Black Sabbath - Paranoid (2025 Remaster)

Details

Description

"Paranoid" is a song by English rock band Black Sabbath, released in 1970 off the band's second studio album, Paranoid.

"A lot of the Paranoid album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about 2 or 3 days, live in the studio. The song "Paranoid" was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a 3 minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing." - Geezer Butler

The song is an E minor pentatonic and only uses power chords. The guitar solo is a dry signal on the left channel, which is patched through a ring modulator and routed to the right channel; this effect was used again on the 1978 song, "Johnny Blade".

According to extant lyric sheets, "Paranoid" was at one time titled "The Paranoid."

"Paranoid" eventually became the name of the album, and somewhat unusually, the word paranoid is never mentioned in the lyrics. Originally, the band had wanted to call the album War Pigs after the song of the same name, but the record company persuaded them to use "Paranoid" instead because it was less offensive.