Black Sabbath

Featuring: Ice-T

Songwriter: Tony Martin (heavy metal vocalist) Tony Iommi Ice-T Geoff Nicholls Cozy Powell Neil Murray

What is it that turns you on to the illusion of power
This thing that grabs you by the heart and makes you want to tear things down
There is no reason why I should need all this power, but if you cross me now
I'm gonna tear your whole world down

The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real
The illusion of power

I can' get the emotional thing straight in my head
Everything I love dies to soon, or is already dead
Don't stand too close I spit and breath fire
Anything I've got now you cannot desire

You want to be my friend I promise you nothing
Nothing I can give you, nothing I can do for you
I'm being chased by the sins of my past and it's killing me now
Killing me now

The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real
The illusion of power
The illusion of power, it's already set signed and sealed
The illusion of power

Powerful...who are you fooling?
You're caught in a complex cataclysm of your own inadequacies
And pitiful weaknesses
Your souls secretes insecurity
So you live on the reflection side of the mirror
You're terrified of true power...you fear me...

I can tell you stories of my
Shaded past and I can
Drag you down into the
Depths of my soul

The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real
The illusion of power
The illusion of power, it's already set signed and sealed
The illusion of power

Why don't you come closer, Promise a story I will tell, yeah
I'll save you from your dreams, yeah
I'll save you from your dreams

From their start as a heavy blues-rock band called Earth in 1968, Black Sabbath survived over four decades with a total of 19 studio albums and numerous hits, but only “Paranoid” reached the top 10 UK Singles Chart, putting together one of the greatest rock bands of all time and setting the standards for music in their genre.

Virtually every single heavy metal band has cited the early Black Sabbath albums as a major musical influence and Black Sabbath have at least played some part in laying the foundations for most of heavy metal’s sub-genres, including thrash metal (“Symptom of the Universe” and “Into the Void”), doom metal (“Black Sabbath”) and stoner metal (“Sweet Leaf”). The band also explored many rock sub-genres, including hard rock (“Paranoid”), blues rock (“N.I.B.”), psychedelic rock (“Planet Caravan”) and, of course, the traditional heavy metal, being one of the precursors of this genre.

They were ranked by MTV as the “Greatest Metal Band” of all time and placed second in VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock” list. Rolling Stone magazine ranked them number 85 in their “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” They have sold over 70 million records worldwide. Black Sabbath were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. They have also won two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance.

more tracks from the album

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From the album

Forbidden (1995)

Black Sabbath popular songs

The Illusion of PowerBlack Sabbath

Black Sabbath

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