It felt like it would never happen. For years, the rumors about a Black Sabbath reunion with Ozzy Osbourne were basically just noise—a cycle of "maybe next year" that fans had learned to ignore. Then came 2013. The album was 13. And the track that kicked the whole thing into gear, effectively acting as a mission statement for the godfathers of heavy metal, was End of the Beginning.
It’s a heavy track. Slow. Grinding.
Honestly, when I first heard those opening notes, it felt like 1970 all over again. That wasn’t an accident. Rick Rubin, who produced the album, famously sat the band down and made them listen to their first record. He wanted that raw, "live in a room" vibe. He wanted them to stop trying to sound modern. End of the Beginning is the result of that psychological experiment. It is over eight minutes of pure, unadulterated doom.
The Ghost of 1970 in End of the Beginning
The song starts with a riff that feels like a direct descendant of the track "Black Sabbath." It’s a tritone. The "Devil’s Interval." Tony Iommi, the man who literally invented the blueprint for metal after losing his fingertips in a factory accident, hasn't lost his touch for making a guitar sound like it’s groaning under the weight of the world.
Geezer Butler’s bass is right there too. It’s thick. It’s distorted. It doesn't just play the notes; it fills the gaps between Iommi’s chords with this aggressive, percussive thud.
Most people focus on Ozzy, and yeah, his vocal performance on End of the Beginning is surprisingly grounded. He isn't trying to hit the high notes from "Symptom of the Universe." He stays in that eerie, melodic mid-range. But the real star here is the arrangement. It’s a journey. The song starts in a dark crawl and eventually shifts gears into a mid-tempo gallop that reminds you why these guys influenced every band from Metallica to Sleep.
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There’s a specific moment around the six-minute mark where the tempo shifts. It’s classic Sabbath. They’ve always been masters of the "song within a song" structure. You think you’re listening to a funeral march, and suddenly, you’re in the middle of a street fight.
Why Rick Rubin Pushed for This Sound
Let’s talk about Rick Rubin for a second. Some people hate what he did with the production—the "Loudness War" clipping and the dry drums. But you can't deny he understood the assignment. He knew that for End of the Beginning to work, it couldn't sound like a Pro Tools project. It had to sound like four guys (well, three plus Brad Wilk) staring each other down in a studio.
Brad Wilk, the drummer from Rage Against the Machine, had a massive job here. Filling in for Bill Ward is basically a suicide mission in the metal world. Ward’s "swing" is legendary. Wilk doesn't quite have that jazz-inflected swing, but on End of the Beginning, he plays with a heavy, deliberate hand. He treats the drums like an anvil.
- The lyrics deal with the intersection of humanity and technology.
- "Is this the end of the beginning? Or the beginning of the end?"
- It’s a bit on the nose, sure. But it fits the Sabbath ethos of "doom and gloom" prophecy.
Actually, the song made its debut in a pretty weird way. It premiered on the season finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Seeing the legends of Birmingham perform a doom-metal epic in a procedural drama about forensic science was... surreal. But it worked. It signaled that Sabbath wasn't back just for a nostalgia paycheck; they were back to reclaim the throne.
The Gear Behind the Doom
If you're a guitar nerd, you know Iommi's tone on this track is a bit different. He used his signature Laney amps, but there’s a clarity to the distortion that feels more "boutique" than his 80s or 90s output. He’s using his signature Gibson SG, likely tuned down to C#—which has been his sweet spot for decades because it slackens the strings and makes them easier to play with his prosthetics.
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Geezer Butler used his Lakland basses and his signature EMG pickups. On End of the Beginning, you can hear that specific "clank" he gets when he digs into the strings. It’s a sound that influenced everyone from Steve Harris to Cliff Burton.
Addressing the Bill Ward Controversy
You can't talk about End of the Beginning and the 13 album without mentioning the giant elephant in the room: the absence of original drummer Bill Ward. Fans are still split on this. Some feel the song lacks the "heartbeat" that only Ward could provide.
I get it. Bill Ward’s drumming is more about what he doesn't play. He plays around the beat. Brad Wilk plays on the beat. It changes the DNA of the song. However, if you look at End of the Beginning as a standalone piece of work, it’s arguably the strongest thing the band produced since Mob Rules or Born Again. It has a weight that was missing from the Never Say Die! era.
How to Truly Appreciate the Track
To get the most out of End of the Beginning, you have to listen to it in context. Don't just shuffle it on a "Metal Essentials" playlist. Put on the 13 vinyl. Turn it up until the floor vibrates.
The song serves as a bridge. It connects the 19-year-olds who recorded Paranoid with the elder statesmen who were facing their own mortality. During the recording, Tony Iommi was literally undergoing treatment for lymphoma. Every time he stepped into the studio to record these riffs, he was fighting for his life. You can hear that. There’s a desperation in the heavy sections and a weary wisdom in the slow ones.
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It’s not just a song. It’s a testament.
Deep Dive into the Lyrics
The theme of "End of the Beginning" revolves around the idea of a digital takeover. Ozzy sings about "rewiring the brain" and "synthetic souls." It’s classic sci-fi horror, but in 2026, it feels more like a documentary. The band has always had this knack for being accidentally prophetic. "War Pigs" was about Vietnam, but it fits every conflict since. This track does the same for the AI age.
Actionable Next Steps for Fans
If you want to dive deeper into this era of Black Sabbath, don't stop at the studio version.
- Watch the Live Version: Check out the Gathered in Their Masses concert film. Seeing them play End of the Beginning live in Melbourne shows just how much power the song has in a stadium setting.
- Compare the Riffs: Play the opening of this song back-to-back with "N.I.B." and "Black Sabbath." Notice the evolution of the tritone and how Iommi uses space.
- Read Geezer’s Lyrics: Geezer Butler is the unsung poet of heavy metal. Look at the lyric sheet while you listen. He frames the "end of the beginning" not just as a global event, but as a personal, internal struggle with technology.
- Check out the Bonus Tracks: The 13 sessions produced more than just the main album. Tracks like "Methademic" show a faster, more aggressive side of this reunion that complements the slow burn of the lead-off track.
End of the Beginning stands as a final, thunderous punctuation mark on one of the greatest careers in music history. It proved that even in their 60s, the men who started it all still knew how to cast a shadow.