And suddenly, you know, we hear about 'If you're going to San Francisco be sure to wear a flower in your hair'. My father worked nights, my mother worked days, we had no money, we never had a car, we very rarely went on holiday. In the 1992 documentary Don't Blame Me Osbourne said: "It was me and five kids living in a two bedroom house. In The Last Supper concert film, Iommi remembers that at the time with most bands "it was all the 'flowers in your hair' and we wanted to sing and play about the other side of life." "Electric Funeral" also contains apocalyptic imagery dealing with nuclear warfare. This causes Iron Man to become angry and vengeful, causing the destruction seen in his vision. His attempts to warn the populace are ignored and mocked. In the process of returning to the present, he is turned into steel by a magnetic field. Whenever we went into the studio we'd challenge him to beat his last riff – and he'd come up with something like 'Iron Man' and blow everyone away." Butler wrote the lyrics as the story of a man who time travels into the future and sees the apocalypse. The riff to "Iron Man" is iconic among heavy metal guitarists, with Osbourne declaring in his memoir that ".Tony Iommi turned out to be one of the greatest heavy rock riff-makers of all time. The title was later changed to "Iron Man" as bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler composed the lyrics. Upon hearing Iommi play the main guitar riff for the first time, Osbourne remarked in awe that it sounded "like a big iron bloke walking around". The song "Iron Man" was originally entitled "Iron Bloke". He had his ear to the ground, Geezer did." Geezer also liked to put a lot of topical stuff, like Vietnam references, into our songs. Geezer just wasn't interested in your average 'I love you' pop song. No wonder we never got any chicks at our gigs. Then we changed it to 'War Pigs', and Geezer came up with these heavy duty lyrics about death and destruction. which was a term for a black magic wedding or something. Too Satanic!' So I changed it to 'War Pigs'." In his autobiography I Am Ozzy, vocalist Ozzy Osbourne recalls, "It was originally going to be called ' Walpurgis'. We sent it off to the record company and they said, 'No, we're not going to call it that. That's who the real Satanists are, all these people who are running the banks and the world and trying to get the working class to fight the wars for them. Butler explained his intentions to Classic Albums: "I wanted to write a song called 'Walpurgis' – you know, the Satanic version of Christmas – write it about that Satan isn't a spiritual thing, it's warmongers. It was then changed to "War Pigs", which the band intended to name the album until it was changed to Paranoid after the record company became convinced that the song of the same name had potential as a single. The album's opening track "War Pigs" was originally intended to be called "Walpurgis". In the Classic Albums documentary on the making of Paranoid, guitarist Tony Iommi recalls that "War Pigs" came from "one of the clubs" with Butler adding, "During the song "Warning" we used to jam that out and that particular night when we were jamming it out Tony just went da-dum!" In the same documentary, Iommi demonstrates his approach to the guitar solo in the song, explaining that "I always tried to keep the bottom string ringing so it fills it out nicely." On " Planet Caravan", Osbourne sings through a Leslie speaker, with the singer telling Mojo in 2010, "Then Rodger Bain used an oscillator on it – whatever that is. Most of the songs on Paranoid evolved during onstage improvisational jams. It was all done in about two hours." According to Alexander, "Paranoid" "crystallized the band's writing process, with Iommi initiating the ideas with his charred riffs, Ozzy (Osbourne) working on a melody, Geezer providing drive and the majority of the lyrics, and Bill Ward locking into a set of often pounding rhythms beneath Butler's bass rumble." The single was released in September 1970 and reached number four on the UK charts, remaining Black Sabbath's only top ten hit. It took twenty, twenty-five minutes from top to bottom." In the liner notes to the 1998 live album Reunion, bassist Geezer Butler recounts to Phil Alexander that they wrote the song "in five minutes, then I sat down and wrote the lyrics as quickly as I could. As drummer Bill Ward explains: "We didn't have enough songs for the album, and Tony (Iommi) just played the guitar lick and that was it.
The album's title track was written as an afterthought. Paranoid was recorded at Regent Sound Studios and Island Studios in London, England. In an effort to capitalize on the recent UK chart success of their eponymous debut album, Black Sabbath returned to the studio with producer Rodger Bain in June 1970, just four months after the album was released.