I was 15 in the fall of 1970 when I met this strange, edgy girl in my suburban Cleveland neighborhood, a girl who would later be among those labeled as Goth — dark eye makeup, dark clothes, a creepy, nihilistic attitude.  She invited me to her house to listen to albums, which was one of my favorite activities, so I accepted.  Except her albums were nothing like my albums, and her room was lit with about a dozen candles.

As I looked through her collection, I asked her to play me her latest favorite, and she lowered the needle on a song called “Black Sabbath,” the leadoff track from the album Black Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath.  The cover showed a sinister-looking woman lurking in the woods, with an old building behind her.  And the “music” — well, it was the sound of a thunderstorm, with a church bell tolling ominously in the distance.  What the hell is this?  I thought.  And then the band came crashing in with these weighty, frightening chords, evoking a sense of doom and death.  I got chills up my spine.

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