Black Sabbath Online Forums FAQ

There has been a song floating around the p2p networks for a few years now claiming to be a Black Sabbath song called "Superman".

It's not Black Sabbath. I tried about a year ago to find out who this is, did some research on it, but it's NOT Black Sabbath.

If anyone can find some conclusive evidence as to who it really is, I'd like to know.

The song "Electric Sleep" is not by Black Sabbath. It's a band called sHeavy. Yes, it sounds like Black Sabbath, but it is not Sabbath. You can buy the song from Amazon.com's mp3 store by clicking on the cover art below. You can also check out a song sample there, too.

Hey, can anybody tell me about the faces on the "Forbidden" album cover? Of course I recognize Iommi, Nicholls, Powell, Martin, and Murray, but who are some of those other guys?

Iommi (with guitar) Murray (with bass) Nicholls (with keyboard) Martin (with Cat, what else?) and Cozy (on motorcycle), Ice T (bandana), and Ernie C (shades and backward ballcap) The Unknown
1 _____Unknown guy with glasses (behind Nicholls)
2 _____Unknown Woman (in business suit with sword and bat wings)
3 _____Unknown Man (above Ice T)
4 _____Unknown man (showing teeth to the left of Ice T and Cozy)
5 _____Unknown man (above #4)
6 _____Unknown man (above woman)
7 _____Unknown woman (to the left of Ice T and Cozy)
8 _____Unknown man below Cozy and drums
9 _____Unknown man on another motorcycle (to left of #7)
10 ____Unknown being eaten by Serpent
11 ____Unknown face between Murray and Cozy above Ernie C

Black Sabbath:

It's an unknown woman. It is not Ozzy, and there's no evidence that it's Bill Ward's first wife in front of their cottage as some have also claimed. According to Pete Sarfas, she was an actor who was hired for the photos. After the album had been released she met the band. There was supposedly an interesting story about her, but the Black Sabbath Appreciation Society folded before that story made it to print.

Paranoid:

At this time, there's no information who that is.

These are demos done back in 1969 when Sabbath was working on material for their first album.

The band isn't terribly proud of these things now, and usually poo-poos them when asked.

Full versions of "A Song for Jim" and "The Rebel" have never surfaced, only a very short clip of each was used on the Sabbath Story Volume 1 video.

"When I Came Down" had a 45 second or so clip turn up online in 2003, but the full version has never surfaced.

Do not ask for these things on these forums - it's not legal to distribute them.

No. It wasn't Ozzy. That was a bloke named Mike Osborne. Also, he is from Warrington, not Birmingham, plus he plays the bass.

Yes - only once. Both do backup vocals on the track "A Hard Road" from the Never Say Die album.

On some copies of Sabotage, tacked onto the end of "The Writ" is a short 30 second or so song called "Blow on a Jug".

Sadly enough the song doesn't appear on every 'SABOTAGE' version (it is on the copy of Sabotage in Black Box). Mark Jones (the secretary of Bill Ward) wrote the following: "Blowing On A Jug" was a little bit that was added to the end of one of the albums ['SABOTAGE']. It was Bill singing and playing the piano and was just something that the engineer caught during a session and it was put into the album. I'm not sure if it was the first time Bill had been caught singing on an album. He has sung "Swinging The Chain" and "It's Alright". Ozzy also sings on Blow On a Jug. The song is originally done by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This from BSAS vol 4 p. 18: [The story behind it relates to the Hollywood festival SABBATH played at in 1970 where an amusing incident occurred while Mungo Jerry were playing. Apparently all of the other name acts like Free, Family and Traffic were, along with SABBATH, desperately trying to blow each other away by borrowing amps to outstrip one another. But who went down the best that day? Fucking Mungo Jerry! Ozzy said "He was playing fucking jugs and he stole the day! So it just shows you it doesn't matter what anybody thinks...after Mungo Jerry we didn't have a hope. Blowing on fucking jugs!"]

Some albums have "extra" song titles on them. They are:

Basically (with N.I.B. from 'Black Sabbath')
Wasp (with Behind the Wall of Sleep from 'Black Sabbath')

Luke's Wall (with War Pigs from 'Paranoid')
Jack the Stripper (with Fairies Wear Boots from 'Paranoid')

The Elegy (with After Forever from 'Master of Reality')
The Haunting (with Children of the Grave from 'Master of Reality')
Step Up (with Lord of this World from 'Master of Reality')
Deathmask (with Into the Void from 'Master of Reality')

The Straightener (with Wheels of Confuison from 'Vol 4')
Every Day Comes & Goes (with Under the Sun from 'Vol 4')

You Think That I'm Crazy (w/Killing Yourself to Live from 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath')
I Don't Know if I'm Up or down (w/Killing Yourself to Live from 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath')
Prelude to a Project (with Spiral Architect from 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath')

These extra titles are the band's names for instrumental portions of songs. Tony has said in interviews that they were given extra names to make it seem like the albums had more songs on them than they actually did.

Air Dance
Am I Going Insane (Radio)
Ancient Warrior
Back To Eden
Black Moon
Breakout
Buried Alive
Cardinal Sin
Cloak And Dagger
Dying For Love
Evil Eye
FX
Feels Good to Me
Forbidden
Guilty as Hell
Hard Life To Love
Heaven in Black
In Memory
It's Alright
Jerusalem
Kill In The Spirit World
Letters From Earth
Loser Gets it All
Lost Forever
Nightmare
Nightwing
Odin's Court
Over And Over
Planet Caravan
Psycho Man
Scarlet Pimpernel
Selling My Soul
She's Gone
Sick & Tired
Sins Of The Father
Solitude
St. Vitus Dance
Swinging The Chain
The Battle Of Tyr
The Eternal Idol
The Illusion of Power
Too Late
Valhalla
Virtual Death
Walk Away
What's The Use
Who Are You
Wishing Well

If you have proof one of these has been played, contact me. I want to have correct info.

NOTE: The following tracks have only ever been used in concert as a taped into/outro, they haven't been "performed":

Fluff
Supertzar
E5150
Dying For Love
Ave Satani (not really a Sabbath song, but it's used a lot)

Yeah - Bill Ward sings on two songs. They are Technical Ecstasy's "It's Alright" and Never Say Die's "Swinging the Chain".

Yes, it's Ozzy. You might think it's not, but it's Ozzy. No really. Honestly. It's Ozzy.

It's not "Nativity in Black". Here's the story..

"Bill Ward had a beard that looked like a pen nib. So they started calling him Nibby and somehow the name got attached to the song. The name had nothing to do with the song."

The source for this is Geezer Butler's own mouth in the Sabbath Story Volume 1 video.