I would expand further, and say that during Ozzy’s verses, I suddenly stopped hearing the voice of a rock star, and heard something tribal, primal, in his delivery - the voice of a peasant in a revolution, crying the doom of the king from a rooftop outside the castle. I had just discovered weed, and my new hoodlum friends were introducing me to all kinds of strange new musics, but it was sitting in one basement and hearing *this* song for the first time that really awakened my passion for the band. I read that book earlier this year, and was shocked at the way Joe Meno had somehow reached into my head and pulled out a memory of the first time I really *heard* Black Sabbath. The song, which I knew well, 'War Pigs,” sounded different, broken into a hundred parts like a symphony, each instrument separate and multiplied, Ozzy’s voice warmer somehow, like he was someone I knew singing in the room with me.“

Mike got up and put on some Black Sabbath and all of a sudden it started to really hit me. I felt my ears kind of open up then, like they had been clogged, and my tongue felt hot and large and heavy. I took another hit, trying not to cough this time, but it happened anyway, Mike laughing harder this time, my eyes feeling like a thousand pounds as I blinked the tears out of them, laughing at myself. Mike took another tug on the bowl and passed it back to me. My eyes were still watering and my throat felt raw and scratchy. “‘Cough to get off,’ he said, taking the bowl back.

Black sabbath war pigs