Rocktober '70s Song #16: "Children of the Grave" by Black Sabbath (1971)

It's Halloween week -- or Halloweek, if you're into word combinations, like I certainly am -- which means the Rocktober songs will shift to the dark side.  The final four songs of this '70s-themed Rocktober will feature songs about the dead, the undead, the macabre, Satan, and the like.

Of course, we couldn't possibly have a '70s Rocktober without Black Sabbath.  With their self-titled debut album in 1970, the boys from Birmingham essentially invented heavy metal, with their dark themes, devil's triad, insane riffs, and thunderous drumming.  While Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi rightfully get a lot of love, I think the rhythm section of Geezer Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums is underrated and one of the best in rock history.  Butler -- a pacifist vegetarian (now vegan) -- holds down the bottom with amazing bass lines, on top of writing most of Sabbath's lyrics.  Ward's drumming was influenced by jazz and rock, and his style was unusual and varied, certainly now that we know what "traditional" metal drumming sounds like.

I could have chosen any one of dozens of Sabbath songs, but I am going with "Children of the Grave" off of 1971's Master of Reality.  While the song's title may invoke visions of zombie babies -- or zombabies, as I call them -- it's actually an anti-war song about nonviolent civil disobedience and love rising up to conquer hate.

The song just blows you away from beginning to end.  The pace matches the urgency of the lyrics.  Iommi's riff is blistering, and Ward's drumming has always stood out to me on this one -- it's like there's two of him, one of whom is playing the standard beat and other who is whacking away on the toms, like an army of zombabies frantically knocking on their caskets before reemerging to reap the brains of the living.  This is the last track on the album, and just so you know it's Black Sabbath, on the original LP, a whispered "Children of the Grave" is continually looped.  Thankfully, on this version below, they put some of that at the end.