Sabbath bass player Geezer Butler, who wrote most of the their lyrics, had the words for this song come to him in a dream. He woke up the next morning and wrote them down. Later that day he called lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and read them to him - Ozzy was very impressed.
Wil Malone arranged the strings on this track. Other artists he's worked with include Todd Rundgren and Iron Maiden.
Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi originally attempted to play bagpipes on this track by simply going out to a music store, buying some, and bringing them back to the studio. The experiment was not a success: after struggling to fill the instrument's bladder with air, the band tried using a vacuum cleaner to inflate it. No luck there either. Tony was not destined to become a bagpipe player in a single day, and after wasting a bit of valuable studio time they scrapped the idea. (Source: Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath.)
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