Andy here. A couple of orders of business before I get to the point of this post. First of all, there are some pretty sweet pictures of us posted at the bottom left of the page. Scroll down to check them out. Second, Elizabeth said I wasn't allowed to post about sports again until I talked about something else, but I have to briefly mention some college basketball first. Hats off to (Roy) Williams for scheduling Davidson on a neutral court to open North Carolina's basketball season. Many people might not know it, but Davidson is a really good team, and that game had trap written all over it. UNC won a very close game, 72-68.
Now, down to business. I was riding the bus to class this morning, listening to my ipod, when War Pigs by Black Sabbath came on. I've never really gotten into Sabbath, but for for 7 minutes and 58 seconds this morning, it was the coolest song in the world. I know this is the sort of revelation most people have around 9th grade, but for me it was this morning.
So anyway, I got to thinking about an assignment Jack Johnson (no, not that one. not that one either...our high school Music Appreciation teacher and eater of questionable fruit) used to have us do: the listening guide. Because I'm currently in a War Pigs love-fest, I thought I'd do a listening guide for it now. If you have a copy of the song, feel free to play along.
This should probably be listened to pretty loudly to get the desired effect.
:01-:57 The opening is admittedly boring, though the crank-style siren sound effect is pretty cool.
:58-1:44 The first verse begins with just Ozzy's vocal while Bill Ward keeps time on the high-hat. The lyrics are typically ridiculous heavy-metal sounding stuff about war, but they're not important here. At the end of each line we get a teaser drum fill or guitar riff from Tony Iommi. But thing don't really get going until...
1:45 Ozzy yells something that sounds like, "Oh, lord, yeah!" and then it hits its stride. This is where the song really pays its bills, first with some fat drum fills and then some sharp, little riffs.
2:17 Ozzy's vocals come back in with more political-metal lyrics and a vocal that Chris Cornell must have listened to endlessly when he was 14.
3:08 Ozzy yeahs us into another instrumental section - the absolute strength of the song in my opinion.
3:30 Here a pretty cool guitar solo kicks in. It's longer that I usually want a guitar solo to be, but I'm not going to doubt Tony on this one. He's on fire.
4:30 Finally back to the verse. Ozzy's lyrics really kind of crack me up here. They're so "tough." "Satan laughing spreads his wings...oh lord yeah!" (5:17) takes us back to pretty much the same instrumental we got at 1:45, but it's good enough that you want to hear it again.
6:34 The coda guitar solo takes us to the end of the song. Appreciate the thickly layered, vintage heavy-metal sound of the song here. I can't hear this part without thinking of the neon pink, sword and shield wielding warriors on the album cover marching into the woods to slay the level-18 Dragon Lord that awaits....but I digress.
5 comments:
Nice job. I'm coming down off of being excited about The Cult for a couple of months. It's only a short 2:45, but "Lil Devil" rocks.
Ozzy was in Portland last night. Zakk Wylde even did the Star Bangled Banner at the Blazers game. I talked to a warehouse chic out on my delivery run this afternoon who went to the show and of course was wearing the t-shirt to work the next day (Rock on!)
She was in row 24 and managed to catch a Zakk Wylde guitar pick that came flying her way. Warehouse chics rule!
Those are two pretty sweet pics.
I think you need to come over and play War Pigs on Guitar Hero 2 now. It's an extended 10+ minutes of dark metal bliss!
Poly sez..
Funny story about War Pigs. At my first job out of college, we had this VP of Marketing that was a little off. He would be solid one day, and off his knob the next. Nobody ever really figured out why - basically because we never had time to. You see, one day he came back from a board meeting and slammed his corner office door. Minutes went by with total silence in the office - we were all scared to death. Then what happens? WAR PIGS BABY - cranked to 11. The song ended and he went home. 1 month later, he was gone - moved away never to be heard from again. Great song - happy memory.
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