Paranoid (Black Sabbath)

• "Paranoid" is consistently ranked as one of the greatest heavy metal songs of all time.
• It reached number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also topped the German Singles Chart.
• "Paranoid" was the first Black Sabbath single release, coming six months after their debut album was released.
• Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler (from Guitar World magazine, March 2004):  A lot of the "Paranoid" album was written around the time of our first album,"Black Sabbath". We recorded the whole thing in about 2 or 3 days, live in the studio. The song "Paranoid" was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a 3 minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.
• The song focuses on a paranoid man and the theme of paranoia, with the driving guitar and bass creating a nervous energy to go along with Butler's lyrics. 
• Paranoid was also used as the name of the album, and somewhat unusually, the word paranoid is never mentioned in the lyrics.
• Originally the band had wanted to call the album "War Pigs" after the song of the same name, but the record company persuaded them to use Paranoid instead because it was less offensive.
• The band waited two years before releasing their second single, "Iron Man", because they did not want to become a "singles band", with kids coming to their show just to hear their hits. This also ensured that fans would buy the albums instead of individual singles.
• In his book Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi stated he and Ozzy probably had no idea what the word "paranoid" even meant at that time. They left the lyrics to bassist Geezer Butler, whom they considered "the intelligent one".
• The band also famously performed the song on Top of the Pops in 1970. In 2002 Ozzy, Iommi, Phil Collins, and Pino Palladino (of The Who) played this song in Buckingham Palace during the Queen's Golden Jubilee.
• "Paranoid" was ranked No. 34 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs. In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 11 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Rolling Stone ranked it number 250 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and called the song, "a two-minute blast of protopunk". Johnny Rotten, ex frontman of Sex Pistols, described the song as "one of the world's greatest ever singles".
• The original Black Sabbath recording has been used numerous times in various films and television shows including Sid & Nancy, Dazed and Confused, The Stoned Age, Any Given Sunday, Almost Famous, and We Are Marshall. The song was used in the Sega Mega Drive game Rock n' Roll Racing in 1993.