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More than words: Black Sabbath Vs The War Pigs
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Black Sabbath (c:photobucket.com)
Have you ever loved a song to the point of ridiculousness but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t understand the lyrics? What was the artist thinking when writing your favorite tune? More Than Words, a weekly column, will help to delve a little deeper…
War Pigs, Black Sabbath (Paranoid, 1970)
Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, 2002: “Were you guys interested in black magic? Even a little bit?”
Ozzy Osbourne: “We couldn’t conjure up a fart. We’d get invitations to play witches’ conventions and Black Masses in Highgate Cemetery. I honestly thought it was a joke. We were the last hippie band – we were into peace.”
Black Sabbath has been called many things – satanic, dark, evil, sick and twisted. However, ‘peace-loving’ is probably not often used to describe Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. Their fierce reputation as the world’s first heavy metal band often caused misrepresentation when it came to the true meaning of their song lyrics. War Pigs (You Tube), from the explosive 1970 album Paranoid (Amazon), was no exception.
Focused on words throughout the song like “witches at black masses” and “Satan laughing spreads his wings”, War Pigs was often thought to represent the band’s so-called fascination with death and destruction.
“I'll never forget a confrontation with my Dad over this song. He was a devout Jehovahs Witness. I was listening to this album in my room one day and all he heard from the other end of the house was "just like witches at black masses". He barreled into the room, grabbed the vinyl off the turntable, yelled about demons and witches and Black Sabbath and smashed my new record on the table. I left home a week after and never went back.” Thomas, Songfacts.
Instead of black magic and satanic ritual, the song is actually about the Vietnam War and consequently, judgment day for war-hungry politicians. This is evident in lyrics “Generals gathered in their masses. Just like witches at black masses. Evil minds that plot destruction. Sorcerers of death's construction. In the fields the bodies burning, As the war machine keeps turning. Death and hatred to mankind. Poisoning their brainwashed minds”
And then, “Day of judgement, God is calling. On their knees the war pig's crawling. Begging mercy for their sins”.
“The lead track to the album (Paranoid) is the crushing War Pigs, an anti-war anthem that elegizes the pointless deaths of millions of soldiers as the politicians responsible profit off of their sacrifice. Interestingly enough, when the band first wrote the song it was called Walpurgis and was a more traditional occultist song about the Sabbath of the witches. But with the Vietnam War showing the whole world exactly how horrifying war could be every night on TV, Ozzy pushed the band into heretofore-unexplored political territory, and created a timeless classic in the process.” 50 Top Political Songs, www.ugo.com.
Despite the poignant song lyrics, critics were hostile towards Black Sabbath as the band’s movement towards bringing war, death and the devil to the forefront of popular culture, signified the end of the flowery, peace-loving hippie era. In the book ‘The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal’, author Daniel Buhszpan recalls that Ozzy felt they (Black Sabbath) should make music that reflected the grim reality of their surroundings.
“Here’s hoping that Ozzy’s wife and manager, Sharon, realizes that in the age of Osama bin Laden and Britney Spears, humanity needs true Sabbath more than ever,” Daniel Buhszpan.
Ozzy has also suggested that the scary nature of the music initially started simply as a way to make the band stand out:
“We rehearsed at a community center near Tony Iommi’s house, across the road from a movie theater. One morning, Tony says to us, ‘It’s interesting. I was looking over at the theater’ (it was showing something like The Vampire Returns). ‘Don’t you think it’s weird that people pay money to be scared? Maybe we should write scary music’. That’s when we came up with Black Sabbath. That was the f**king change of my life.” Ozzy Osbourne, Rolling Stone, 2002.
War Pigs Fast Facts:
- War Pigs has been covered by many bands including; Faith No More, Cake, Gov’t Mule, Sacred Reich, The Flaming Lips, Tesla and Overkill.
- War Pigs also appears on Guitar Hero II.
- War Pigs has a definition in the Urban Dictionary – “People who cause war for personal gain or entertainment”.
- Although War Pigs was originally intended to be the name of the album, it was changed to Paranoid as Black Sabbath's record company feared a backlash by supporters of the Vietnam War (Wikipedia).
- A range of War Pigs t-shirts were released with images of George Bush and Dick Cheney on the front.
*More Than Words is a weekly column. If you liked this column, you may also enjoy – Message in a Bottle, Buffalo Soldier, Purple Haze, I am The Walrus, Riders on the Storm, White Room, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Could Have Lied, Go Your Own Way, Sweetest Thing, Smells Like Teen Spirit.
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