Songfacts®:

• This metal gallop is a reaction to the stories of child abuse within the Catholic Church. "Disgusting. Sick," said bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler to The Sun. "What mistrust. I get so angry about it."
• Butler's lyrics for 13 were written the night before Ozzy sang them, with the exception of this song, which he penned about 12 months before it was recorded.
• The song ends with the same sound effects of church bells and thunder heard at the start of Sabbath's self-titled 1970 debut. Bassist Geezer Butler told Spin magazine that it was producer Rick Rubin's idea, adding that he thought "it was really cheesy."
• Geezer Butler explained why he penned the song to Jam! Music: "It's about a pedophile priest," he said. "I grew up severely Catholic and then when we started this album there was this whole big thing on the news and I was totally shocked by it. It came out of the Vatican; they've been covering this up since the '50s and '60s. And, at the same time, we've been criticized for being heavy metal or whatever and I was like, 'How can they criticize any music when they're such hypocrites.'"
  
  "And so it's our way at getting back at them," Butler continued. "And it's the most disgusting thing on Earth for a priest to do that to a child. Somebody you trust so much that you confess your sins to them, so it's like the ultimate trust that you put in somebody and then they turn around and do that. It's disgraceful."
• This song featured on the Passed Pawns episode of the CBS program CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which was debuted on October 30, 2013. Black Sabbath made a rare television appearance when they performed "End of the Beginning" on the previous season finale of the drama.