10 Famous Rock Songs Written So Fast You Won't Believe

As much as you'd like to believe that your favourite artists take extreme care when crafting an album, the reality is that a lot of records have a lot of filler on them.

Need to bump a song count up? Just stick any old rubbish in there. No one will notice! Well, they'll notice if you accidentally create one of the most enduring heavy metal songs of all time.

Black Sabbath needed a short song to round out their sophomore album, so guitarist Tony Iommi came up with a quick riff to build one around.

In the words of Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, "The song ‘Paranoid’ was written as an afterthought... I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.”

The record company liked the song so much that they got the name of the album changed to reflect that. Paranoid quickly became the group's signature song and remains one of their most popular to this very day.

Sometimes, when you're talented, an afterthought is all you need to succeed.

Now let's all go away and reflect on how pitiful our own lives are compared to these immortals among us.