“Symptom of the Universe” by Black Sabbath

"Symptom of the Universe" comes roaring out of Sabotage, Black Sabbath's 1975 album, and while the credit is split four ways, the music came mostly from Tony Iommi and the words from Geezer Butler. It's a song that won't sit still, and Iommi himself has pointed to all its changes of pace; the closing stretch sounds like another song entirely, and no wonder, since it grew out of a jam the band hit on in the studio and finished in a single day.

Ozzy Osbourne sings, Butler plays bass and Bill Ward drums, and Mike Butcher produced with the band, engineering alongside Robin Black. That main riff has since been held up as a blueprint for thrash metal, and the song opens Ozzy's 1982 live album, Speak of the Devil.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.