The “Filler” Song Black Sabbath Didn’t Expect to Become an Immortal Hit

Black Sabbath is one of the biggest and most influential bands in the history of heavy metal. They have a deep discography that spans decades. However, if most people, whether their Sabbath fans or not, were asked to name a song by the band, they’d say “Paranoid.” The lead single and title track from their sophomore album is nothing short of iconic. In fact, you can probably hear that unforgettable opening riff in your head as you read this. The band never expected it to be as big as it is. For them, it started as a throwaway song to fill time on the album.

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Geezer Butler wrote “Paranoid” and Black Sabbath released it as the lead single from their second album of 1970 in August of that year. The song was an international hit. It went to No. 4 on the Official UK Singles Chart, their first and only top 10 hit on the chart. It was also a top 40 hit in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, Austria, and Ireland. The track went to No. 1 in Germany. More recently, the Band of the Coldstream Guards honored Ozzy Osbourne with a rendition of the song. In short, “Paranoid” is such an iconic song that the British monarchy is familiar with it.

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Black Sabbath Recorded “Paranoid” to Fill Time on the Album

Black Sabbath wrote most of the material for the album that would become Paranoid while working on their debut album. So, when the time came to get back in the studio, they believed they had plenty of material.

“We recorded the whole thing in about two or three days, live in the studio,” Geezer Butler recalled. “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,” he added.

“The song was written as a filler for the album,” Tony Iommi told Songfacts. “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,” he added.

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