"N.I.B." is a song released by British rock bandBlack Sabbath. It first appeared as the fourth track on the band's 1970 debut album, Black Sabbath. The lyrics are in the first person from the point of view of Lucifer. Bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler has said that "the song was about the devil falling in love and totally changing, becoming a good person." "N.I.B." begins with a bass solo, titled "Bassically" on some US releases. It includes heavy use of a wah-wah pedal. The song's main riff have been noted for their Cream-influenced sound — the song has even been referred to as "the raucous defiling of Cream". "N.I.B." was ranked the seventh-best Black Sabbath song by Rock - Das Gesamtwerk der größten Rock-Acts im Check.
Title
When the song was first released, its title was widely rumoured to have stood for "Nativity in Black", or to a lesser extent "Name in Blood". In a 1992 interview, Geezer Butler states that the title simply refers to Bill Ward's goatee at the time, which the rest of the band thought was shaped like a pen nib; also referred to as nibby. Apparently, Geezer Butler said: "Originally it was Nib, which was Bill's beard. When I wrote N.I.B., I couldn't think of a title for the song, so I just called it Nib, after Bill's beard. To make it more intriguing I put punctuation marks in there to make it N.I.B. By the time it got to America, they translated it to 'Nativity in Black'." Ronnie James Dio can be heard mentioning this assumption on several live bootleg recordings with the band from the early 1980s and on the 2007 released Live-CD Live at Hammersmith Odeon, recorded in 1982. "Nativity in Black" was later used for the title of a series of Black Sabbath tribute albums.
Cover versions and other uses
Ozzy Osbourne and Primus recorded a cover of "N.I.B." for the Nativity in Black IItribute album; the cover peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in October 2000. This version also appears in Osbourne's 2005 boxed set Prince of Darkness. This song was also featured in The Hangover Part III. The band Danzig also covered the song on their 2015 album Skeletons. Osbourne's guitarist Zakk Wylde did a video with Loudwire performing the song live with a Hello Kitty guitar in 2016.
