Judas Priest is working on a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” that will feature vocals from Ozzy Osbourne, who died in July.
Lead singer Rob Halford detailed the process of recording the duet during a recent episode of the “Full Metal Jackie” podcast.
“Ozzy’s singing a line and then I’m singing a line, and Ozzy’s singing a line and I’m singing a line,” Halford said. “It’s the first ever time in my entire life that I’ve been able to do a duet with Ozzy and I’m so eternally grateful and blessed that I was able to do that.”
Judas Priest has covered the song live throughout the band’s career. Their rendition caught the attention of Osbourne’s wife and manager, Sharon, who came up with the idea of the collaboration.
“She approached me with this idea, she said, ‘I love your version of War Pigs. Is there a way we can get Ozzy?’” Halford recalled on the podcast. “I was [like], ‘You’re asking me? This is gonna happen!’”
While Halford did not have an official release date for the “War Pigs” cover, he did say it should drop in the near future.
“The green button’s almost ready to go,” he said. “It’s gonna be pretty soon.”
“When you hear it, it’s just colossal,” Halford added. “You think that you’ve heard the one experience of Priest’s ‘War Pigs,’ but when you hear Priest’s ‘War Pigs’ with Ozzy singing on that track, it’s just going to a really special place.”
“War Pigs” is an anti-war protest song that is the opening track of Black Sabbath’s 1970 album, “Paranoid.” Originally written as an openly Satanic number called “Walpurgis,” the powerful anthem openly criticizes those in power who start wars for their own gain. The song was mostly inspired by conversations Geezer Butler had with returning Vietnam War veterans.
The song was written as ‘Walpurgis,’ which sounds a little like ‘War Pigs.’ But ‘Walpurgis’ is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan,” Butler said in a 2010 interview with Noisecreep. “It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was evil. So I was saying ‘generals gathered in the masses/just like witches at black masses’ to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought ‘Walpurgis’ sounded too Satanic. And that’s when we turned it into ‘War Pigs.’ But we didn’t change the lyrics, because they were already finished.”
“War Pigs” has been regarded as one of Black Sabbath’s best songs. In 2020, Kerrang! ranked “War Pigs” fourth on its list of the 20 greatest Black Sabbath songs while Louder Sound put it at No. 1 on its 2021 list of the 40 greatest Black Sabbath songs.
The song peaked at No. 15 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Song’s chart and has been certified gold in the United Kingdom. It also charted on the UK Singles, UK Indie and UK Rock & Metal charts, respectively.
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