10 Hard Rock Songs Added At The Last Minute
6. Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Looking back on the beginnings of Black Sabbath, each riff that came from Tony Iommi's amplifier felt completely uninhibited. From the moment you hear one of his mighty riffs coming in, you immediately get a chill running down your back. Though if you want to make an undeniable Iommi riff, just give him a short timeframe.
Sabbath's second record was already in the can for all intents and purposes, but to fill the vinyl record, the band needed to knockout 2 minutes of time before sending it to the record company. Rather than just knock out an instrumental ambient track, Iommi came up with the riff to "Paranoid" while the band were having a break. Once everyone else scrambled to their instruments, they knocked out their hookiest song in no time at all, with Ozzy Osbourne literally having the lyrics in front of him as he sang.
When the final album was first brought in, the song didn't even have a name until the record company decided to name the album Paranoid rather than the original title of War Pigs. With some of the band's darkest lyrics of isolation, this initial afterthought became one of the songs that launched them into rock stardom around the world.