My Musical Evolution – Part 195 The Metal Years Paranoid

I liked Black Sabbath but I was hardly what you would consider a true fan. To me a fan, a true fan , will seek out more. I knew a lot more about Mötley Crüe than I cared to find out about Black Sabbath. I had Master Of Reality and now, Paranoid but I couldn’t tell you who played bass. I knew Ozzy and Iommi but who was on drums? I didn’t know how many albums they had. At my level of interest, it didn’t matter I guess. Maybe I was a bigger fan than I thought but compared to some fans I’d meet in coming years, I was just a casual Sabbath listener.

I can live with that. Even though Paranoid is an amazing album, at the time I was more likely to listen to Ratt or Def Leppard. Paranoid had a string of must haves like Paranoid and Iron Man. It also had Planet Caravan which is this album’s Goodbye To Romance. It was the softer, slower song that got in the way back in The Metal Years but now, just like Goodbye To Romance, it has become not only my favorite track on this album but one of my favorite Sabbath songs over all.

Is it for the same reason as Goodbye To Romance? You know, it was skipped so often back then that it hasn’t been played to death. Maybe it is a reflection of some maturity in taste. Maybe it was my Heavy Metal answer to Chuck Mangione. It might even be due to my subsequent turn to New Age music of which Planet Caravan shares some qualities.

War Pigs