The Black Sabbath song Geezer Butler thought was “cringy”
Heavy metal is a genre built upon darkness, abrasion, and, perhaps most crucially, incredible basslines. Many of those heavy riffs came directly from the mind of Geezer Butler, a metal architect whose work alongside Black Sabbath laid the foundations for the entirety of hard rock and metal.
In addition to indisputable masterpieces like ‘War Pigs’ and ‘NIB’, though, Sabbath and Butler also had their fair share of mis-hits and misguided efforts, particularly during the latter days of their time together, leading the musician himself to write off certain tracks as “cringy”.
“Cringe” is a word which is no stranger to the metal genre, especially during the much-maligned era of 1980s hair metal. But the enduring defiance of Black Sabbath was built upon an unwavering sense of authenticity. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Birmingham band took inspiration from the crumbling industrial surroundings of their home city, with the darkness, smog, and factory towers providing the perfect backdrop for their arsenal of abrasive masterpieces. A gifted songwriter and bassist, Butler was no different, using his surroundings to influence his instantly identifiable tones.
Over the course of his time with Sabbath, Butler wrote and performed a litany of groundbreaking efforts, including some of the band’s most iconic and influential moments. As is often the case, however, the songwriter often seems to focus on his less successful moments with the band.
After all, the bassist set incredibly high standards during his early days with the group, and those standards proved difficult to live up to after years of relentless touring, recording, and writing fueled only by sleep deprivation and copious amounts of alcohol.
By 1976, hard rock and metal had firmly established themselves within the musical mainstream, largely thanks to the efforts of Black Sabbath as well as the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. However, the band themselves were becoming increasingly fatigued by the unrelenting schedules imposed upon them. The result of this fatigue was the 1976 album Technical Ecstasy, which, aside from a few moments of brilliance, is among their most forgettable records, at least of the Ozzy Osbourne era.
Despite reaching number 13 in the UK albums charts, there was no doubt that the album had failed to live up to the standards set by records like Master of Reality or Vol 4 from only a few years prior. Butler knew as much, too. In his autobiography, Into The Void, the bassist referred to some Black Sabbath tracks as “cringy” and, when pushed for specific examples during a later interview, he highlighted the single ‘Gypsy’, from Technical Ecstasy.
A five-minute epic with a commendable hook and a typically good vocal performance from Osbourne, the song would be pretty decent by the standards of any other group, but it didn’t seem to fit in with the endearing abrasion of Sabbath’s previous work. The entire album saw them attempt to modernise their sound to an extent, which didn’t really pay off for the band.
Explaining his criticism of ‘Gypsy’, Butler mused, “Maybe because I wrote it, and I hate listening to stuff that I’ve written”, adding, “Just the whole thing about it is just, I don’t know… It’s weird”.
It’s unclear whether his hatred of hearing his own writing extends to any of his masterpiece tracks— it is difficult to imagine anybody, including Butler, recoiling from the otherworldly bassline of ‘NIB’, for instance. Nevertheless, his insistence on leaving ‘Gypsy’ in the past is perhaps for the best, as it was never one of Black Sabbath’s greatest moments.
