Released: September 25, 1976

Songwriter: Geezer Butler Tony Iommi Ozzy Osbourne Bill Ward

Producer: Tony Iommi

[Verse 1]
I'm just another back street kid
Rock and roll music is the only thing I really dig
Can't stop the music going round inside my head
I'm a rock and roll soldier, gonna play it until I'm dead

[Chorus]
Nobody I know will ever take
My rock and roll away from me

[Verse 2]
Sitting in the back seat of a shiny limousine
Living in a taxi can't remember where I've been
Playing my music, sitting in my hotel room
Writing about the stars and thinking about the hand of doom

[Chorus]
Nobody I know will ever take
My rock and roll away from me

[Bridge]
Living life comes easy if you know which way you're going
Got to see yourself in other's eyes, surprised?
Living like I want to don't come easy, but I'm trying
Sorting out what's true and what are lies, it's wise

[Guitar Solo]

[Verse 3]
Brought up in a back street living with the salt of the land
Seems that now my music's paying off my tax demands
So listen to the music, want to see you get so high
Cause I'm a back street rocker and I will be till the day I die

[Chorus]
Nobody I know will ever take
My rock and roll away from me

Black Sabbath

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.