The Ten Black Sabbath Songs That Will Never Die

Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath allegedly shoveled quite a bit of snow up their noses during the making of 1972's 'Vol. 4' album so it comes as no surprise that this tribute to their favorite drug of choice was included on the record.

Bassist Geezer Butler leads the way on this Cream-influenced track from the band's epic debut album from 1970. Nobody can sing a line as creepy as "My name is Lucifer, please take my hand" better than Ozzy Osbourne.

This ode to pot is so good it probably made Cheech & Chong choke up a little. Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi got a little choked up too. That's his cough you hear on loop in the beginning. He and Ozzy lit one up in the studio and, thankfully, the tapes were rolling along with the joints.

Tony Iommi will go down as one of the greatest guitarists in rock 'n' roll history. On this track, however, he proves he can also come up with a killer piano melody. The make or break ingredient to this song is the eerie sound of the Mellotron floating through the verses like a cold wind through a forest on a chilly autumn night. Spine-tingling.

Geezer Butler once said that this song is about an encounter with skinheads. Tony Iommi, however, has stated that it was inspired by some hippy "fairies" the band members saw running around a park in boots.

Either way I have only one thing to say about this song - "AAAAALL RIGHT NOW!!!"

A heavy metal band using a harmonica? That will never work...unless you're Black F'ng Sabbath! Now here's a pretty little folk song the hippies can surely dance to!

This is the darkest song in the Black Sabbath catalogue and that's saying a lot.

The stage is set early with the ominous sound of rain, thunder and a distant bell. What follows is a twisted tale that, according to Geezer Butler, is all true.

Butler alleges that Ozzy Osbourne once gave him a book about witchcraft. He read the book and placed it on a shelf beside him before going to sleep. When he awoke a large black figure was standing at the end of his bed. The figure disappeared....and so did the book. Now that's creepy.

As soon as the air-siren sound emerges it's goose-bump time on this classic from the 'Paranoid' album. Guitar World calls it the greatest heavy metal song of all time and who could argue that?

This track has often been called an anti-war song. Pretty crazy when you think of all the other Dylan-esque anti-war songs being written in 1970.

If Ray Bradbury were still alive he would definitely have this song on his iPod.

About a man who time travels into the future and sees the apocalypse, "Iron Man" is one of Black Sabbath's defining songs. The second that drum pedal starts to tap the crowd is on its feet.

Sabbath recorded most of their second album 'Paranoid' in about three days but they still needed one more track to balance out both vinyl sides. That's when Tony Iommi quickly came up with the riff, Geezer Butler quickly wrote up the lyrics and Ozzy Osbourne quickly sung the lyrics straight off the page Butler had just written them on.

"Paranoid" is probably the least-thought out song from Black Sabbath yet, over four decades later, it continues to occupy the brains of many a metal fan.