Thursday, December 08, 2005
"Iron Man" is one of Black Sabbath's best-known songs. It was first released on their 1970 album Paranoid. It was later included on We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll in 1976.
The song is known both for its story and for its popular riff. In the song, a man goes into the future to see what it is like. When he arrives, he sees the end of the world. On his way back to his own time to warn people, he enters a magnetic field and somehow his body turns to steel, and therefore people don't listen to him or trust him. He is overcome with rage, and brings about the very end of the world that he'd seen.
This song features one of the most popular riffs of all time. It is frequently used in television and movies, including Beavis and Butt-head, School of Rock, and Futurama, and Detroit Rock City (movie).
It has been covered by Swedish death metal band Mental Break, Japanese heavy metal band Electric Eel Shock, the punk rock band NoFX on the album 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records, and pop band The Cardigans on First Band on the Moon. Rapper Busta Rhymes did a remix of the song with Ozzy Osbourne called This Means War for his 1998 album Extinction Level Event (Final World Front). There also exists a version played on jazz instruments by the trio The Bad Plus.
In the 2000s "Iron Man" became a staple of American high school marching band music at football games.
Bob Rivers used the Iron Man riff for his parody, "I Am Santa Claus".
*soundpunk jammed @ 4:00 AM
