Classic Albums: Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Deena Weinstein:
Lester Bangs was absolutely on the money when he called them the Milton of Rock n' Roll. Milton was this hyper moralist also, and concerned with good and evil.

Deena Weinstein:
Critics like hope. The critics tend to be upper-middle-class kids who are liberals, for want of a nastier term, and they want hope and Sabbath was not giving them hope.

Deena Weinstein:
In some sense what they did was brought the hippie culture to the working class. Things like smoking dope became really widespread.

Ozzy Osbourne:
We're just a lucky bunch of guys that got together, and something magical happened.

Ozzy Osbourne:
And there's no mystique about it, we didn't all get 'round our fiery cauldron, and throw dead mice in a pot, you know.

Ozzy Osbourne:
We did try it, but it didn't work.