As drummer Bill Ward explains: "We didn't have enough songs for the album, and Tony [Iommi] just played the guitar lick and that was it.

According to Alexander, "Paranoid" "crystallized the band's writing process, with Iommi initiating the ideas with his charred riffs, Ozzy [Osbourne] working on a melody, Geezer providing drive and the majority of the lyrics, and Bill Ward locking into a set of often pounding rhythms beneath Butler's bass rumble."

The single was released in August 1970 and reached number four on the UK charts, remaining Black Sabbath's only top ten hit.

In the same documentary, Iommi demonstrates his approach to the guitar solo in the song, explaining that "I always tried to keep the bottom string ringing so it fills it out nicely."

On "Planet Caravan", Osbourne sings through a Leslie speaker, with the singer telling Mojo in 2010, "Then Rodger Bain used an oscillator on it – whatever that is.

Upon hearing Iommi play the main guitar riff for the first time, Osbourne remarked in awe that it sounded "like a big iron bloke walking around".

In The Last Supper concert film, Iommi remembers that at the time with most bands "it was all the 'flowers in your hair' and we wanted to sing and play about the other side of life.

Bob Dylan had long since faded from the present memory and there was nobody talkin' about the things that I wanted to talk about – political stuff – so that's what inspired me.

"Planet Caravan" was an unusually quiet song which showcased that the band was capable of more than bone crushing guitar riffs.

[citation needed] Iommi admitted that the band had doubts about the mellow number, telling Classic Albums, "It was almost one of those 'Should we do this?'"

So it was about floating through the universe with your loved one, instead of 'Let's go down to the pub and have some chips', or whatever ... Just taking a spaceship out into the stars and having the ultimate romantic weekend."

"Hand of Doom" dealt with the problem of soldiers returning from the Vietnam War strung out on heroin, which the band witnessed first-hand when they played two American Army bases but, as Butler observed to Matthew Longfellow in 2010, there was "nothing on the news about this.

[citation needed] According to Butler, Ward's drum solo "Rat Salad" resulted from the band having to play 8 and 3/4-hour spots a night in Europe early in their career.

While Butler may have now forgotten where the title of "Rat Salad" came from, in 1971 he was on record stating it came from a joke about Ward's hair having not been combed.

[12] In 2013, Sabbath biographer Mick Wall described the closing track on the album, "Fairies Wear Boots", as a "hard-driving riff sweetened by a beautifully baleful melody" with a lyric written by Osbourne about a nasty encounter with a group of skinheads.

Ozzy Osbourne states in I Am Ozzy that the name change had nothing to do with the Vietnam War, and was entirely due to the record company deciding the album would be easier to sell if it was named after the single, which had already had significant success by the time the album was released, reaching number 4 on the UK Singles Chart.

"[11] The cover, with the original War Pigs title in mind, was designed and shot by Keith McMillan (credited as Keef) in Black Park.

[14] The original UK vinyl release was in a gatefold sleeve featuring a black-and-white photo of the band, posed outdoors on a grassy hill.

"We saw people dancing when we played it and we decided that we shouldn't do singles for a long while after that to stay true to the fans who'd liked us before we'd become popular."

[16] According to Rolling Stone's Joe Levy, "Sabbath ruled for bummed-out kids in the Seventies" and "nearly every heavy-metal and extreme rock band of the last three decades", including Metallica, Nirvana and Slipknot, "owes a debt of worship" to Iommi's "crushing" guitar riffs, Ward and Butler's "Visigoth rhythm section" and Osbourne's "agonized bray" on tracks such as "Paranoid", "Iron Man" and "War Pigs".

Paranoid's chart success allowed the band to tour the US for the first time in October 1970, which spawned the release of the album's second single "Iron Man".

Although it failed to reach the top 40, "Iron Man" remains one of Black Sabbath's most popular songs, as well as the band's highest charting US single.

[30] As of 2014, Paranoid is Black Sabbath's best-selling album, having sold 1.6 million copies in the US since the beginning of the SoundScan era.

[31][needs update] In 1974, nurse Hillary Pollard from Rawcliffe, North Yorkshire was found dead between a pair of speakers with the Paranoid album on her turntable.

[33] However, the album's possible influence in her potential suicide was still mentioned in the inquest, but ultimately it was decided that Black Sabbath were not to blame for her death.

"[34] In a 1982 interview with The New Music, Butler claimed, "If the moral majority don't understand it they'll try to put it down, or get other people to read all sorts of things into it ...

1, Butler expresses his frustration at how fans misinterpreted the band's lyrics, stating that, "For instance, on 'Hand of Doom' they'll pick up one sentence out of that and blow it up into this big thing, like as if we're telling everyone to go and shoot smack, where the whole song […] is against drugs.

[45] Super Deluxe Edition Disc Three: Live in Montreux 1970 Super Deluxe Edition Disc Four: Live in Brussels 1970 Reissue notes Weekly chart performance for Paranoid Year-end chart performance for Paranoid