Top 10: Ozzy Era Black Sabbath Songs

Hard as it is to believe, we’re now three days away from what’s bound to be the biggest show in metal history, Back to the Beginning. This once in a lifetime happening will see Ozzy Osbourne’s final onstage appearance, as well as the original lineup of Black Sabbath reuniting for the last time. Joining them is an utterly stacked bill of friends. Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Guns N’ Roses, Alice in Chains, Sammy Hagar, Anthrax: The list goes on. Perhaps craziest of all is at this time tomorrow, yours truly will be aboard a flight to Birmingham, ready to experience this monumental occasion firsthand. To celebrate this historic event, and the boys from Birmingham’s indelible mark on music and the world, here’s the toughest top 10 I’ve assembled in Defenders’ history. This is our Top 10 Ozzy Era Black Sabbath Songs.

10. “War Pigs”

Similar to “Iron Man” and “Paranoid”, both also off the album of the same name, “War Pigs” is one of those songs metalheads take for granted. It’s been played so many times, and is one of the handful of tunes namedropped by normies when Sabbath is mentioned in conversation, that us tried and true maniacs tend to dismiss it with an eyeroll or a, “Never need to hear that again.” That said, upon my recent deep dive of the Ozzy years leading up to this event, “War Pigs” hit me in a way that it hasn’t since I was a young boy. Overplayed as it may be, “War Pigs” is about as perfect of a metal song as one could ask for, written and recorded during a time when the parameters for what was and wasn’t “metal” were yet to be established! All the aspects of Sabbath circa ’70, from Geezer Butler and Bill Ward’s jazzy interplaying to Tony Iommi’s planet-crushing riffage, are on full display, rounded out by Ozzy’s preacher-esque delivery of the song’s chilling, war-themed lyrics. “Oh lord yeah!”

9. “Children of the Grave”

In their early years, Sabbath purposely tried to out-heavy themselves with each subsequent release, and it shows. Paranoid made Black Sabbath sound like a glorified blues jam session, arguably the best one ever recorded at that. Meanwhile, Master of Reality managed to make both albums sound like playtime at the nursery. Any of the jazz n’ blues leanings of their earliest output were nowhere to be found come album #3. This was as pure metal of an album as one could get in ’71, and a song like “Children of the Grave” only cemented its status as such. Get a load of Iommi’s thick, hellish, galloping lead riff: A trope that wouldn’t become a staple of metal until the NWOBHM roughly 8 years later, and was practically nonexistent prior to being popularized by Michael Schenker in UFO. Yet here was Mr. Hand of Doom and the gang, blazing trails and fueling the heavy metal fire, dead set on pure musical domination with a tale as apocalyptically harrowing as its subject matter.

8. “You Won’t Change Me”

By the time Sabbath released Technical Ecstasy in ’76, heaviness had stopped being their M.O. two albums earlier. This was a band eager to explore the possibilities of heavy music outside pure brute force. Such aspirations resulted in two of the greatest albums of all time, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) and Sabotage (1975). Although the ultra-melodic Technical Ecstasy never reaches this pinnacle of brilliance, it is quite a diamond in the rough, and boasts some utterly masterful moments, like this song right here. Had Lennon and McCartney stuck out their fraught partnership through the ’70s, one could easily imagine them penning a song such as this. Like all Sabbath tunes, Iommi’s doom-laden riffs and impassioned leads are unavoidable. The incorporation, however, of hypnotic keys, sweet harmonies, and deeply introspective lyricism, sound straight off The Beatles’ Abbey Road, executed through the filter of Sabbath. This epic alone makes Technical Ecstasy worth your while!

7. “Snowblind”

Just a year after dropping the definitive stoner anthem of all time in “Sweet Leaf”, Sabbath decided to pay tribute to another one of their favorite substances, *whispers* cocaine. The band’s coke budget over the course of Vol. 4‘s recording sessions has since become the stuff of legend, running in excess of $75,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent of $579,564.30 today. Assuming the blow was split four ways, that’s $144,891.08 of nose candy per member…which is still completely batshit insane. All of this nasal abuse resulted in “Snowblind”: Sabbath’s epic doom ode to the Peruvian flake. Iommi hits us with a riff that’s as punishing as it is cinematic, with the whole ride being as intense as a line of the Sabs’ finest stash. Once the orchestra kicks in during the last minute and a half, all bets are off. Hold up…do we have Sabbath to blame for symphonic metal? Unfortunately, yes. Is there ANY metal subgenre that doesn’t owe its existence to this band? I think not.

