The song begins with a tape loop of guitarist Tony Iommi coughing from a joint he was smoking with bandmate Ozzy Osbourne.[7] The song's subject is cannabis, which the band was using frequently at that time.[8] The title of the song was taken from a packet of Irishcigarettes that read "It's the sweet leaf".
Significance
"Sweet Leaf", and the Master of Reality album as a whole, arguably represents the earliest example of the music that would influence the emergence of stoner rock in California in the early 1990s.[9] A compilation album, also titled Sweet Leaf, comprising covers of Black Sabbath songs by stoner rock bands, was released by Deadline Music in 2015.
Billy Corgan has cited the significance of 'Sweet Leaf' as an influence on The Smashing Pumpkins sound in numerous interviews, noting that he first heard the song from his uncle's copy of 'Master of Reality' when he was 8 years old and thought "this is what God sounds like".[10]
^Steve Huey. "Master of Reality - Black Sabbath". AllMusic.com. Retrieved December 28, 2021. Classic opener "Sweet Leaf" certainly ranks as a defining stoner metal song, making its drug references far more overt (and adoring) than the preceding album's "Fairies Wear Boots."