Black Sabbath’s Paranoid is such a timeless classic heavy metal anthem that it's almost possible to forget that there was a time when it was box-fresh and startling to virgin ears.
For instance, when Sabbath played the Jazz Bilzen festival in Belgium on August 21, 1970, their signature song had yet to break into the UK charts, or trouble European radio airwaves, so it’s easy to imagine how confusing it was for an audience of stoned hippies gathered to see the likes of Cat Stevens, The Kinks and Dizzie Gillespie, to find Ozzy Osbourne wailing about insanity, depression and suicidal thoughts over that Tony Iommi riff.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine, because there’s priceless footage of Sabbath’s performance on the band’s official YouTube channel. And it’s a wonderful snapshot of heavy metal history.
