Cross Purposes Early Song Titles

[Charger]

Tony Martin just posted some pictures of his tape collection that featured a lot of demos and live tapes and rehearsal tapes and what not but there was one tape that caught my eye:




It has some very early recordings of Cross Purposes that feature some very interesting working song titles...

I asked Tony more about them so we'll see what he has to say but this is a very cool thing to see indeed!

[Zzzptm]

This makes me ask the question, given the amazing work on Thorns itself, what was the reason for the unevenness of the Martin-era Sabbath albums?

[Charger]

I think in part was that the band was kind of constantly looking for their direction and their place, maybe not feeling 100% comfortable at any point. I do think that IF they could have carried on with a stable line up after Tyr things might have been going really great. That being said Dehumanizer ofcourse is an absolute masterpiece so the world would be a bit worse place if that album wouldn't be in it....

The other option ofcourse could have been that the CP line up would have carried on as CP is without a doubt the best of the Martin-era albums and a masterpiece in it's own right. No disrespect towards Neil Murray who is an amazing bass player but Geezer just is a very integral part of the Sabbath sound. Because with Forbidden although it has some killer tracks on it they kind of lost their way again...with Iommi maybe trying bit too hard to woo the New Metal crowd and ofcourse the mix and prodcution is rather bad.


Most certainly the fault wasn't in Tony Martin, he is an excellent singer and a great song writer and lyricist that has been proven time and again since his Sabbath days.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I can't make out all those titles sadly, it's a bit blurry for my eyes.

[Charger]

Cross Of Thorns
Hounds From Heaven
Kiss The Rainbow
Fools Paradise
Judas Kiss
Ballad
Evil Eye
Black Jack Day

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Thanks Charger. It's an interesting image.

Some of those have the same name as they were released, or have titles which you can recognise from the lyric, but there's about 4 which either didn't make the final cut or the working titles had little bearing to the final title.

I wonder if "Ballad" morphed into Dying for Love?

[Charger]

I'm thinking Ballad is Dying For Love indeed...

According to Tony some of those songs were never used on the album! So there is some unreleased material!! But I doubt it'll ever see the light of day as Tony Iommi doesn't like putting out unfinished songs or out takes.

[Zzzptm]

Cross Purposes is my 2nd favorite Martin-era album behind Eternal Idol, but, yes, it's a great, great album and I enjoyed how Iommi worked in some new sound ideas like the Leslie West-style guitar licks on Back to Eden. I think you're right about lineup stability, if they had kept that same crew, it could have been great.