Paranoid (song)

Paranoid is a song by Black Sabbath, coming from an album of the same name. Supposedly, the members of Black Sabbath put together this song in 15 minutes based off a riff by Tony Iommi. This song was only meant to be a "filler", but became one of Black Sabbath's most successful songs. The record company changed the album's name from War Pigs, as it was originally intended, to Paranoid because the company was worried War Pigs would cause a backlash by supporters of the Vietnam War.

Related Topics:
Black Sabbath - An album of the same name - Tony Iommi - Filler - Vietnam War

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Clocking at less than 3 minutes, and uncharacterisically fast and simple for a Black Sabbath song, it has been widely covered by bands from Punk to Heavy Metal, including Megadeth. Its length meant that it was released as a single in the UK, reaching the top 5 - most of the band's songs were too long to fit on a single, and certainly too long to gain mass airplay on mainstream radio.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Juho Juntunen, editor of Finnish rock magazine Soundi, used to humoristically shout "Soittakaa Paranoid!" ("Please play Paranoid!") from the audience in various gigs. This manner spread widely and now it is common that someone shouts "Soittakaa Paranoid!" in any gig in Finland, even if he doesn't know where the joke has come from or he never has heard the song at all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~