I came to Black Sabbath late. Took me until my 20s to discover them. I think, as a churchgoing young lad, they scared me. Then, while I was in the throes of punk, I got away from stoner music for a while.

So it took me a long time – first Paranoid, then Masters of Reality. I didn’t even get the first album until a few years ago. But they are all excellent.

I was kind of aware that it never gets better than those first three, but, with a recent birthday Amazon gift card music haul I included Black Sabbath Vol 4.

Now I know why there’s no reason to venture from the first three. Granted, there’s some good stuff on 4, but geez, to get through this? Not worth it.

How do you go from “Into The Void” to this in the space of one album? And what makes rockers want to write dippy tunes like this? My ex-wife always wanted me to write a song for her and I was always like, “I can’t write crap like that.” I guess that’s why I’m divorced.

I guess I identify with Bon Scott who told the story of his wife asking him to write her a love song. He said, “So I wrote ‘She’s Got Balls’ and she divorced me.”

Good luck.