Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi remembers writing Paranoid riff: “The producer said, ‘Can you put another song together?’ I went, ‘Well, no.’”

Tony Iommi sat and holding a microphone in 2023.

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has reflected on writing the riff to Paranoid in a new interview.

The title track of the Birmingham metal band’s second album has become their most listened-to song, boasting more than 920 million Spotify streams. However – as Iommi, 75, has told BBC Radio 4 – it was written out of necessity, due to the album not being long enough.