I guess Ozzy (OZZY! OZZY!) reads comic books too, 'cause this is clearly the same deal. I wouldn't have thought he was that advanced, but there you go. Life is full of surprises. Ozzy is a very great man, dammit. Okay, Robert Browning he ain't, but a hell of a lot of teenage potheads have survived adolescence because Ozzy was there and Ozzy understood, you know? And back in the day, Tony Iommi was one of the great heavy riff-meisters of all time. Is there any riff heavier than this? "Smoke on the Water" doesn't quite cut it; "Bad Mouth" by Fugazi is in the ballpark. This is el primo stompin' guitar noise, kids, and a crucial element of your cultural heritage as Americans. Or whatever else you may be. "Drinking beer and banging out power chords" indeed.
Incidentally, the Swedish ironico-lounge-pop mutants The Cardigans covered this song. I've heard their version of it: Sort of a wispy, pseudo-jazzy thing, with a soprano breathily cooing the lyric. Weeeird. They covered "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", too. I heard somewhere that most of the band used to play heavy metal but then they got bored with that, recruited a breathy soprano, and... I'm not sure I believe that.
This wuz writ by Ozzy Osbourne, from the seminal (stop snickering!) Black Sabbath album Paranoid.
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves
will he fall?
…
We'll just pass him there
Why should we even care?
He was turned to steel
In the great
magnetic field
…
…
Planning his
vengeance
That he will soon unfold
Now the time is here
For
Iron Man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved
Nobody wants him
They just turn their heads
…
Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of
dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron Man lives again!