Observations, rants, and musings by Joe Siegler.

Black Sabbath – The Eternal Idol

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…. RISE UP – to the shining!

This is an album I’ve written about in detail before, but it’s one I like, so I’ll do so again.  This is Black Sabbath’s 13th studio album – 1987’s “The Eternal Idol”.  It was produced in the most convoluted time in the band’s history.  The final album has a sea of members and production people.  Two bassists, two drummers, two vocalists, and three producers.  Behind the scenes it was a bit of a fiasco with people coming and going.  This article you’re reading now isn’t intended to be the definitive history of the making of the album, I wrote about that stuff on my Sabbath site, you can visit my band timeline page and a 30th anniversary article – please go read those for more on this stuff. Despite the convoluted production story, what came out was one of the more solid front to back Black Sabbath albums there is.  I know a lot of people discount this album because it’s not Ozzy or Dio, or something along those lines, that’s a loss for them.  The album here is damn solid with a lot of goodness that can be overlooked, and has been.

The copy I’ll be listening to is my original vinyl print from 1987, which honestly I’m surprised I still have.  The reason for this is I honestly don’t remember buying it on vinyl.  You see in 1987 I had mostly moved on from vinyl.  CD’s hadn’t fully taken hold because they were still an expensive purchase, so I was pretty much all about the boombox and my walkman with cassette tapes.  I bought Eternal Idol immediately on cassette tape (still have that in 2024), and apparently I bought the vinyl as well.  I say that because when I got my 80’s vinyl collection back in 2023 from my mom’s basement, I was quite surprised to see Eternal Idol in there.  I don’t recall buying it – but I obviously did.  My brain had it filed under one that I bought on cassette and CD only, but apparently I bought three separate copies in 1987.  Amusingly the CD I bought on 26 Dec 1987 – I remember that because I got my first ever CD player as a Christmas present in 1987, and went out the next day to buy Eternal Idol – the first CD I bought AFTER I got my first CD player.  I already had a handful of CD’s (as I knew it was coming, I’d buy one if I saw a deal somewhere), but Eternal Idol was the first album I bought on CD new after my first player.  The vinyl however, I have zero memory of buying.  But knowing my own past, this is something I would have gone out and bought on Day 1 – so 8 Dec 1987 (the US release date) I would have bought the vinyl and cassette at the same time.  Seems like something I’d do.  I’m also fairly sure I bought it from Sam Goody’s as that was a place I bought a lot of my music from back in the 80’s.  I’m fairly sure this is one of the few releases where I would have bought the CD, cassette, & vinyl all when new.  I wasn’t buying CD’s before 1985 in any capacity, and it was around here that I stopped buying vinyl at all because of the CD player I just got.

Normally I mention the live aspect of an album after the songs, but for this one I wanted to do that now.  Mostly because there barely was any live tour.  There was supposed to be a full tour, but massive financial problems at the time caused the tour only end up being about 20 dates mostly around Germany and Italy.  There were some dates played in Greece and South America, but those were before the album came out and not part of the “proper tour” for the album.  The tour started on 22 Nov and ended on 12 Dec – that’s it.  There is a single show that has a video boot from this tour, I’ve included it with the videos on my page below.  Not the best quality, but it was nearly 40 years ago – that it exists at all is great.  The tour never came to the US (the band had imploded by the time that was supposed to happen), so I never got to see this live.  Nor did most people.

But again, despite the instability of its creation, and it coming out in what can arguably be considered the lowest point in the band’s history, the album itself is an amazingly great album filled with great songs, great Iommi riffs, and a lot of stuff you can really enjoy if you open your mind and allow for it.  Here’s some thoughts of mine on the songs..

The Shining – This is the song that most people know about if they know anything from The Eternal Idol at all. It was the only  single from the album, it has a nice catchy hook, and got played on all the tours with Tony Martin.  The opening riff is a great one with some nice bass work from Bob Daisley peppered throughout it.  It’s got a great sound to it – I find myself to this day singing “Rise Up” with the song when it comes up.  Just as great now as when I first heard it in 1987.

The main riff for this song had been around for some time. It was originally written for the demo sessions back in 1984 after Ian Gillan had left the band following the Born Again tour. The band was trying to figure out what to do, and was trying other singers. One of the guys they tried was Dave Donato, and out of those demo sessions came several tracks, one was called “No Way Out”.  If you go check out that anniversary article I mentioned earlier, you can hear that version of the song.

Fun fact: ALL the lyric sheets for this album are screwed up.  Every version that has existed starts with the lyric sheet at “Bells will take their toll” – that is at 3:10 of the song. Be nice if they ever reprint that again if they can fix the lyric sheets.  Get out your copy – it’s broken too – they all are.  :)

Ancient Warrior – Ancient Warrior might be one of most overlooked tracks in the band’s entire history. I’ve always felt this has a really great hard riff. It’s not fast like The Shining or Neon Knights or something like that. Ancient Warrior isn’t doom and gloom slow like St Vitus Dance or Shadow of the Wind. Ancient Warrior fits right in the middle for me in terms of fast and slow Sabbath songs.  It’s also 1987, so it leads off with a synth intro.  But that shouldn’t distract from the really good heavy riff in play here.   I also think Tony Martin’s vocals work here better than Ray Gillen’s.  The song feels more in tune with what Tony does, despite it being written for Ray.  As far as I know this song has never been performed live.  Would have liked to have seen it tackled.  I also love the sound of the line of lyrics “My blood will spill my blood”.  I don’t mean the music I mean the vocals – as a musical instrument – the cadence of that delivery sounds great to my ears. Love the way the song goes out musically.  Great riffing and sounds leading into (and during) the fadeout.

