Black Sabbath – “Paranoid” (1970)

The riff that launched a thousand headbangs.

What began as a quick filler track turned into a cultural earthquake. Written and recorded in a matter of minutes, “Paranoid” wasn’t just a lucky accident—it was lightning in a bottle. Clocking in at just under three minutes, it’s short, sharp, and shockingly potent, driven by Tony Iommi’s searing riff, Geezer Butler’s thunderous low end, and Bill Ward’s urgent, primal drumming.

At the center of it all is Ozzy Osbourne, pouring raw emotion into every anxious line. His voice—piercing, desperate, and unmistakably human—gave voice to feelings rarely acknowledged in rock at the time: alienation, mental instability, and emotional numbness.

“I tell you to enjoy life / I wish I could but it’s too late…”

This wasn’t horror for show. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a bleak mirror held up to reality—a cry from the edge wrapped in distortion and feedback. Released in 1970 as the title track of their second album, “Paranoid” became Black Sabbath’s first major hit, carving their name into the foundations of a genre they had just invented.

A punk-length song with the weight of a ten-ton hammer.
It didn’t just define heavy metal—it proved that sometimes, the darkest songs burn the brightest.