Bloody Hell, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

When it came time for album five, would Black Sabbath cheat the reaper?

Ozzy Osbourne: lead vocals

Tony Iommi: guitar, piano/organ, synths on “Killing Yourself To Live,” flute, bagpipes (maybe?)

Geezer Butler: bass, synths, Mellotron on “Who Are You,” and...noise?

Bill Ward: drums

Special guest: Rick Wakeman, keys on “Sabbra Cadabra” (and maybe “Who Are You”)

The Phantom Fiddlers: strings on “Spiral Architect”

Produced by Black Sabbath, with Mike Butcher

Arrangements by Will Malone and Rick Wakeman

art by Drew Struzan

“‘Are you high?’ The crowd respond with a muted ‘Yeeaaahhhh…’ He tries again. ‘I said, are you high?’ Same response, only a little louder this time. Still not good enough, though. ‘ARE YOU HIGH?’ he screams at the top of his voice. This time the place erupts. ‘Good!’ he tells them. ‘Cos so am I!’ At the same moment, Tony swipes at his guitar and the gargantuan riff to ‘Snowblind’ explodes into life...This is what it’s all about in 1973, man. Not all that glam stuff you see on TV...The Beatles are dead and the Stones are past it. The splendid view from the rotten underbelly of so-called civilised music, of so-called modern longhaired culture. The very top of the very bottom, baby…”

quoted from: Mick Wall, Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe, 2015.

It had been an insane few years for Black Sabbath. I wouldn’t call their success story a mainstream breakthrough so much as I’d call it “breaching containment.” If you look at their DNA – four guys from Birmingham who learned how to be a band as they went and sang honest observations of a chaotic decade – Sabbath was never supposed to be a band for the average teenager with beer bottles rolling around the floor of their hand-me-down pickup. Nevertheless, that’s what happened. After two foundational heavy metal albums in a row and my personal favorite of theirs, Vol 4, Sabbath found themselves at the storied LP5 conundrum. Vol 4 was the first time Sabbath had any real budget, and boy did they use it.

As Bill Ward described, they could now afford to play around in the studio: “By this time we were allowing more things to come into the music – some strings, some brass band. We were moving toward different places…” They had some weight to throw around: manager (and soon-to-be ultimate swindler) Patrick Meehan snagged them a big-bucks deal with Warner Records. And, of course, Sabbath had the funds topartake in winter sports. Tony Iommi shredded the slopes so hard he collapsed at their Hollywood Bowl gig, Bill admits to sinking into addiction after the breakdown of his marriage, Geezer Butler partook as well. The guys titled a song “Snowblind,” thanked “Coka-Cola” in the Vol 4 liner notes, and...well...Ozzy’s being Ozzy. Talk about icicles within our brains!

Above: one of the most coked-out performances you'll ever see (Black Sabbath performing "War Pigs" at California Jam, 4/6/1974)

After a hiatus from touring, Sabbath moved back into the Bel Air party mansion where Vol 4 was written. Surprise surprise, they came up with nothing! As Tony lamented, “...everybody was sitting there waiting for me to come up with something. I just couldn’t think of anything. And if I didn’t come up with anything, nobody would do anything.”

To bust their writers’ block (and probably cut them off from their LA dealers,) Black Sabbath did what any self-respecting British band would do and headed out to the country. Of course, Black Sabbath did things their way – this is no “idyllic countryside manor” a la Led Zeppelin. Just before Frank Yeates’s passing in 1973, he’d installed a recording studio in the dungeon of his possibly maybe haunted castle. Couldn’t be more on-brand for Sabbath if you tried!! Despite, or maybe because of, suspected paranormal activity, the creative juices did in fact get flowing again. After scaring the daylights out of each other at Clearwell, the guys booked time first at Rockfield Studios in Wales, then at Morgan Studios in London. Once again partaking in rock-and-roll cliché, they opted to produce themselves. There’s synths. There’s strings. There’s (maybe) bagpipes? In the inimitable stylings of one John Michael Osbourne,

“Well, fuck it! We’ll try everything! We’ll try anything and everything.”

quoted from: Steve Rosen, “Ozzy Osbourne 1974: The Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Interview.” YouTube via The Tapes Archive, 11/1/2023.

