Songfacts®:

• "Air Dance" tells the story of a woman whose glory days are behind her. She used to be a stunning dancer, but now she only dances in her dreams as she grows lonely. It's a similar concept to "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles, a group that influenced Black Sabbath and just about every other band emerging from England in the '60s and '70s.
• This is an atypical Black Sabbath song, venturing deep into jazz territory. The group are heavy metal forebears, but they're quite varied musically, incorporating many forms of music into their songs. Much of this was due to the eclectic tastes of their drummer, Bill Ward.
  
  "Our albums, we'd go from really heavy stuff to jazz," bass player Geezer Butler explained to Songfacts. "'Air Dance,' for instance – that's totally jazz. The very first songs we wrote, Bill Ward was really influenced by Buddy Rich, so he had this swing feel to his drumming. We didn't want to be restricted to any one particular sound, so we used to love experimenting when we had the time to do it."
• "Air Dance" is a rare Sabbath song with a keyboard as the lead instrument. The band didn't have a keyboard player, so they brought in Don Airey of Deep Purple to play it.
• The song is included on Never Say Die!, the last Black Sabbath album before lead singer Ozzy Osbourne left the group. Ozzy was at odds with his bandmates throughout the recording, and even refused to sing some of the songs (Bill Ward ended up singing "Swinging The Chain"). Ozzy's departure was fruitful for both parties: he teamed with guitarist Randy Rhoads and launched a very successful solo career; his replacement in Sabbath was Ronnie James Dio, who revitalized the band.