The lyric “Generals gathered in their masses” appears in Black Sabbath’s song “War Pigs.” The track is one of the band’s most famous anti-war songs and opens their landmark 1970 album Paranoid.
Bassist Geezer Butler wrote the lyrics, which portray military leaders and political figures as destructive forces sending others into war. The song was created during the Vietnam War era, when many young people in Britain and elsewhere feared conscription and opposed the conflict. Its imagery combines battlefield criticism with the band’s recurring dark, almost supernatural language.
“War Pigs” was originally titled “Walpurgis,” referring to a traditional festival associated in popular culture with witches and the occult. Butler explained that he used the comparison between generals and witches to present war as a form of evil. The lyrics retained much of that imagery even after the title changed.
The song is sometimes confused with “Paranoid” or “Iron Man” because all three are signature tracks from the same album. However, the quoted opening lyric uniquely identifies “War Pigs.”