It’s a Friday the 13th in February 1970. You walk into a record shop, and there it is: a sleeve featuring a ghostly woman standing in front of a crumbling water mill. You drop the needle. You don't hear a groovy psychedelic riff or a hippie anthem about flowers. Instead, you hear rain. You hear a funeral bell.
Then, the riff hits.
That three-note progression in Black Sabbath, the title track of their debut, changed everything. It felt like the floor had dropped out from under the "Peace and Love" era. But if you ask a room full of vinyl collectors what the black sabbath first song actually was, you’ll get three different answers.
Was it the song that gave them their name? Was it the bluesy cover they released to get on the radio? Or was it the high-speed social commentary they wrote while they were still called Earth? Honestly, the answer depends on whether you're talking about the first song they wrote, the first they recorded, or the first they released.
What Really Happened With the "Black Sabbath" Song
Most people point to the track "Black Sabbath" as the true beginning. It makes sense. It’s the mission statement for the entire genre of heavy metal. But the way it came together was almost accidental.
Back in 1969, the band was still gigging as Earth. They were a blues-rock outfit, but they were bored. They noticed people paying money to see horror movies and realized something: if people like being scared by films, why not scare them with music?
Tony Iommi didn't sit down to invent a genre. He was just trying to find a sound that worked with his physical limitations. After losing the tips of two fingers in a factory accident, he had to use light strings and a unique playing style. He and Geezer Butler had been listening to Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst. They wanted that tension.
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The Devil in the Room
Geezer Butler, the band’s primary lyricist and bassist, was deep into the occult at the time. He’d painted his apartment matte black and supposedly had a vision of a dark figure standing at the foot of his bed. When he told Ozzy Osbourne about it, Ozzy didn't just sympathize—he turned it into the opening lines: “What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me.”
The music itself relied on the tritone, or the diabolus in musica. It’s an interval that sounds naturally "evil" or "unresolved." In the Middle Ages, some people genuinely thought this chord could summon the devil. Sabbath used it to summon a million-dollar career.
The Song That Came Before the Name
Before the "Black Sabbath" track existed, there was Wicked World.
Technically, "Wicked World" was the first original song the band wrote together while they were still transitioning from their blues roots. It’s faster, jazzier, and shows off Bill Ward’s incredible swing on the drums. If you listen to it today, you can hear the DNA of what would become metal, but it still has one foot in the 1960s.
Interestingly, because of how record labels worked back then, "Wicked World" didn't even make it onto the UK version of the first album. It was swapped out for a cover song called "Evil Woman."
"Evil Woman": The Single Nobody Remembers
If we’re being strictly factual about the black sabbath first song to hit the public, it wasn't an original. It was a cover of a band called Crow.
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The label, Vertigo, wanted a hit. They didn't think a six-minute song about Satan was going to get any airplay. So, on January 9, 1970, the band released "Evil Woman" as their debut single.
It flopped.
Nobody cared about Sabbath doing a bluesy pop-rock cover. It was only when people heard the B-side—which was "Wicked World"—and the eventual full album that the "Sabbath sound" really took hold. It’s kinda funny that the song the label forced them to do is now the one most fans skip.
The 12-Hour Session
The recording of that first album is the stuff of legend. They didn't have months in a fancy studio. They had about 12 hours at Regent Sound Studios in London.
They basically walked in, set up their gear, and played their live set. No fancy overdubs. No pitch correction. Tony Iommi’s guitar solos were tracked live with the band. The only real "studio magic" was the sound of the rain and the bell at the start of the first track.
Rodger Bain, the producer, basically just captured the energy of four guys from Birmingham who were used to playing nine sets a day in Hamburg. That’s why it sounds so raw. It wasn't "produced" so much as it was "documented."
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Why the First Song Still Matters
When you listen to the black sabbath first song today, it doesn't sound dated. Sure, the production is thin compared to modern death metal, but the vibe is untouchable.
Most bands at the time were trying to be pretty. Sabbath was okay with being ugly. They took the misery of their industrial hometown—the grey skies, the factories, the feeling of having no future—and turned it into a wall of sound.
- The Riff: It proved you didn't need a thousand notes to be effective.
- The Lyrics: It moved rock away from "I love you, baby" toward "The world is a dark place."
- The Impact: Without that first song, you don't get Metallica, Soundgarden, or Slipknot.
Actionable Insights for Music Lovers
If you want to truly appreciate how this started, don't just stream the "best of" hits.
- Listen to the 1970 self-titled album in its entirety. Start with the track "Black Sabbath" and let it run.
- Compare "Evil Woman" to "Wicked World." You can hear the tug-of-war between what the industry wanted them to be and who they actually were.
- Research the "Tritone" interval. If you play guitar, try playing G, then the G an octave up, and then a C#. That’s the "Devil’s Note." Feel how uncomfortable it makes the room.
The first song wasn't just a track on a record. It was the moment the hippie era died and the age of the riff began.
To get the full experience, track down a copy of the original UK tracklist versus the US version. The presence of "Evil Woman" on one and "Wicked World" on the other changes the entire flow of the record. Hearing them in their original context is the only way to understand how these four guys from Aston accidentally stumbled into immortality.