Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi discussed ‘Sabotage’ in a new News in 24 interview.
Even more than on the other albums, the lyrics on ‘Sabotage’ are weird.
“It was Geezer [Butler, bass] who wrote our lyrics 90% of the time. He has a lot of imagination.
“But it could also happen that in rehearsals during the composition phases, Ozzy would start singing whatever came to his mind, just words here and there. And that inspired Geezer, who put it in order.”
Ozzy Osbourne confessed that even today he still couldn’t understand what he was singing?
“[Laughs] Yes, it could have happened! Sometimes in the studio, Geezer would give the lyrics to Ozzy, and look at him and say uh, what is it about?”
The riff of ‘Symptom of the Universe’ is an absolute classic. How did you get the idea?
“Just like that. I was lucky sometimes, it came out of nowhere, I started playing it, and the others followed me.”
The ‘Sabotage’ cover is considered one of the ugliest of all time…
“I agree! She is abominable! We didn’t know it was a cover photoshoot. We were just told, you have pictures to take today.
“No one was well dressed, especially not Bill [Ward, drums], who wore terrible pants. He asked his wife if he could borrow pantyhose from her! And it ended up on a record cover. A real disaster!”