Going in: it has been a minute since I last covered Black Sabbath. My Paranoid episode was way back in October of 2023 – the week before MC5: A Brief History went up! That’s ancient history as far as my channel is concerned! It’s an unfortunate symptom of how Vinyl Monday runs. It will be months, sometimes years before I circle back to any one group. And it certainly doesn’t help that I’ve been holding off on Sabbath for a “first four albums” mega-episode.

It’s all left me at an interesting point to jump back in. Where Lester Bangs (praise be) famously didn’t “get” Sabbath, ever, I do; especially the weird “experimental” period of Vol 4 – my favorite Sabbath record – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage, my second favorite. After three albums of grinding, slamming whole LPs out in a matter of hours, they finally earned the budget. On Bloody Sabbath, they were having fun with it. It’s a pleasure to write about these guys. It makes me feel like a real rock writer.

The amorphous thing that is “heavy metal” gets a bad rep for being simplistic and crude. Heavy metal is far from dumb. When you wade into the theory of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’s songs, you’ll find some musically complex stuff. Paul Wilkinson goes into amazing detail in his book Rat Salad: Black Sabbath, the Classic Years.Of all the books I read for this episode – yes, even Ozzy’s riotous autobiography – Rat Salad was my favorite. Most any theory-specific observations will come from that text.

“It was a heavy riff, then the song went into a light bit in the middle, and then back to the riff again: the light and shade I’m always looking for.”

quoted from: Tony Iommi, Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, 2011.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (the song) is anchored by one of the most gripping, arresting riffs in rock-and-roll history. Imagine buying this album in 1973, bringing it home to your little turntable, and dropping the needle for the first time on THAT.

Bill christened "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath;" in part a nod to John Schleisinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, part a nod to a 1971 headline by Allan Jones in Melody Maker...supposedly. Allan didn’t start at Melody Maker until 1974, I can’t find any evidence of this article actually existing.

"Bloody Sabbath'"s detuned C is gnarly, and this guitar tone is searing hot. This will prove to be a far departure from the muddy, earthy tones of Paranoid and Master of Reality. This album's tone is sharp and glossy, like giant chutes of glass jutting up from the ground. The ’80s took this tone and ran with it. The “muddy” tone comes in with the harmony line. Typically, a guitarist would play the higher harmony with a sharper tone – it cuts through. But Tony inverts this; putting the gloss under the base coat instead of over it. Steve Rosen described Ozzy as “an untrained singer who made up for a lack of natural talent with a truckload of determination.” It's his pure conviction that makes his voice so great. You need determination to muscle through “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.” He tackles this hellish key to sing in, I do not envy him! Of course, this opener reflects the existential doom we’ve come to expect from these guys: “The race is run, the book is read/The end begins to show.” Oddly prophetic considering the band’s subsequent fall from grace. “The truth is out, the lies are old, but you don’t want to know…” Like any respectable rock group in the ’70s, Sabbath were flogged by critics. The title track allegedly lashes out at one in particular. Ozzy refused to name them in interview in 1983, and hasn’t named them since. If this is true – I say “if” because this interpretation hangs on if the “Bloody Hell, Bloody Sabbath” headline actually existed – this critic faces a similar punishment to the War Pigs. There’s even a slight nod to Paranoid in the lyrics: “You’re wishing that the hands of doom could take your mind away.”

If there’s anything to take from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, it’s to expect the unexpected. It’s quite inspired to put bongos on a metal tune. No one is brave enough to do that nowadays! The full-bodied acoustic refrains with almost jazzy licks by Tony and Geezer are something truly unexpected. So is Ozzy refraining from his usual practice of ending every verse with “Yeah!”...for the most part.

While “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” is a scathing call-out, A National Acrobat is...well…

A song about “having a wank.”

