The Friday Morning Listen - Black Sabbath

Not that you would know this or anything, but this morning I had planned to listen to Il Divo, or maybe Andre Rieu. See, my mom (all 77 years of her) is in the hospital. She had an operation a couple of days ago (you don't want the icky details... Let's just say that she had some "woman parts" dealt with) and is now on her way back to health. It seems that way to me. I mean, she's already swearing about stuff, just like her usual self.

So I thought it might be interesting to pull a CD from mom's stack and make an attempt to hear what it is she gets out of the popera of Il Divo or the whatever the heck it is that Rieu does (he can't do music just to help PBS during their fund drives).

Luckily, I was saved by a huge explosion. At 4:45 this morning, me, TheWife™, and TheGreatestCockerSpanielInTheWorld™ were torn out of deep slumber by what sounded like a bomb. A loud, deep, and extremely resonant "KaBOOM!" shook the entire house and echoed off the surrounding hills. I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom to get a look out of the window that faces our back yard and the house at the top of the hill. It seemed very probable that it had blown up. A gas explosion maybe? Nothing to see up there. No flames. Nothing. Just the outline of the house. Hmmmm. Then, about a minute later, there was a flash of lightning, followed by some thunder. Ah, that's it. Weird though. That original report sounded nothing like thunder. No matter... shake off the adrenaline and back to bed.

But then the rain came. Torrents of it. More thunder. More lightning.

All very much like the sounds that kick off Black Sabbath's first (and in my opinion, greatest) album. Seriously, this is what I was thinking while lying there in bed listening to the rain (and fighting for bed real estate with the dog). In fact, I almost popped out of bed to begin writing. But then I remembered the lightning and the fact that the laptop was low on batteries. Then I remembered something else and one other thing and then the alarm went off and it was an hour later. Hey, you want ambition at that hour?

So Black Sabbath it is. Rain, thunder, and big slabs of guitar. Very therapeutic. As you can imagine, I've been just a little stressed recently. This morning, a big explosion of metal. It feels fine.

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He has contributed to Jazz.com and also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org. He produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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