Released: December 1, 1973

Songwriter: Bill Ward Ozzy Osbourne Tony Iommi Geezer Butler

Producer: Will Malone Black Sabbath

[Verse 1]
You've seen life through distorted eyes, you know you had to learn
The execution of your mind, you really had to turn
The race is run, the book is read, the end begins to show
The truth is out, the lies are old, but you don't want to know

[Chorus]
Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies

[Verse 2]
The people who have crippled you, you wanna see them burn
The gates of life have closed on you, and there's just no return
You're wishing that the hands of doom could take your mind away
And you don't care if you don't see again the light of day

[Chorus]
Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies, you bastards!

[Instrumental Break]

[Bridge]
Where can you run to? What more can you do?
No more tomorrow, life is killing you
Dreams turn to nightmares, heaven turns to Hell
Burnt out confusion, nothing more to tell, yeah
Everything around you, what's it coming to?
God knows as your dog nose, bog, blast all of you
Sabbath bloody sabbath, nothing more to do
Living just for dying, dying just for you, yeah

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.