The “soulful” Black Sabbath cover Geezer Butler calls his favourite
The art of the cover is a difficult one to master. It requires care and consideration to bring a song penned by someone else into your own sonic realm, to reinvent it while still retaining the meaning and feeling of the original, to not upset the songwriter or the fans that surround them. To cover a song by a band as big as Black Sabbath is an even more daunting task, but there is one artist that Geezer Butler believes has nailed it.
With a discography spanning 19 studio albums and hundreds of songs, the heavy metal band have been subjected to their fair share of covers. ‘Iron Man’ has been taken on by everyone from pop rockers The Cardigans to electronic favourite Four Tet. Midlake included a gorgeous cover of ‘Am I Going Insane’ on his entry into the Late Night Tales series, and the Melvins even gave ‘Into the Void’ a spot in their setlist.
There are countless Black Sabbath covers out there just waiting to be discovered, for better or worse, but there is one that Butler ranks above the rest. During a chat with Songfacts, the Black Sabbath lyricist named Charles Bradley’s take on ‘Changes’ as the greatest cover of his band’s work. “Just the soulfulness in his voice,” he enthused, “It’s so soulful”.
Initially released in 1972 on the band’s aptly titled fourth studio record, Vol. 4, ‘Changes’ was a demonstration of the band’s slower and simpler songwriting style. Swapping droning riffs and heavy metal for gentle piano, the track is a melancholic reflection on the loss of a relationship. “She was my woman, I loved her so,” Ozzy Osbourne sings, “But it’s too late now, I’ve let her go”.
The original recording by Black Sabbath pales in comparison to the more rocking entries in their catalogue, but the song was brought to life when Charles Bradley took it on in 2013. Bradley’s cover of the track was also featured on his album of the same name three years later, in 2016, just one year before he passed away.
Instrumentally, Bradley gave the track a little more gusto with twangs and a blaring horn section, imbuing the song with all the emotion it should have been afforded the first time around. But the song really comes into its own through Bradley’s voice, which turns Black Sabbath’s fairly short and straightforward lyrics into wails of emotion and pain.
Each time he delivers the line, “I’m going through changes in my life”, each screeching vocalisation he adds to the song only emboldens it. It’s not just the best cover of a Black Sabbath’s song, it’s far better than the original that it borrows from. With just one listen to Bradley’s rendition, it’s easy to see why Butler considers it to be the greatest Black Sabbath cover of all time.
“It’s a great song,” Butler concluded while speaking about his admiration for the cover, “the way he puts it across is brilliant.” He’s right – ‘Changes’ did become a great song when afforded the delivery of Bradley’s voice. In Black Sabbath’s catalogue, it’s a fairly underwhelming ballad, but in Bradley’s, it’s a demonstration of his moving vocal power, of his complete ability to take a song and make it his own.
