Geezer Butler Had to Tell Ozzy Osbourne What ‘Paranoid’ Meant

“Paranoid” ranks among Black Sabbath’s most famous songs, but Geezer Butler says he had to explain the word’s meaning to Ozzy Osbourne during recording.

During an appearance on the Bob Lefsetz podcast, Butler recalled the session that birthed “Paranoid.”

“We went in to record the second album and the producer said, ‘You’ve got to come up with another three minutes,’” the bassist explained. “Because in those days, an album wasn’t classed as an album unless it was over forty minutes or something. You had to have forty minutes worth of material for it to be classed as an LP. And this is just short of like three minutes, you’ve got to come up with something quick.”

READ MORE: 10 Best Black Sabbath Songs

The members of Black Sabbath had to record another tune to complete their album, and it was Tony Iommi who sparked a new idea.

“I think me and Ozzy and Bill [Ward] went out to get a sandwich,” Butler remembered. “We came back in and Tony had come up with the riff to ‘Paranoid’. Oh that’s good. And Ozzy came up with the vocal lines straight away, I scribbled down the lyrics and we wrote and recorded it in about two or three hours.”

‘What Does Paranoid Mean Anyway?’

According to Butler, Osbourne “hated writing lyrics,” so the bassist was tasked with coming up with “Paranoid”’s words. The process was fast, as Butler “wrote [the lyrics] down, showed them to Ozzy, he literally was reading them as he was singing the song in the studio.”

At one point, the frontman posed a question to his bandmate: “What does ‘paranoid’ mean anyway?” Butler recalled with a laugh. “I explained what paranoid meant and he was all OK with it.”

Released in 1970 as the first single from the album of the same name, “Paranoid” became one of Black Sabbath’s defining hits. In America, it peaked at No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it is generally regarded as one of the greatest songs in heavy metal history.

Listen to Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’