Black Sabbath bass player Geezer Butler was compelled to write a song ‘very much about dying’ after learning of his bandmate Tony Iommi‘s cancer diagnosis in 2012.
Iommi’s illness was announced soon after Black Sabbath had reunited with plans for a world tour. That tour was largely postponed, while the delayed studio album ‘13‘ eventually made itself known earlier this year – minus Butler’s emotional track.
“It was very much about dying, about giving your last breath and passing your spirit on,” he has told Revolver magazine. “But the track didn’t make it on the band’s comeback album ’13’. We never came up with the finished thing.”
Butler also discussed how Iommi’s battle with cancer naturally brought back painful memories of Black Sabbath’s former frontman Ronnie James Dio, who died in 2010.
“We didn’t know if he was going to recover from it, especially after seeing Ronnie go so fast,” he remembered. “Ronnie went right in six months from being diagnosed to dying.”
