“Behind the Wall of Sleep” (1970) by Black Sabbath

Now from darkness, there springs light
Wall of sleep is cool and bright
Wall of sleep is lying broken
Sun shines in, you have awoken
—Black Sabbath, “Behind the Wall of Sleep”

England. August 1969. The cinema across the street was playing the Italian horror anthology film I tre volti della paura (1963, “The Three Faces of Fear”), rendered into English as Black Sabbath. Or maybe it was just a poster of the film. Recollections, years later, differ. That became the title of the band, and the lead song on the album they recorded in November of that year. The basis of the band was blues-based rock & roll, with heavier guitar riffs, less melodic and more distorted. Lyrically, the band borrowed from horror and fantasy as much as they did the grimy street life of drugs; shades of Tolkien in “The Wizard,” Dennis Wheatley in “Black Sabbath” and “N.I.B.,” H. P. Lovecraft in “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

Guitarist Tony Iommi had lost the tips of two fingers in a workplace accident, and down tuned the guitar to make playing easier, but played aggressively; Geezer Butler, on bass, was used to playing a guitar and followed Iommi’s riffs, but was also the band’s chief lyricist. Bill Ward on drums set the tempo, alternately driving or (in the case of “Black Sabbath”) with dirge-like slowness; Ozzy Osbourne provided lead vocals and harmonica. Iommi, Butler, Ward, and Osbourne all had working-class backgrounds, done stints in factories and abattoirs. They were young, a bit raw, and played and sang hard and fast and loud—and saw something in the rising interest in horror and fantasy.

The ’60s saw a rise in interest in horror and fantasy fiction, alternative spirituality, and the occult. Wicca gained traction in the United Kingdom and United States; the works of Aleister Crowley were reprinted; the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, first released as hardbacks, found new life in paperback. British writer Dennis Wheatley published an entire library of occult fantasies like The Devil Rides Out. Old pulp authors like H. P. Lovecraft likewise found a new generation of enthusiasts for horror and fantasy as Arkham House hardbacks were reprinted as affordable paperbacks, like Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1969) by British publisher Panther, which contained “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” When asked about the matter, Geezer Butler responded:

I think I may have borrowed the title “Behind the Wall of Sleep” from “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (of which I have a first edition), but it’s so long ago, I can’t really remember. The lyrics came from a dream I had, hence hte title. Most of my inspiration in those days came from books by Dennis Wheatley, rather than Lovecraft or Poe.
—Butler, quoted in Gary Hill’s The Strange Sound of Cthulhu 44

Reportedly the working title of the track on the masters was “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (The Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination 74); who made the change and why has likely been lost to time and memory.

The one-day studio recording session for their eponymous debut album, produced by Rodger Bain (who provided the Jew’s harp on “Sleeping Village”), was almost a live album, with a few effects added to “Black Sabbath” and some double-tracked guitar solos for “N.I.B.” and “Sleeping Village.” No complicated audio engineering, no elaborate orchestration; listeners have noted a jazz-like quality to the rhythm swings, the few chords by the several key changes that give variety to the sound (Experiencing Black Sabbath 4). It is still very clearly based in twelve-bar blues and lyrically draws from the tradition of psychedelic rock, but it is also clear the musicians are trying to get away from that, breaking formulas. The music and the aesthetic came together to make something different than the typical prog-rock offerings.

On 29 November 1969, Black Sabbath’s set for the Top Gear radio show played; “Black Sabbath”, “N.I.B.”, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “Sleeping Village.” The first time the public heard the new sound. By the time the album was released on Friday the 13th (13 Feb 1970), the marketing was already spinning the band’s darker image, playing up links to Satanism, witchcraft, and the occult, and “Black Sabbath” climbed the charts. On the North American release, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “N.I.B” was divvied up as “Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Bassically / N.I.B.”—probably by the production company for royalty purposes (Experiencing Black Sabbath 4); “Behind the Wall of Sleep” has a jazz waltz-like opening and ends with a bass solo, so you can see where the idea for “Wasp” and “Bassically” came from, even though they are just the opening and closing to “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

At least some listeners picked up on the Lovecraft reference:

The newest from that far-out band known as Black Sabbath is now available on LP album and both cartridge and cassette tape form. This newest album is appropriately entitled “Black Sabbath” and offers such new goodies from the group as “The Wizard”, “Wicked World” and a title taken from one of the late H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

The group is in its usual sardonic turn of mind, and of course, their music is a fine example of just what can be done with unusual nad bizarre sound when coupled with some rather weird lyrics.

Good stereophonic effects abound in the album and the fidelity of the Warner Brothers recording is clean and sparkling.
—“Sights and Sounds,” The Robesonian, Lumberton, NC, 11 Aug 1971, p.14

Lyrically, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” has little to do with Lovecraft’s story. The song is about death, or perhaps a death-like sleep brought about by opium (“Visions cupped within the flower / Deadly petals with strange power”). Butler was likely more inspired by the title than the story itself, though Osbourne makes the lyrics work.

Black Sabbath can be fairly claimed to be the first heavy metal album—and highly formative and influential on many other subgenres, from black metal to stoner rock—and buried in there, the third track on the A-side, was a reference to H. P. Lovecraft. They weren’t the first band to take inspiration from H.P.L.; the U.S. psychedelic/folk rock band H. P. Lovecraft (1967-1969) was earlier. Nor was Lovecraft ever the focus of Black Sabbath. Yet they did get the ball rolling—Lovecraft and metal would meet, again and again, over the decades to come, and many metal bands credited Black Sabbath for their influence, musical and Lovecraftian.

Black Sabbath est à notre connaissance le premier group aujourd’hui classé dans le catégorie « metal » à faire allusion à l’œuvre de Lovecraft. Malheureusement, à l’exception de cette chanson, il n’y a dans la discographie des Anglais de Birmingham aucune trace d’influence lovecraftienne. Aujourd’hei, comme nouse le signalons parfois dans les pages de cet ouvrage, un certain nombre de formations inspirées par le maître de Providence justifient leur emprunt par l’antériorité de Black Sabbath. D’autres se sont meme interéssés à l’écrivain grâce à cette chanson du quautor.

Black Sabbath is, to our knowledge, the first band now classified as “metal” to allude to Lovecraft’s work. Unfortunately, with the exception of this song, there is no trace of Lovecraftian influence in the discography of the English band from Birmingham. Today, as we sometimes point out in the pages of this book, a number of bands inspired by the master of Providence justify their borrowing by the precedent of Black Sabbath. Others have even become interested in the writer thanks to this song by the quartet.

Sébastien Baert, Cthulhu Metal: l’influence du Mythe 281

English translation

Black Sabbath was a beginning, not an ending. The years after its release would see Black Sabbath develop their style and glamour, inspiring generations of metalheads.

“I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again—perhaps in the shining mists of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in prehistoric Asia, perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight, perhaps in some other form an eon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away.”
—H. P. Lovecraft, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”

John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne
3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025
R.I.P.

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Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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