| Revision as of 19:12, 12 February 2009 editAlpha Ursae Minoris (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers3,987 edits →History: Restored previous sourced material concerning the tritone and adding more with more sources.← Previous edit | Revision as of 19:42, 12 February 2009 edit undoWiki libs (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers26,887 editsm rm poorly written fluffNext edit → | ||
| Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
| According to the band, the song was inspired by an experience that Geezer Butler had related to Ozzy Osbourne. In the days of Earth, Geezer painted his apartment matte black and placed several inverted crucifixes on the walls. Then, one day, Ozzy brought round a book about witchcraft, which Geezer became extremely fascinated by. One night, he read the book and placed the book on a shelf before going asleep. When he woke up, a large black figure stood in front of him, staring at Butler while he as he said, "crapped myself." After the figure disappeared, Butler ran to check out the book, only to find that the book was gone...He then told Ozzy, who wrote the lyrics to what would become Black Sabbath: "What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me". | According to the band, the song was inspired by an experience that Geezer Butler had related to Ozzy Osbourne. In the days of Earth, Geezer painted his apartment matte black and placed several inverted crucifixes on the walls. Then, one day, Ozzy brought round a book about witchcraft, which Geezer became extremely fascinated by. One night, he read the book and placed the book on a shelf before going asleep. When he woke up, a large black figure stood in front of him, staring at Butler while he as he said, "crapped myself." After the figure disappeared, Butler ran to check out the book, only to find that the book was gone...He then told Ozzy, who wrote the lyrics to what would become Black Sabbath: "What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me". | ||
| The main ] is constructed with a harmonic progression including an interval of ], also known as an ].<ref>Marshall, Wolf. "Power Lord—Climbing Chords, Evil Tritones, Giant Callouses," Guitar Legends, April 1997, p. 2</ref> That interval was banned from medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its ] quality, which led monks to call it ''diabolus in musica''—"the devil in music." <ref> The first explicit prohibition of that interval seems to occur with ''"the development of ''']''''s Hexacordal system which made B flat a diatonic note, namely as the fourth degree of the hexachordal on F. From then until the end of Renaissance the tritone, nicknamed the "diabolus in musica" was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance"''. (Sadie, Stanley (1980). "Tritone" in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1st ed.). MacMillan, pp.154-155 ISBN 0-333-23111-2) | |||
| ''"It seems first to have been designated as a 'dangerous' interval when '''Guido of Arezzo''' developed his system of hexachords and with the introduction of B flat as a diatonic note, at much the same time acquiring its nickname of 'Diabolus in Musica' ('the devil in music')''." (Arnold, Denis (1983) «Tritone» in ''The New Oxford Companion to Music'', Volume 1: A-J. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-311316-3). | |||
| But later in history with the rise of the Baroque and Classical music era, that interval came to be perfectly accepted ( See also COOKE Deryck, ''The Language of Music,''(chapter 2 "The Elements of Musical Expression- the Augmented Fourth") Oxford University Press, Oxford New-York, 1959, Reimpression 2001,p.84) , but yet was used in a specific controlled way (COOKE Deryck, 1959). It's only in the Romantism and modern classical music that composers started to use it freely and to exploit the evil connotations which are culturally associated to it.</ref> Because of that original symbolic association, it came to be heard in Western cultural convention as "evil". Today the interval continues to suggest an "oppressive", "scary", or "evil" sound <ref>COOKE Deryck, ''The Language of Music,''(chapter 2 "The Elements of Musical Expression- the Augmented Fourth") Oxford University Press, Oxford New-York, 1959, Reimpression 2001,p.84</ref>. Heavy metal has made extensive use of ''diabolus in musica'' because of these connotative qualities and this riff is one of the most famous example of its use in heavy metal.<ref>Marshall, Wolf. "Power Lord—Climbing Chords, Evil Tritones, Giant Callouses," Guitar Legends, April 1997, p. 2</ref> <ref>Dunn, Sam (2005). "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey". Warner Home Video (2006)</ref>. The "Black Sabbath" song was one of the earliest examples in heavy metal to make use of that interval. <ref>Marshall, Wolf. "Power Lord—Climbing Chords, Evil Tritones, Giant Callouses," Guitar Legends, April 1997, p. 2</ref> | |||
| ]" is one of the most famous examples of harmonic progressions with the tritone G-C#]] | |||
| This part of the song was sampled on ]'s song ''Midnight'' on the '']'' LP. | |||
| This part of the song was sampled on ]'s song ''Midnight'' on the '']'' LP. He also sampled it on the song ''Shut Up, Be Happy'' on his '']'' album. | This part of the song was sampled on ]'s song ''Midnight'' on the '']'' LP. He also sampled it on the song ''Shut Up, Be Happy'' on his '']'' album. | ||
Revision as of 19:42, 12 February 2009
Song| "Black Sabbath" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"Black Sabbath" is a song by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath . It was written in 1969 and released on the band's debut album, Black Sabbath.
History
At concerts, Ozzy Osbourne often tells the story of how the band changed its name. In the VH1 documentary Heavy: The Story of Metal, he says, "Before we were Black Sabbath we were a band called Earth, when one day Geezer noted how people pay money to see scary movies so we should try writing scary music. So we changed our band name to Black Sabbath." (There was another contemporary band called Earth, playing a different type of music, and Black Sabbath is a 1963 movie featuring Boris Karloff).
The song appears to be about the protagonist facing Satan during the Apocalypse. The protagonist is Satan's "chosen one," and seems paralyzed with fear. Along with "N.I.B.," this song added to the perception of the general public that the band members were devil worshippers (which the band has always denied).
According to the band, the song was inspired by an experience that Geezer Butler had related to Ozzy Osbourne. In the days of Earth, Geezer painted his apartment matte black and placed several inverted crucifixes on the walls. Then, one day, Ozzy brought round a book about witchcraft, which Geezer became extremely fascinated by. One night, he read the book and placed the book on a shelf before going asleep. When he woke up, a large black figure stood in front of him, staring at Butler while he as he said, "crapped myself." After the figure disappeared, Butler ran to check out the book, only to find that the book was gone...He then told Ozzy, who wrote the lyrics to what would become Black Sabbath: "What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me".
This part of the song was sampled on Ice T's song Midnight on the OG: Original Gangster LP. He also sampled it on the song Shut Up, Be Happy on his The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say album.
Black Sabbath is used as the opening track on both of the band's greatest hits (We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll and Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978) and is a regular installment of their live shows. A video of it can be found on the Black Box DVD.
A version of this song from Black Sabbath's first demo exists on the Ozzy Osbourne compilation album The Ozzman Cometh. The song has an extra verse with additional vocals from Ozzy, right before the bridge into the fast part of the song. In 1994, the band Type O Negative recorded a version of the song for the Black Sabbath tribute album Nativity in Black.