It is brave to wade into the philosophical – and unfortunately political – question of where life actually begins. Sabbath turns the puritanical “life begins at conception!” idea on its head, presenting an alternative: what if we’re all wrong and death begins at conception? Are we all born doomed? It’s some seriously existential shit, especially when the song takes the point of view of the…I can’t believe I’m writing this. From the point of view of the swimmer that was too slow. “The deathly darkness that belies the fate of those who never ran.” Ozzy clearly sees the humor in all this, listen to that “HAHAAA!” Say what you will about the man, but not once did he ever half-ass a vocal performance. “National Acrobat’”s lyrics don’t fully explore this conundrum, and I don’t expect them to, but man is it cool. Count on Geezer Butler to be accidentally profound; questioning what celestial power makes the decision of which one makes it there. He sneaks reincarnation into the final verse too; “Here, I wait and only guess/What this next life will bring.” Sabbath were quite fond of these moral songs, if they weren’t so cool it might come off preachy. The overall moral of “National Acrobat” is “you made it there first, so cherish the life you were given.” A very un-Satanic sentiment.

The lead guitar and muddy harmony form melodic thirds; another trait ’80s metal took and ran with. (Buckle up: there will be many.) It was quite interesting to discover “Acrobat” is Dorian mode – but don’t get freaked out by that! “Purple Haze” and “Scarborough Fair” are in Dorian mode too.

Let me preface this by saying I am THE Sabbath Album Interlude Defender. I tolerate “Rat Salad.” I love “Changes,” I LOVE “Embryo.” Any opportunity for the side men to flex their abilities, especially multi-instrumentalist Tony, is welcome here. That being said: Fluff is a little too much...fluff...for me. Paul Wilkinson goes to bat for it, and I see why. Musically, it’s good. It’s lush. It’s pretty. But interludes are meant first and foremost to serve the tone of the rest of the LP. Tonally, “Fluff” is a little precious to suit the other Bloody Sabbath material. This instrumental would work better for, say, Graham Nash in 1969 than Black Sabbath in 1973. Especially the harpsichord; as much as I like it, it was super dated by ’73.

The Sabbra Cadabra riff tips its deranged magician top hat to the band’s blues roots. Equally unexpected at this stage in their career: an “I love my lady, she’s so fine, (insert sexual innuendos here and a couple of “baby”s for good measure)” song. It’s right there in the lyrics! “You know she makes me feel alright/Someone to hold me, love me every single day.” If you wrote out these lyrics, handed them to an unsuspecting boomer, and asked them, “Is this a Zeppelin song or a Sabbath song?” Nine out of ten would say Zeppelin. Dare I say “Sabbra” is “Trampled Under Foot’”s evil twin. Though they were “loose” in their signature stoned, drop-tuned sound, Sabbath’s chemistry was tight. It’s almost...progressive? It’s NOT prog, oh my god. The only thing remotely prog is the fact that Rick Wakeman was here. But it is progressive. Sabbath were fond of playing with rock song structures; see “Bloody Sabbath” making a riff a chorus, sticking multiple refrains in, two bridges, and a galloping outtro with whirring, howling solos. “Sabbra” introduces new motifs like the deliciously slow arpeggiated middle section, cycles through familiar ones again, and blends them both. The gallop allows itself to transform into a driving blues stomp, pushed by the rhythm section until it naturally breaks apart. The metamorphosis is natural. Note how Rick’s piano is brought into the crushing fold.

If you’re jonesing for a second listen (I know I am,) pay attention to what Geezer does through the final movement. He moves any given Sabbath tune more than you’d think. I do have one teensy critique of “Sabbra”’s sound fidelity. When I relisten, the beginning sounds anemic compared to the end.

I’ll be frank: I do not enjoy side two of Bloody Sabbath nearly as much as side one. Sometimes, when a band has too much at their disposal and too big a budget, they can lose focus. That’s what happens here. Bloody Sabbath has a tendency to go off the rails.

