Master of Reality is by no means the most highly acclaimed long-player in Black Sabbath’s discography, but according to John Darnielle — singer, guitarist and primary member of The Mountain Goats — that’s precisely what makes it so compelling.
In his first book, a recent entry in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of cargo-pocket-sized album explorations, Darnielle tells the story of Roger, a patient in a psychiatric hospital and an obsessive Sabbath fan. In one of the many impassioned diary entries that make up the story, the self-deprecating, self-destructive 15-year-old explains that while Paranoid is the more popular album, he likes Master of Reality more, because “when something is secret, or half secret, or hidden in some way, it becomes cooler for me.”
Though Darnielle admits to sharing this sentiment to some extent, it’s not his only reason for focusing on Master. “The first four Black Sabbath albums are all pretty monolithic, and with anyone who likes metal, they all play an amazing role,” he says over the phone from his Durham, North Carolina home. While the reason for writing about Sabbath is obvious, the choice of a psychiatric home is more obscure. One reason for the setting comes from the articulate and immediately recognizable singer-songwriter’s stint as a nurse in several different psychiatric hospitals, before he became a full-time musician.
“I was a psychiatric technician, and I worked with all kinds of populations, but one of my earlier jobs was in the adolescent psych ward,” Darnielle explains. “It’s hard to say how that inspired the book exactly, other than that I know how those places work, am able to describe them accurately and can talk about the relationships between the staff and the patients. “
With his long-running blog Last Plane to Jakarta dealing largely with music (and, more specifically, albums), it should come as no surprise that Darnielle chose the 33 1/3 series for his literary debut. Indeed, he has only good things to say about the Continuum collection.
“The series is great,” he says. “Its format allows for a lot of open room, and for years I have really wished there were more long-form criticisms, or long-form looking at music by people who already write about music. Sometimes you’ll get a novelist who will dwell on music for a little bit, but I want it from people who are fellow obsessives.
“They’re amazing tour van reading, too,” he adds. “You can get one in between destinations.”
Without giving away any spoilers, it is interesting to note that Darnielle’s book both begins and ends with the phrase “FUCK YOU ALL GO TO HELL.” He explains how these six simple words provide the key to the entire puzzle.
“The point is that adolescents are not stupid people, they’re not people who haven’t figured shit out yet,” Darnielle says. “Adolescents are smart human beings, and we in the adult world — or at least in American culture — generally sell them short, treat them badly and fuck them up. We could change this just by listening to them, so when they say things like ‘fuck you all go to hell,’ we discount that as just any other angry expression. But no, when the book comes to the conclusion, the kid who said that initially was right. People should go to hell.
“On the other hand, I used to be a nurse, and if a kid breaks into the med station you’re going to send him to the more restrictive hospital. You have to do that. So it’s more complicated than just ‘adults bad, adolescents good.’ But the book does have a point, [and] it’s that the things young adolescents feel passionately about are valid on their own terms. They have their own inherent value and truths to be learned, and that’s something I feel very strongly about.”