For the longest time I thought the lyrics were about Jesus Christ.  I once posed that theory to Bob Daisley who wrote the lyrics.  He told me this.. “No, not anyone in particular, just a nameless, timeless wise person really. No denomination or specific religion.”  That blows my theory out of the water, but I still think it fits.

Hard Life to Love – Starts off with a pretty straightforward riff right out of Tony’s playbook.  Gets into a heavy beat, but for some reason this one never grabs me fully.  It’s a good riff – starts off killer for sure. It does repeat a lot, which is I suppose not a unique thing to this song. A lot of songs have a riff that repeats over and over again, but this one seems to do it moreso than others.   When I was younger I always thought this song was about life on the road in a band, but Bob Daisley told me this – “the message of this song is “leave me out of your world of lies and deceit”.”.  Even the guitar solo doesn’t seem like one of Tony’s strongest.  This song is weird for me because I think parts of it are “meh”, and parts are killer (the opening riff).

Glory Ride – I like Glory Ride a lot better than Hard Life. It has a “touch” of the mid 80’s influence in it. I’m speaking of the “keyboard sound” that plays behind Tony Martin’s vocals in the non chorus part of the song.  Overall, I like the vibe here, because there’s a tiny little bit of time change – not much, but enough to be noticed.  I love the chorus a bunch.  Even with that “keyboard sound” the song works for me.  It SHOULDN’T work because of that keyboard sound, but it does anyway.  Tony’s solo is one I quite like.  It has a sound that’s quite nice – it seems more straightforward Sabbath than parts of the song.  It’s also a longer solo than most.  Good stuff from Mr. Iommi there.  Some nice range by Tony Martin, too.

Born to Lose – Another track that starts off with a great Iommi riff.  It’s another one where the opening riff just keeps going through the song and it’s mostly that.  It’s a decent enough riff, but I would have preferred a little more variety in this song.  Still, it’s a great riff, and it works for that part of the track, but I would have preferred something a little different (beyond the solo which was different and good).  Bob Daisley says the working title for this song was “Mushroom Tea” – I’d love to know the story behind THAT.

Nightmare – This song has a 30 second keyboard intro by Geoff Nicholls. Thematically it feels like the keyboard intros to a couple of songs from the Born Again album (specifically Stonehenge & The Dark) or Sphinx (The Guardian) from Seventh Star. I always liked those kind of intros to Sabbath song. So right away this works for me. This has a slightly different main riff. The riff has what I can only describe as a “paused” riff. There’s no actual stopping of playing, but for some reason if you listen to it, there sounds (to me) to be a fractional pause in the main riff. It adds something different to me. I’ve always loved songs that changed timing in the middle of the track. I’m not the most technical listener of music (can’t tell you exact time mind you), but I do tend to notice stuff like that. This song is actually one I wouldn’t like with other things I’ve said, as it’s a fairly straightforward song, but I like this “paused riff” an awful lot. This also does have the bit I mention above with Ray Gillen’s original laughing in it (at around 2:48). After the bit with the laughing, there’s a completely different main riff. It’s a kind of interesting song with a different front and back bit. I like this a lot for the oddball riff and the inclusion of Ray Gillen on the final product.  I also find myself singing “Nightmare” along with Martin when it comes up a lot.  Read somewhere this song was written for the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, but I can’t find any hard proof of that.

Scarlet Pimpernel – A two minute instrumental. This track was never on any of the Ray Gillen bootleg versions of Eternal Idol I’ve seen. It’s one of those tracks that you can play for your grandparents, and don’t have to worry about it being “Black Sabbath”.  It’s also where Bev Bevan shows up on the album.  This song didn’t exist on any of the Ray Gillen bootlegs out there – so the conclusion is that it was written at the end of the album’s production cycle, and Bev did some minor work on the song, hence his credit.  It isn’t really an instrumental lead in to the next song, it’s constructed to be a self contained thing unlike some of the instrumental intros I mentioned above.

Lost Forever – Nice fast track. It’s not like “old Metallica fast” fast, but it’s got a nice faster pace than your standard Sabbath track.  Tony Martin seems to sing in a slightly higher register than the rest of the album.  Nice rhythm section from Daisley & Singer holding this track down.  Don’t have a ton of words to say about this one, but don’t mistake that into feeling I don’t care for the song – I really do.

Eternal Idol – Here it is. The best song on the album. This feels so much like old school 70’s Black Sabbath, it’s not funny. I wonder if that was the intent when written, but man – this just “feels” like Black Sabbath should. Doomy, gloomy, and just dripping with heavy riffing.

