The band that created Heavy Metal music, Black Sabbath wouldn’t have been the same without the four original members: Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne. They were crucial for creating their incredible sound and Butler showed he was also an incredible lyricist.
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But as he told Lifeminute in an interview (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), some of his lyrics are misinterpreted. He gave as an example “Black Sabbath” from their first album and “After Forever” from their third record.
Geezer Butler explains the meaning of “Black Sabbath” and “After Forever”
“(…) I hate listening to stuff that I’ve written. Just the whole thing about it is just, I don’t know… It’s weird. When we did the last album, ’13,’ it was like pulling my hair out trying to think of some. Because when you’re successful and you got a house with the swimming pool out the back and everything, it’s hard to get inspired by things.”
“A lot of the stuff was misinterpreted, I think, just because of the night of the band, Black Sabbath. Song ‘After Forever’ was purely… It’s like the most Christian thing you could ever listen to.”
He continued:
“It’s about losing your faith. People think that they’ve lost the faith, and then on the deathbed, what are they going to do on the deathbed? Are they going to get the faith and suddenly believe in the whole thing again or not?”
“And the song ‘Black Sabbath’ was against… Because there was a big black magic thing going on in England at the end of the ’60s — everybody was getting into black magic and Satanism and all that kind of stuff. So the song ‘Black Sabbath’ was actually warning people about getting into black magic and Satanism,” Geezer Butler said.
Butler was a member of Black Sabbath from 1968 until 1984. He then returned in 1987, 1990 to 1994 and remained a member of the group from 1997 on. Besides recording a few solo albums, he also played with Ozzy and in the Sabbath spin-off band Heaven & Hell, which also had Tony Iommi, Vinny Appice and Ronnie James Dio.
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