Fuck yeah!!!
Fifty years ago. I don’t know about you, but to me this is the real beginning of what we now call “Heavy Metal.” I’m not sure the term was even used back then. Don’t know what they called it? It’s more extreme than “Hard Rock” or “Acid Rock.” De-tuned and distorted guitar and bass (Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler
). Evil lyrical themes. Unbelievably heavy drumming (Bill Ward
). Love the old “Slingerland” Jazz kit. They used to be made in Chicago, IL. Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa played them. He beats the shit out of it. I’m surprised it didn’t break into pieces. Eventually he would add another bass drum. What else was like this at that time?
Here’s what Wikipedia had to say:
Quote:
The original title of "War Pigs" was "Walpurgis", dealing with the witches' sabbath. "Walpurgis is sort of like Christmas for Satanists.  And to me, war was the big Satan", said bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler. "It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was Evil itself. So I was saying 'generals gathered in the masses / just like witches at black masses' to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought 'Walpurgis' sounded too Satanic. And that's when we turned it into 'War Pigs'.
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I know the lines “cast the priest into the fire” and “watch them eating dead rats innards” are
not in the version from “Paranoid.” So this was even too much for their record company I guess.
Today Ozzy is 71 and still going. Although I have read he suffers from Parkinson’s. I have seen them at an “Ozzfest” in the mid 2000’s. They had an air raid siren like on the record. It was loud as hell. I’m glad I got to see them. If I ever were to meet any of them all I could say would be “Thanks.”
