We were driving up the motorway when we hear the chart position in the radio and we nearly crashed the van!”
Shortly after the release of their first album the band switched management from Jim Simpson to Patrick Meehan. It was a decision which band members regret to this day in the wake of the legal wrangles that followed years later.
Meehan, however, engaged US labels in a bidding war for the rights to the first Sabbath album, finally plumbing for Warner Bros, for a cool $750.00. Unbeknown to the band ĺack Sabbath ´was launched in the US with a party in San Francisco with the head of the Church of Satan, Antony Lavey,presiding over the proceedings. For Sabbath it almost scuppered their US touring plans, the launch coming in the wake of the murder of Sharon Tate by followers of Charles Manson. All of a sudden Sabbath were Satan´s right hand men. Their well- earnt reputation as beer drinkers and hellraisers didn´t help matters any. By the time they finally hit the US in late ´70, Sabbath had ahd time to record their second album, ´Paranoid´, again with Bain at the helm. According to Butler t was originally meant to be titled ´Walpurgis´( aka the witches sabbath) after a track on the album. In the wake of the controversy stirred up around the band, the track and album titles were revised to ´War pigs´, the song´s lyricsbeing changed during the recording process. A version of ´War pigs´with the original ´Walpurgis´lyrics can however be hard on ozzy´s “best of…set. ´The OZZman cometh´released last year, and taken from an original 1970 rehearsal tape.
Paranoid crystallised the band´s writing provess, with Iommi initiating the ideas with his charred rifs. Ozzy working on a melody line smack bang on top of that. Geezer providing drive and a majority of the lyrics/ War pigs is one of this proudest moments/, and Billy ward locking into a set of often punding rhythms beneath Butler´s bass rumble.
With War pigs as the chosen title, the album sleeve was commissioned. Finding themselves with a few hours extra studio time to kill and space to fill on the album, the band wrote Paranoid itself in “five minutes” according to Geezer, “then I sat down and wrote the lyrics as quickly as I could. It was all done in about two hours.”
The band rejected Paranoid /the track/ as too commercial. The record company, however , sensed a hit single and, without consulting the band, duly changed the album title.
“ That album title had nothing to do with sleeve. What the fucking a bloke dressed as a pig with a sword in his hand has got to do with being paranoid.