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On this post we will learn how to play Black Sabbath‘s song – Paranoid (and that word did not appear anywhere in the song :)

This song is included in their first Album “Paranoid” and it was the first single released after 6 months when the Album went out in 1970.

It reached number 61 in the US Charts and number 4 in the UK.

How to play “Paranoid”

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler: “A lot of the Paranoid album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about 2 or 3 days, live in the studio.

The Song ‘Paranoid’ was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a 3 minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.”

Although the songs is called Paranoid, it really is about Depressions –> Geezer Butler explained the song’s meaning to Mojo magazine June 2013: “Basically, it’s just about depression, because I didn’t really know the difference between depression and paranoia. It’s a drug thing; when you’re smoking a joint you get totally paranoid about people, you can’t relate to people. There’s that crossover between the paranoia you get when you’re smoking dope and the depression afterwards.”

How to Play Paranoid Guitar Riff

The two bar guitar riff for the song Paranoid is fairly very easy to play.

What you need to do is to play the E5 Power chord on the 12th fret.

The riff, the whole riff is played over strings A and D on the 12th position using the E minor pentatonic scale.

Check out the image of the tablature above and check out Songsterr tablature and learn the timing and how to play this cool classic riff.