Anyway, Ozzy sells it all completely with his earnest, anguished howl. Naïve as some of the words might be, it’s hard to argue with the sentiment and more lines hit the mark than those that don’t – ‘Death and hatred to mankind’ is a neat inversion of the hippie ‘peace and love’ mantra, for example. It would have been more accurate to say ‘starting wars to feed the military-industrial complex’ or ‘starting wars to distract from domestic matters’, but I guess these wouldn’t have scanned or rhymed. Later on Ozzy accuses politicians of ‘starting wars just for fun’. That’s not the only example of lyrical clunkiness. Backed up by the incomparable rhythm section of Butler and Ward, the song became an absolute behemoth.īass player Geezer Butler was the man responsible for the lyrics, a vehement indictment of warmongering governments, shot through with bitterness that it’s the lower classes who are expected to die for their worthless causes. The opening lyric is the classic couplet that famously dares to rhyme ‘masses’ with ‘masses’: The song showcases Tony Iommi’s genius for crafting guitar riffs, from the lumbering, monstrous opening chords, through the jagged urgency of the first verse, the lip-curling funk-metal of the middle section and the intricate drama of the outro. It was a true collaboration involving each member of the original line-up – Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – and they all take credit for polishing it up into the masterpiece that it is. Sabbath took the base metal of these riffs, melted them down and cast a multi-part, eight-minute, heavy, funky, anti-war epic. It was constructed from scraps of the on-stage jams that the band used in their early days of performing when they didn’t have enough material for a full set. War Pigs was the first track on Sabbath’s second album, Paranoid, recorded just four months after their self-titled debut LP. Some people will tell you that Paranoid is Black Sabbath’s best song these people are wrong. There are easily ten Black Sabbath songs I could have picked for this – personal favourites like Supernaut, Sweet Leaf and Sabbra Caddabra – but nothing quite compares to War Pigs. What’s next? Smells Like Teen Spirit? Bohemian Rhapsody? War Pigs by Black Sabbath! Sorry, it’s such an obvious choice for ‘Record of the Day’.
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