You and I, victims of their word
As the masters of power try to poison our world
Greed, money taken over their souls
Just mechanical brains
Politicians don’t know, they just don’t know

I’ve always loved those lyrics. It’s how the song closes.  They so easily can still be applied to today’s political situations and all the bullshit that goes on in modern US politics (and other places too).  Just as the lyrics for War Pigs still hold up today.  Great GREAT stuff.  If you listen to just one track from this album, this is it. Absolutely stellar track, one of the best of the Martin era by far (even if it was written for Ray Gillen).  Bob Daisley mentioned to me this is the only song that was recorded with the entire band in the studio at the same time (this would be Iommi / Gillen / Daisley / Singer / Nicholls).

This just “feels” like Black Sabbath should. Doomy, gloomy, and just dripping with heavy riffing.  I realize I already said that, but it was such a big point, it was worth mentioning twice.  Fucking killer as shit track.

The album technically ends here.  The original album’s final track is “Eternal Idol”, but there’s two more songs out there which I’ll touch on, even though they’re not on the vinyl.

Some Kind of Woman – This originally appeared as a “B side” to the 12″ single release of The Shining.  It later appeared on the 2010 Deluxe edition of the album. It’s very un Sabbath like. It’s a very fast bluesy song. It sounds like nothing else on the album. It’s not like it’s a bad song, but doesn’t terribly sound much like “Black Sabbath” to me. If you ever heard that cover that Black Sabbath did of Blue Suede Shoes from 1970, Tony Iommi’s guitar sound here sounds like that “sound” to me, even if the songs aren’t the same.  I can easily see why it was relegated to B Side status.  I like it, but recognize it’s status as an oddball in the overall band catalog of music.

Black Moon – This is the same song that was on the Headless Cross album too.  It mostly sounds the same, but the version here was recorded by the version of Sabbath that recorded this album.  The Headless Cross version was completely re-recorded from scratch.  The only time in the band’s history that was done.  This version was an obscure B-Side, that one was a full album track.  I’ll say more about this on the Headless Cross album but for now I wanted to include this email the Geoff Nicholls sent me when he was alive talking about the creation of Black Moon (and a little about Some Kind of Woman).  It’s good stuff, and RIP Geoff….

Hi Joe

yea it sure was a long and winding road making the Eternal Idol anyway Black Moon was recorded in Monseratte with Bob Daisley on Bass as Dave was not there by then when we come to put Lyrics on it Ray was having problems coming up with a completed version we sat down together to work on it but it never really fulfilled its promise so it was left to work on the ones we decided were best for the Album. anyway after Ray disappeared and at a later date it was suggested that we needed a couple of extra tracks for B-sides this was after Tony Martin had finished recording the Album so Tony Martin came over to my house and we worked on it but it still did not seem to have that something so i suggested to Tony Martin I put some keyboards on it and I had a title for a good hookline I see a Blackmoon Rising and Tony came up with a great verse in the end we wanted a better hook line so I completely changed the chord structure playing keyboards and keyboard bass line but only in the chorus when we played it in the studio Tony Iommi and Chris the Engineer co -producer loved it so we dropped the keyboards in it and i replayed the bass line on keyboards drooping Bob out of those parts just for the chorus Bob was still playing the main bass parts that was for the B-side when we did it for the Headless cross it was completely re-recorded and Lawrence Cottle played the bass and Cozy played a different Drum pattern Some kind of Women was another Track never finished so on the train Down to London to go to the studio Tony Martin and Myself wrote the Lyrics then Tony Iommi recorded some extra guitar tracks and put a solo on it and that was that. two B-sides done

Hope this helps
Geoff

That brings to an end today’s listen.  I’ve always loved this album,, and every time I sit down to write about it I end up writing a whole hell of a lot more than I plan on doing.  This time is no exception.  I’m over 3,000 words already as I’m writing this wrap-up part, and I have multiple other articles on this album that are extremely wordy.  If you’re like to learn more about this album you can visit the articles I mentioned earlier – my band timeline page and a 30th anniversary article. There’s a lot more there.

I was heavily into the band already at this point, and really enjoyed the album.  That has never stopped to this day, and I’ve been pleased that over the years the folks who have made the album have given me personal insight into its creation.  I’ve used these bits and bobs in this article, and the others.  They even went so far as to thank me personally on the 2010 Deluxe edition – check the credits if you have a copy.

It remains for many reasons a strong album in my mind – and one more people should hold in a higher regard.  Go play it.

We just need to get it re-issued on vinyl.  They seem to be revisiting all of Tony’s past works in recent times, perhaps this will get a re-release as well?  I’d be all for that.



P.S. – Astute readers of my website might notice that some of the text above I’ve used before.  That’s because I read my own anniversary article before writing THIS page, and honestly some of the stuff I wrote then still is 100% valid today, so some bits are direct copies of my own old article.  Not all of it, though I did write most of this article new today.  As for the old text, why the hell not?  Wrote it myself and it still works.  haha

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