Since I travelled to see the ‘rents this weekend, more specifically to celebrate Mother’s Day, I decided to ask a most difficult question.
“Ma! Dad! What’s your favorite Black Sabbath album?”
Now, due to the era in which Ma & Dad grew up, I expected their answers to fall in the Ozzy era. And I was correct. Below is a depiction of my recollection of the brief interview…so, yes, some artistic embellishment for sheer enjoyment.
The Responses
Dad: Hmm…Sabotage was always a favorite.
Me: Sabotage was one of the car ride staples with you when I was a kid.
ASIDE: Dad was 19 when Sabotage was released in 1975.
Dad: It was a different type of heavy from them. Vol. 4 was great, too.
Me: Ma? What about y–
Ma: VOL. 4! Except Changes. I can’t stand that damn song. Everyone else loved it. Pft. That’s not heavy metal.
Me: Changes is the obligatory slow song every rock album from the 70s needed.
Ma: Vol. 4 was the album that got me into heavy metal. Before then, I wasn’t yet a fan. I listened to Heart and McCartney.
Dad: There’s something to be said for each album of that Sabbath era. Paranoid, of course, had War Pigs, which is a metal anthem.
Ma: God, yeah. Everybody knows War Pigs even if you don’t know it.
Me: At Chicago Open Air last year, Zakk Wylde plays the classic opening riff…and cymbal clicks…and the whole stadium starts singing like we’re reciting hymns at a mass of the damned. It was truly an ethereal metalhead experience.