6. “Into the Void”

Iommi’s reputation as England’s premiere riff-dealer was cemented by the release of Paranoid, and further proven come Master of Reality. With cuts like “Sweet Leaf”, “Lord of This World”, and the aforementioned “Children of the Grave” to its name, no doubt about it, air guitars were working overtime in 1971. Yet in true Sabbath fashion, the band saved the heaviest for last. “Into the Void” boasts a riff so memorable, monstrous, and magnificently heavy that it singlehandedly served as the basis for an entire subgenre, stoner/doom. Hell, King Edward Van Halen infamously spent his namesake band’s entire ’78 opening jaunt with Sabbath “pestering” Iommi backstage over this riff: Its origins, its tone, how to play it properly. Up ’til his 2020 passing, Van Halen regularly namedropped “Into the Void” as his favorite riff of all time. Who are we to argue? An Ozzy era Top 10 without this cranium-crusher is blasphemy!

5. “Under the Sun”

Master of Reality cemented Black Sabbath’s status as bonafide rock superstars in America. Pushed by the juggernaut that was Warner Bros., the Brummies made the leap from theater act to arena headliners, drawing anywhere between 10 and 20,000 freakers wherever they went. With such success came equal amounts of scrutiny. The Master of Reality Tour was plagued by protest from politicians and religious leaders alike. Whether it was the pro-cannabis praises of “Sweet Leaf”, anti-war sentiment of “War Pigs”, or occult implications of the band’s moniker itself, the Nixon-adjacent establishment found no shortage of infractions against these four longhaired brits, longing for the days when their biggest enemy were those Liverpudlians who were “bigger than Jesus”. All of this controversy culminated in a pure doom anthem, “Under the Sun”. On this here Vol. 4 closer, Ozzy dismisses both the “Jesus freaks” AND the “black magicians”, addressing the other spectrum of extremists Sabbath had attracted. These lyrics were perhaps Sabbath’s most personal to date: A plea for solitude, and a war cry of self-belief.

4. “Symptom of the Universe”

Lace up your high tops, because we’re about to thrash it up like it’s 1975! Before the advent of mosh pits, stage dives, and the Big 4, Sabbath were cranking out tuneage that left us wanting to do nothing but thrash. Again, talk about being ahead of their time! Sabotage while a continuation of the artsy, Beatle-esque experimentalism of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, was also an album born out of frustration, largely the result of the band’s split with former manager, Patrick Meehan. Factor in clashing creative directions and, of course, increasing drug use, and you’ve got an album of intense songs, both musically and lyrically, with perhaps none more so than “Symptom of the Universe”. One part proto-thrasher, one part whimsical folk rocker, and all parts Sab badassery, “Symptom” is the sound of Sabbath ripping at 110 MPH, steamrolling any mere mortal who dared to stand in their way.

3. “Black Sabbath”

February 13, 1970: In the beginning, there was rain, followed by thunder and the distant ringing of a church bell. As the rain picks up, so does our heartbeat, awaiting what’s bound to be our impending doom. Once it arrives, it does so in the form of the riff to end all riffs, the musical equivalent of a nuclear explosion. We then get to the verses. Set to an ominous, unsettling calm, or narrator weaves a tale of dark mystery and unforgiving woe, before the song returns to its monolith of a lead riff. “OH NOOOOOOO!!!” 55 years since its release, “Black Sabbath” still manages to be as terrifying as ever, its grim spirit proving crucial on the advent of black metal come the early ’80s. Without this song, there’s no Venom, no Hellhammer, and definitely no Mayhem.

2. “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”

When revisiting all these old Sabbath classics, what perhaps struck me the most is how fresh all these songs sound half a century later. There is nothing remotely dated about them. Whereas one can listen to a similar act of the era like say Mountain or Captain Beyond and say, “Yeah, this definitely sounds like the early ’70s.”, a cut like “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” could’ve been recorded yesterday. An unlikely sonic marriage of devastating doom metal and dreamy art rock, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” is a masterpiece and a half, setting the stage as the title track of Sabbath’s finest hour. No longer was full metal mania the focal point. Sabbath had graduated to penning their own metallic symphonies, kicking musical boundaries to the curb and digging deep into their emotions, resulting in raw lyricism and impactful performances. Most bands would sell their souls to pen a song half as brilliant as “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”. After all, that proto-breakdown IS the heaviest riff ever recorded (fight me). And yet Sabbath managed to do one better…

1. “Spiral Architect”

I’ve long branded Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as the Sgt. Pepper’s of metal (again, with the Beatle allusions). With this in mind, “Spiral Architect” is the “A Day in the Life”. When one thinks of Black Sabbath, adjectives like “majestic” and “beautiful” are the last that come into mind. And yet its words like these that sum up “Spiral Architect” in one fell swoop. Fusing metallic bombast with symphonic prog grandeur, there’s something about “Spiral Architect” that feels divine, supernatural really, and not in the demonic “Black Sabbath” manner. We already knew this was a band of geniuses from the get-go, but this? How could humans alone concoct a song so spellbinding, so enchanting, so perfect? Could this song alone be proof of a higher power? Its abstract lyrics could be interpreted as such. No matter how you slice and dice it, there’s no denying this: Black Sabbath are the greatest metal band of all time, and “Spiral Architect” is their greatest song. See you on Saturday, lads! Birmingham forever!