In the late 1960s, a fascination with the occult and horror movies led Geezer Butler, a young, ambitious bassist, down a dark path that would unexpectedly trigger a musical revolution. The terrifying personal experience he had one night not only provided the central theme for a new song but also laid the foundational sonic blueprint for what the world would soon recognize as Doom Metal.
Butler, the principal lyricist and bassist for the band then known as Earth, and later Black Sabbath, was deeply immersed in the supernatural and black magic. He reportedly painted his apartment matte black and even placed inverted crucifixes on the walls, fully embracing the dark aesthetic.
The Midnight Apparition
The pivotal moment occurred after vocalist Ozzy Osbourne gave Butler a 16th-century book on the occult. Butler reportedly read the book and placed it near his bed before falling asleep. He woke later that night, gripped by terror. Standing motionless at the foot of his bed, he claimed to see a large, mysterious black figure staring directly at him. The shadowy figure suddenly vanished, and when Butler checked, the occult book was also gone, intensifying his fear.
The Birth of “Black Sabbath”
Shaken by the inexplicable event, Butler immediately recounted the terrifying story to his bandmates the following morning. The experience instantly resonated with the band’s core ambition: to create music that sounded as terrifying as the horror films they regularly watched. They instantly grasped the power of translating genuine, personal fear directly into sound.
The resulting song, which they titled “Black Sabbath” (after the 1963 horror film I tre volti della paura), opens with a slow, deeply ominous riff. This riff perfectly captured the sense of existential dread from Butler’s nightmare. The lyrics, written by Ozzy Osbourne based on Butler’s account, begin with the now-iconic lines: “What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me.”
The Tritone: The Sound of Satan
The signature sound of the song, which became the essential DNA of the entire Doom Metal genre, centers around a specific harmonic interval utilized in the main riff by guitarist Tony Iommi. This interval is the tritone (specifically the G to C-sharp interval in this case).
Throughout music history, the tritone was infamously known as the diabolus in musica, or “the devil in music,” due to its dissonant, unstable, and deeply unsettling quality. By slowing the tempo to a crawl and heavily distorting the guitars while incorporating this “evil” interval, Iommi created a crushing, mournful, and heavy sound completely unlike the upbeat, blues-based hard rock dominant at the time. Released on their debut self-titled album in 1970, the song “Black Sabbath” is widely credited as the first true Doom Metal song. It successfully pioneered the core elements—the slow tempo, dark lyrics focused on horror and the occult, and heavy, crushing guitar tones—that would define the genre and, indeed, much of Heavy Metal music for decades to come.