Unlikely origins: the classical piece that birthed heavy metal
For most concerned parents, the only place that heavy metal could have been created was in the bowels of Hell. This kind of intimidating music was the stuff of nightmares when acts like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin started turning up their amplifiers and making references to the occult, so hearing fans get on the hype train for every song was enough for religious leaders to fear that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Then again, there was one piece of classical music that proved that metal was a bit more refined than people took it for.
Because there’s a lot more that goes into heavy metal than a simple bastardisation of rock and roll. Elvis Presley may have shown the world how dangerous music could be if someone had the right idea, but there were also a lot of pieces left over from the world of blues as well, especially in the way the first Zeppelin and Deep Purple riffs were constructed.
And it’s not like Sabbath were completely one-note in their compositions, either. Throughout their discography with Ozzy Osbourne behind the microphone, they wore their jazz influences on their sleeves as well, whether that was Tony Iommi playing a Django Reinhardt-style solo on ‘Planet Caravan’ or bassist Geezer Butler having a jazzy swing in the tune ‘Fairies Wear Boots’.
However, the power that comes from metal was baked into the biggest classical compositions. No conductor wants their music to sound anything more than robust when it fills the symphony, so when Butler heard Gustav Holst’s Planets suite, Iommi took the same concept and applied it to the first proper heavy metal lick.
When talking about their first tunes on Classic Albums, Butler said the origin of the song ‘Black Sabbath’ came from him trying to copy the ‘Mars’ movement of the piece, saying, “One of the days we were missing and I was trying to play ‘Mars’, and the next day, Tony comes in and goes (plays ‘Black Sabbath’ riff), and that’s how ‘Black Sabbath’ came about.”
And as far as metal is concerned, ‘Mars’ is a damn good place to start. The whole meaning of the piece was about conjuring up the image of the Bringer of War, and since that kind of carnage is always a part of metal’s lyrical themes, tying it in with a song all about Osbourne trying to outrun a demon that’s looking to take over the world was the perfect extension of what bands like Cream and Zeppelin had done.
That kind of finesse wasn’t limited to Sabbath trying their best to copy classical pieces. Looking at some of the biggest guitarists of the time, Ritchie Blackmore was also interested in throwing together different elements of classical music into his playing style, including playing arpeggios in the solo for ‘Highway Star’ reminiscent of Mozart’s greatest works.
So next time people talk about how metal is corrupting the youth and is about nothing except for noise and screaming, remember where the genre got its first sounds from. All music is built on someone else’s idea, and if it had not been for Holst, maybe heavy metal would have gone in a vastly different direction.
