Songfacts®:

• This is the most memorable Black Sabbath song from the Born Again album, the only one with Ian Gillan as lead singer. Gillan wrote the lyrics based on a real-life misadventure while the band was recording the album at Richard Branson's Manor Studio outside of Oxford. On the grounds were a swimming pool and a racetrack. One night, Gillan got drunk at a nearby pub and decided to take a spin on the track. It didn't go well: he clipped a stack of tires, one of which fell onto the track. On the next lap, he ran over it, flipping the car and sending it careening just short of the swimming pool. Gillan was wearing a crash helmet and was unscathed, but the car was totalled. The next day, he wrote the lyric, which he recorded over a track that had been assembled by his bandmates, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.
  
  Gillan learned that the car he trashed was not his - it was actually Ward's. The band's management had bought them cars for use during the sessions, and in his drunken state Gillan took the wrong one.
• The "ladies of the manor" refers to the groupies and other girls that hung out at the Manor Studio where the album was recorded. "Peter" is Tony Iommi's guitar tech Peter Resty, and "Greenfly" is the gardener on the grounds.
• The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) put this on their 1985 list of 15 songs they found most offensive. The group, comprised of the wives of American lawmakers, pushed for a ratings system on albums they deemed offensive, and ended up getting warning labels as a concession. They cited this song for glorifying drug and alcohol abuse. A case can be made that the song is a warning against driving drunk, although Gillen clearly had a good time on the track.
• The band made a rather absurd video for this song that vaguely plays out the storyline amid girls in bondage-wear, zombies and a strange religious figure of some kind.
• Ian Gillen recorded a new version with Tony Iommi, Roger Glover and Ian Paice for his 2006 solo album Gillan's Inn.