The song lyrically continues with the same anti-war themes brought on by "War Pigs" and "Electric Funeral" from the band's previous album Paranoid.

The song has been featured on a number of greatest hits and live albums by Black Sabbath, as well as by the band's lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne during his solo career.

[5] The Argentine thrash metal band Nepal recorded a cover version of the song for their third studio album, Manifiesto (1997).

Whilst keeping the clean finger picking intro of Embryo and the opening build up, the rest of the cover is more similar to the style of Venom.

American heavy metal band Racer X covered this song and released it as a bonus track in the European/Japanese edition of the album Technical Difficulties (1999).