Great Forgotten Songs #103 – Black Sabbath “Never Say Die”

“Never Say Die” is the track that gives the title for the 1978 Black Sabbath album, the last one with Ozzy Osbourne before 13, released in 2013.

The song was the first to chart in the UK since “Paranoid” in 1970, it peaked at 21. The group performed the song on Top of the Pops in 1978.

Check it out:

About the song, Bill Ward said: “has some good double bass drums.”

The album

At the time of the recording of Never Say Die! the members of Black Sabbath were all heavily involved in drug and alcohol abuse. Prior to recording, vocalist Osbourne briefly quit the band and was temporarily replaced by former Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Dave Walker.

In 1992, guitarist Tony Iommi explained to Guitar World, “We never wanted him to leave, and I think he wanted to come back – but no one would tell the other how they felt. So we had to bring in another singer and write all new material.” The band wrote a handful of songs with Walker, with that short-lived line-up even performing an early version of what would later become “Junior’s Eyes” on the BBC programme Look Hear.

Osbourne eventually rejoined the band, refusing to sing any of the songs written with Walker. Iommi elaborated in the 1992 Guitar World piece,… Bill Ward had to sing on one track (“Swinging The Chain”) because Ozzy refused to sing it. We ended up having to write in the day so we could record in the evening, and we never had time to review the tracks and make changes. As a result, the album sounds very confused.

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