10 Best Acoustic Hard Rock Songs

After Black Sabbath started to garner attention with their breakthrough debut album, the band had hit upon a sound that struck a nerve with the youth of Britain who were aching for something heavier than just blues rock. Though they wrote most of their second release concurrently with the first, "Planet Caravan" offered a subtle shift in direction from the metallic punch of Sabbath's classics.

While Tony Iommi is known as the king of metal riffs, he breaks out the acoustic for this slower outing, whose atmospheric aura makes the listener feel like they're floating above the stars. To suit the mood, lyricist Geezer Butler decided to stray away from the typical love song format and talk about taking a trip through the stars as Ozzy Osbourne's croon hovers overhead. In addition to the acoustic feel, Iommi also delivers a solo on this track that seems to be heavily influenced by jazz players like Django Reinhardt.

With no percussion except for Bill Ward's conga drums, the song sneaks up on you by featuring a very tame arrangement amid the album's more thunderous cuts. By playing incredibly subdued, the power of the acoustic guitar on this track is more gripping than any distorted electric guitar could have been.