was pretty obvious that they were put off by songs about evil and Satan. An understandable reaction, the trouble is that there is a big difference between singing about him and glorifying him. The song “NIB” is a perfect example. For those of you that have not heard the song, you really must. And make sure that you hear the original, not the lame remake with Primus. The song just drips with power, darkness, and (in my mind) epitomizes the Black Sabbath sound. You gotta play this as loud as you can to get the full effect. Power rock is as much about the physical feel of the sound waves hitting you as the actual music is. The basic chords of the song are as memorable as “In A Gadda Da Vidda” or even “Sunshine of Your Love.” Tony Iommi has a distinctive guitar sound that was originally caused by him having to use prosthetic fingertips. He had to loosen the strings slightly and this gave that incredible dark sound. Here are the lyrics to “NIB”:
Oh yeah!
Some people say my love cannot be true
Please believe me, my love, and I’ll show you
I will give you those things you thought unreal
The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal
Oh yeah!
Follow me now and you will not regret
Leaving the life you led before we met
You are the first to have this love of mine
Forever with me ’till the end of time
Your love for me has just got to be real
Before you know the way I’m going to feel
I’m going to feel
I’m going to feel
Oh yeah!
Now I have you with me, under my power
Our love grows stronger now with every hour
Look into my eyes, you will see who I am
My name is lucifer, please take my hand
Oh yeah!
Follow me now and you will not regret
Leaving the life you led before we met
You are the first to have this love of mine
Forever with me ’till the end of time
Your love for me has just got to be real
Before you know the way I’m going to feel
I’m going to feel
I’m going to feel
Oh yeah!
Now I have you with me, under my power
Our love grows stronger now with every hour
Look into my eyes, you will see who I am
My name is lucifer, please take my hand
See,
isn’t Satan a great guy? No, not really, the song
portrays him as a lying, attractive being that will drag
you down with him if you believe his lies. It doesn’t
take a genius to figure this out. Black Sabbath (at least
during the Ozzy years) never portrayed Satan as anything
but something to be feared. He is powerful, scary, and
dangerous. For a rock song, this is pretty adventurous
stuff. Certainly it has more meat to it than the
superficial “evil” songs of late. Think about
“Enter Sandman” by Mettalica. The gist is that
the sandman is bad and scary. Ummm, not exactly plumbing
the depths...
Black
Sabbath was the first to explore the darker aspects of rock
and roll in 1969. There was a definite change in the air
over the next few years, culminating in the defeat of
Hubert Humphrey to Richard Nixon and the concert at
Altimont. While the Stones and Led Zeppelin paced public
perception, Black Sabbath was way ahead of them. They felt
the shift years earlier and started a new way of looking at
the world through rock and roll. If you haven’t yet,
you should at the very least check out their first album.
It’s an original.