Black Sabbath’s 1975 album Sabotage is one of the band’s very best - but it also includes some of their weirdest music.
Guitarist Tony Iommi recalled in an interview with Classic Rock: “We wanted to do a rock album.” And certainly there are songs on Sabotage to rank among the heaviest that Sabbath ever recorded - songs such as Hole In The Sky and Symptom Of The Universe.
But this album also features what is surely the most bizarre track ever to feature on a Black Sabbath album - Supertzar, an ambient piece featuring the English Chamber Choir, and described by drummer Bill Ward as “a demonic chant”. And the weirdness on Sabotage doesn’t end there...
On their previous album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band had experimented with synthesisers, played by a guest star, Rick Wakeman of progressive rock pioneers Yes.
On Sabotage, those experiments continued with Am I Going Insane (Radio), which was essentially a pop song, written by singer Ozzy Osbourne on a Moog synthesiser, which he played on the finished track.
“Oz drove us all nuts with that Moog thing,” Ward recalled, “but the song was great. And in hindsight, it was kind of a precursor for his solo career. His personality was blooming on this song.”
Strangest of all, at the very end of the album, after the last notes of the closing track The Writ, there is a 31-second snippet of music that was recorded by producer Mike Butcher without the band’s knowledge - and added during the mixing process.
“Microphones were plugged in all around the studio,” Butcher explained. “So one night, when Ozzy and Bill were messing around on the piano, I pushed the record button.”
What he captured was a joke song they named Blow On The Jug.
“This stupid fucking thing,” Ward said. “A drunken song that Ozzy and me would sing together in a van or on a plane.
“That’s me on piano, and Ozzy blowing on one of those brown cider jugs, playing it like a tuba.”
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