Background and Lyrical Themes
According to Black Sabbath's drummer, Bill Ward, his first memory of working on the song was at The Beat Club in Switzerland in 1968. Tony Iommi, the band's guitarist, has said that the song originated as a jam session. The original title of the song was "Walpurgis", which the band often played live and featured different lyrics. Bassist, Geezer Butler, claims that the band's record company thought this version of the song sounded "too Satanic". The group decided to change the lyrics to more of an antiwar theme. Butler has said that the song was "totally against the Vietnam War, about how these rich politicians and rich people start all the wars for their benefit and get all the poor people to die for them", while Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath's lead singer has stated that the group, "knew nothing about Vietnam. It's just an anti-war song."
The intro to the song also features an air raid siren.
Read more about this topic: War Pigs
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