It does start off strong, though, with one of my favorites on the LP, Killing Yourself To Live. We hear moretonic-based riffs, C# tuning again as well. “Acrobat” used it, I think title track did as well. “Killing Yourself To Live” feels a lot brighter than the two aforementioned songs; despite being a song about literally working yourself to death. Hello, late-stage capitalism! What fascinates me about Sabbath is that, for how lauded theyare for commenting on the state of modern society, Ozzy said he didn’t really pay attention to the news! The guys just called it as he saw it. I do wish their lyrics hadn’t aged as well as they have.

In my active listening notes, I wrote, “Oooh, I like this watery tone.” According to Rat Salad, “Killing Yourself To Live” in part inspired Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.” Just to clarify: I don’t call this tone “watery” for the Nevermind cover! I call it so for its loose viscosity. I know in the ’60s you got this sound with an Octavia pedal; technology surely would’ve advanced by 1973. We’re branching out from the earthy tones of albums yore, but instead of going super glossy and hot, it’s watery and cool. “Killing Yourself To Live” is my favorite Bill Ward performance until holy shit, three tracks of Tony swoop in and just totally steal his thunder. There’s a scratchy-sounding line in there (once again, hello ’80s,) but since it’s buried in all this stuff,the sound isn’t nearly as grating as it would be in the next decade! When Tony zeroes in on Ozzy’s melody – very rare for a Sabbath song – onm “You think that I’m crazy and baby I know that it’s true,” I just want that to happen like five more times! Tony eventually lets Bill shine again. He carries this song off on a manic gallop through the fadeout. His crushing rolls and big, booming kicks bolstered by Geezer; don’t underestimate this rhythm section.

Who Are You (no, not that one,) was written by Ozzy. It busts the myth that he split from Sabbath because their music was getting “too weird.” I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of this song at all. Props to Sabbath for experimenting with synths after playing around with the machines Stevie Wonder left behind at the Record Plant. But on "Who Are You," the Moog is grating and ill-suited. It thoroughly dates the record. Synths fit much better on “Killing Yourself To Live,” where they’re subtle and not the focus of the song. It’s rare I skip songs on albums. This is a skip.

Looking For Today is dizzying, and I’m not sure if it’s in a good or bad way! Bill’s drums are shoved all the way in the left and right channels. There’s flute for like fifteen seconds. I like the echoing, almost cello-like accents. Crazy as these choices may be, they’re not my point of focus. If you played either major “Looking For Today” riff on a Rickenbacker, they’re scary close to “Day Tripper.” (Will it Beatles? Yes it will!) That’s gotta be helped along by this song also being in Dorian mode; see “Eleanor Rigby.” All give enthusiasticperformances, but man this song is jarring. It’s good, I just can’t get a read on it.

I know people love Spiral Architect as a closer. I’m admittedly still warming up to it. I started out hating it, then tolerating it. I liked it when I filmed the episode, and as of now I still like it. It does walk a dangerous line between epic and overblown, though. I won’t ever deride “Architect’”s string arrangement. It swirls gorgeously among such rock-solid elements. I love that Sabbathwere getting more comfortable with acoustic instruments and sounds in this phase of their career; the intro is gorgeous. Then we burst into the triumphant, oddly bright central motif I might associate with “Limelight”-era Rush instead of Sabbath.

Having a look at these lyrics, you can tell Sabbath were rubbing shoulders with prog guys. We’re getting medieval (sorcerers of madness, superstitious century, whatever a synchronated undertaker is,) and sci-fi (Superman and plasmic oceans in disguise.) It’s like a Roger Dean come to life, but because it’s Sabbath, all the colors are inverted. All the greens and blues have become hellish reds and oranges. Honestly, I think it’s the lyrics that turn me off from “Architect.” It’s unusual for Sabbath to put out a nothing-burger, I wish these lyrics weren’t quite so vague. In that respect, “Architect” leaves a lot to be desired; especially when you compare it to the last album’s closer, “Under The Sun.” The audience clapping and fadeout doesn’t help its case either. Sometimes, you can tell a band produced themselves...and that's not a good thing.

