Paranoid

A music video was made for "Paranoid."

Issued in a gatefold sleeve.

The album was originally supposed to be titled War Pigs and the cover art was designed with that title in mind, but the record company objected (presumably due to the Vietnam War), so it was re-titled Paranoid.

The person on the album cover is Roger Brown, who was Marcus Keef's assistant at the time.

"War Pigs" was formerly called "Walpurgis" and had different lyrics.

"Paranoid" was the last song composed and recorded for the album at the behest of the producer, who thought they needed an extra track.

"Iron Man" is based on a fictional character thought up by Ozzy and Geezer, not the Marvel comics hero of the same name.

"Fairies Wear Boots" was inspired by a time when Ozzy and Geezer were hassled by skinheads, thus an insult to the boot-wearing "fairy" skinheads.

On the North American edition of the album, the songs "War Pigs" and "Fairies Wear Boots" were titled "War Pigs/Luke's Wall" and "Jack the Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots," respectively. This is because in those years Black Sabbath had to have at least 10 songs on their records to be able to please the American record companies, and they decided to separate 2 long song titles in order to convince those record companies that there was more music. This would be repeated on the albums Master of Reality (1971) and Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (1972).

A Classic Albums documentary has been made for Paranoid, chronicling its inception, recording process, and legacy.

A CD version released in 1986 (Castle Communications; CLACD 197) contains a live version of "Wicked World" as a bonus track. This same version appears on the live album Live at Last (1980) and on CD 4 of the 2021 super deluxe edition of the album Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (1972).

Recording information:

Recorded at Regent Sound and Island Studios.
All songs by Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward.

Identifiers:

Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 1): 6360011 1Y//1 420 1 2 1
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 1): 6360011 2Y//1 420 1 1 5
Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 2): 6360011 1Y//2 420 1 2 4
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 2): 6360011 2Y//2 420 1 1 1
Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 3): 6360011 1Y//▽420 12 12
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 3): 6360011 2Y//▽420 11 17
Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 4): 6360011 1Y//▽420 12 7
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 4): 6360011 2Y//▽420 12 19
Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 5): 6360011 1Y//2▽420 12 10
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 5): 6360011 2Y//1▽420 11 33
Matrix / Runout (Side A Variant 6): 6360011 1Y//▽420 15 17
Matrix / Runout (Side B Variant 6): 6360011 2Y//▽420 11 27