Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener

I think this song is just about growing up.

damn reading the lyrics gets me down but when listening to it i feel in a completely different state amazing either way.

I always thought Sabbath were a little depressing, but that's only because they tell it like it is. No punches pulled. This tune is about the wonders of youth, the struggles of adulthood and the inevitability of death. If that bums ya out, join the club.

sad as hell

Running through "furnace" of tears? What the hell does that mean? I'm pretty sure it's "Running through valleys of tears".

This song effing rules. I was converting my buddies to Sabbath one hazy night and they forced me to play this song again right after it was done, and they hadn't even heard the rest of Vol. 4 yet! Love this song, genius riffs and changes as with all of their compositions. Lol.

I like the explanation that this song is just about growing up, but armed with knowledge that they were more than usually high on drugs while recording this album - it's probably inspired by drugs.

When you start consuming it, everything is perfect and vivid but after this initial happiness it's only downhill from there...

I cannot say this is one of the most special Sabbath songs, because is a matter of taste and identification; but I would say it's a hidden gem.

And I don't agree this is a bitter song. Instrumentally, it sounds kinda joyous. Maybe because the song is nostalgic, so there was happiness somewhere.

It's a song about a phase in your life when you actually had real friends, someone to love and who loved you, at least one thing to do that would make you feel alive. When you have very different experiences in your life, you may ask yourself which ones were real: "Was an illusion?". People always talk about "reality" as something cold and harsh.

This is my favourite song of all time, a song that resonates with me so well. I know, I'm dark :)

Everyone is born happy in this world, untarnished by despair and misery. Throughout our youth, we are led to believe that the world and life, in general, is a beautiful and exciting thing, full of wonder and hope (fairytales and daydreams). We fail to see the hard hitting reality that hides behind the illusion.

As we grow older we start to realise that life isn't all that great, getting through life starts to become a plight. We become discontented with the world and find it harder to be happy.

The last verse of the song is probably the most depressing. "So I found that life is just a game", we are all caught up in the rat race of life, and for what? Someday we will all perish and cease to exist, and yet the world will still go on as if nothing happened. This highlights our inevitable mortality and the irrelevance our lives hold on the larger scale of things.

Black Sabbath dared to go places that no one else would.

I hope this is an accurate interpretation of the song, if not I must be one twisted individual.

Doom by its finest!