As Tony and Ozzy have separately admitted, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was something of an inflection point for the band. 1974 brought gnarly breakups with not one, but two managers, and an eight-month court case. Patrick Meehan bled Sabbath dry; relieving them of years’ worth of royalties, an estimated $150,000 from their iconic Cal-Jam gig, even the guys’ own homes. To add insult to injury, Sabbath had to pay Meehan out for wrongful termination. “It was horrible,” Geezer said. “We had to pay him off. The way he had us tied up in his contracts, we had to pay him to get away from him. We didn’t have lawyers or anything when we signed the contracts, because we didn’t know…” Needless to say, the guys didn’t get to enjoy the forbidden fruits of Bloody Sabbath. Paul Wilkinson wasn't wrong in saying, “Had there been no Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the troubles of 1974 might have proved too onerous for the band to withstand, and it all could have ended there.”

You people are gonna light the torches over this, but I see parallels between Bloody Sabbath and Houses of the Holy. Both groups had something to prove. By now, they had proved it. They (mostly) won the big bad criticsover. The battle was won. They could have fun now. They could get a little weird with it. For both Sabbath and Zeppelin, album number five was the tipping point between the classic era – four albums you really can’t argue with – and something else. What was Sabbath’s something else? Would they regress back to the gritty, earthy Paranoid/Master of Reality sound? Would they keep in the Vol 4 direction? Or would they do something completely different?

I’m fond of Bloody Sabbath for its natural continuation of Vol 4’s path. It would have been very easy to make War Pigs and Iron Men for the rest of their career but no. Sabbath kept experimenting, keep maturing. However. Instead of digging the crypt deeper – Vol 4 is a dark and lead-heavy album especially for its time – Bloody Sabbath pushed the crypt walls out. Polished sounds up, indulged in the zany. Even lit a few torches. Dark and light, as Tony would say.

Is it a cop-out to say I mostly enjoy Bloody Sabbath as a companion piece? Maybe so. But you gotta give it to them, they had the balls to do this album. Not all their creative choices land. But this is confidence theycouldn’t have had four short albums ago. This assertion of mastery, worthiness, even assertion of morality at some points in their lyrics, comes from honing their craft and putting in the work to do so. I have always responded to working-class bands more because I sense that work ethic. I respect the hell out of it. I guess you could say this album works hard and plays hard.

When I consider how high and hot-to-the-touch its highest points really are, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is a worthy answer to the LP5 conundrum. Bloody hell, bloody Sabbath indeed.

Personal favorites: “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “A National Architect,” “Sabbra Cadabra,” “Killing Yourself To Love”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!

Fletcher, Gordon. “Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.” Rolling Stone, 2/13/1974. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/sabbath-bloody-sabbath-247542/

Fordham, Tom. “HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath – Black Sabbath.” Distorted Sound, 12/12/2023. https://distortedsoundmag.com/heavy-music-history-sabbath-bloody-sabbath-black-sabbath/#google_vignette

Iommi, Tony, with T.J. Lammers. Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. Boston: Da Capo, 2011 ed.

McIver, Joel. The Complete History of Black Sabbath: What Evil Lurks. New York: Race Point Publishing, 2016. https://archive.org/details/completehistoryo0000mciv/page/n5/mode/2up

Osbourne, Ozzy, with Chris Ayres. I Am Ozzy. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2010.

Rosen, Steve. Wheels of Confusion: The Story of Black Sabbath. Music Sales Corp., 1996.

Rosen, Steve. “Hotel Room Trashing Lessons with Black Sabbath.” The Tapes Archive. https://www.thetapesarchive.com/hotel-room-trashing-lessons-with-black-sabbath/

Wall, Mick. Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015.

Wilkinson, Paul. Rat Salad: Black Sabbath, The Classic Years, 1969-1975. London: Pimlico, 2007. https://archive.org/details/ratsaladblacksab0000wilk/page/167/mode/1up

“Ozzy Osbourne 1974: The Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Interview.” YouTube, The Tapes Archive, 11/1/2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yRVDfrjs54