Only Iommi

A look back at the state of affairs in Black Sabbath in the late 80s, as seen through the lens of comic realism.*

It's only Iommi

It's not really black Sunday

Only Iommi

From the original band

He's the last man

Who can still stand

Only Iommi

But maybe someday

We'll see Ozzy up there

With him again

Only Iommi

Gathered in their masses

But now so distracted

By the latest shiny object

If they weren't so bored

By throbbing bass and the same old chords

They might cry out:

ONLY IOMMI…

Not sure if it was Heaven or Hell

Maybe equal measures of both

But just like before Little Ronnie came along

It all went up Tony's nose

If you stood alone

Like a knight in the neon nights

And you held the rights to the name?

You would do the same

You just might do the same Only Iommi...

He stand stock still

No crowd pleaser

But every now and then

He'll reel in ol' Geezer

Least likely to live past thirty

Ozzy was deeply disturbed and dirty

He was flying high again and again and again and again

Actually had to kick him out of the band

He's on his 4th career since he went solo

He's even got a fucking TV show

Like a stumbling mumbling phoenix, he just won't go down

Sharon just keeps propping him up

And I look like the clown? Only Iommi...

I would have liked to start a new band and show Ozzy where to stick it.

But my manager convinced me that we'd sell a lot more if it said Sabbath on the ticket,

And the albums and the t-shirts and your lifestyle stays the same, roughly.

So I signed on the dotted line and said "Make It rain, my lovelies".

There was Bill and Vinnie and Cozy,

And who was that kid last summer?

You're not the only one if you can't remember all of our drummers. Only Iommi… * "Comic realism... the most commonly used form of parody to accentuate the prevalent sense of social stagnation and rigidity, the lack of innovative spirit, and the culture of corruption and hypocrisy... With symbolic inversion, comic realism defamilialized the values and distinctions that supported the established social hierarchies and foregrounded hitherto unarticulated perspectives on the prevailing truth of the established reality." ~ Katsuya Hirano, Comic Realism: A Strategy of Inversion Illustration by Sebastian Cast