Planet Caravan
A quiet, drifting song about floating through the universe with a lover, sung through a Leslie speaker.
Black Sabbath, from Paranoid (1970)
- Written by
- Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, Ozzy Osbourne
- Released
- 1970
- Length
- 4:32
- Album
- Paranoid
Butler wrote the lyric, about floating through the universe with one's lover. Osbourne sang through a Leslie speaker, Allom played the piano, Ward played congas, and Iommi overdubbed flute onto the reversed multitrack master, which was then flipped back and treated with stereo delay.
Uncut's Nigel Williamson called it a curveball on Paranoid and said it was about as close to Pink Floyd as Sabbath ever got. Pitchfork's Grayson Haver Currin placed its circular bass and hand-drum patter beside electric Miles Davis as a precedent for metal's exploratory psychedelic side. On 31 May 2020 it was used as wake-up music for the crew of a SpaceX Crew Dragon before launch to the International Space Station.
Covers and versions
- Pantera (1994) On Far Beyond Driven. It reached number 26 in Britain and number 21 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. They played it at Back to the Beginning in 2025.
More songs by Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs, Snowblind, N.I.B., Sweet Leaf, Children of the Grave, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sources
- Planet Caravan, Wikipedia
- Black Sabbath: Paranoid, Pitchfork