Understanding why Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi hates ‘Paranoid’
Occasionally, artists will instinctively know as soon as recording is complete whether a song will be a hit or not. However, when Black Sabbath crafted their signature number ‘Paranoid’, guitarist Tony Iommi was unhappy with the track and didn’t immediately foresee it carving out such a robust legacy.
The hit single was the titular track from Black Sabbath’s second album, released in 1970. Despite the LP being named after the song, ‘Paranoid’ was a last-minute addition to the record and only took 25 minutes to complete. Although Iommi was the creative driving force behind the effort, he saw it as a “filler” which was only ever intended to make up the numbers on the album.
During an interview with SongFacts, Iommi admitted: “The song was written as a filler for the album – it was never intended on being anything else. But it became a single because it was a short song, and because it became what it did, most people knew us because of ‘Paranoid’ in them days.”
Meanwhile, Geezer Butler described ‘Paranoid’ as an “afterthought” and said: “The song ‘Paranoid’ was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a three-minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.”
The main issue Iommi initially had with ‘Paranoid’ was the work of producer Rodger Bain. While he did express his protestation at Bain’s contribution, as he assumed it would only be an album track, the guitarist gave up. Much to his frustration, Bain used the same ring modulator on ‘Paranoid’ as ‘Iron Man’ and refused to remove it.
“Rodger also used that [ring modulator] on the guitar solo on the track ‘Paranoid’ itself,” said Iommi. “At first, I said, ‘What the hell’s that?! It sounds horrible,'” Iommi explained to Kerrang. He continued: “But they went ahead and picked it as the solo that ended up on the record all the same. I’ve got to used to it now.”
As the years have passed, Iommi has grown to respect the song because of what it has done for Black Sabbath and metal on the whole. He added: “Nowadays, people know what we’ve done and what we’ve achieved so I can accept what ‘Paranoid’ represents, whereas back then I would’ve been more critical of it because it stood for something else.”
While Iommi was critical of ‘Paranoid’ and would have made alterations to the track, Ozzy Osbourne holds it in the highest regard. During a radio interview in 2019, he said: “I just call it my anthem. I remember when Roger Bain, the producer [of Paranoid], said, ‘Just jam something out, we need it to finish the album.’ We just jammed, and ‘Paranoid’ came out, and it was a hit single”.
Despite the guitarist’s hostile feelings towards ‘Paranoid’, it was integral to Black Sabbath’s career trajectory and helped elevate them to new heights.
