So I was sitting around bullshitting with a friend today and I get a notification on my phone, which I normally ignore. This time, though, something made me look…and I am glad I did…and VERY sad that I did.
“Ozzy Osbourne dead at 76”
A wave of sadness came over me. Ozzy was JUST on stage 2 weeks ago for his final show. Sure he looked the most frail than he ever has. His voice was still stronger than I expected. He sang 9 songs, 4 of them Sabbath and 5 of his own. I watched the show on TV. There is no way this legend was dead. Sadly, it is true. WTF? The world is not fair. Then I started to wax nostalgic:
Like many of us, Ozzy was a standard that all others were compared to in my world of Rock N Roll. My Uncle Phil was a HUGE Black Sabbath fanatic back in the 1970s, which is when I was indoctrinated to Black Sabbath. The first note of the first Black Sabbath album hooked me. The rain and the explosive guitars…and then hearing Ozzy’s bluesy “What is this…that stands before me!”. Nothing I ever listened to from that point would ever be the same. It was loud, it was blues, it was scary as shit! I LOVE THIS!!!!
Over the years, I bought every album that Black Sabbath made. Then the day came that Black Sabbath fired Ozzy for his addictions and Black Sabbath was never the same, though I still bought Sabbath albums.
Then one day, I was listening a radio station in Dallas TX and they played a song “from the former lead singer of Black Sabbath” and then on came “Crazy Train”. Hearing him yell “All Aboard! HAHAHAHA”, said it all. I don’t think anyone could have written a better theme song for their life. That one song pretty much set the tone for the rest of Ozzy’s career. The insane stories that were told (most of them real) about Ozzy biting the heads off of doves when Sharon had him introducing “Blizzard of Ozz” (which was originally supposed to be a band that Ozzy was going to front…until Sharon decided better) to the record label and the famous story of Ozzy biting the head off of a bat a concert.
Of course there were more the legendary stories of Ozzy pissing on the Alamo, licking up his own urine and snorting ant in front of the guys from Motley Crue. The list could go on and on.
Critics hated Ozzy’s music. Rolling Stone magazine, the arrogant pricks they are, would pan everything Ozzy did, even “No More Tears”, though they gave it 3 our of 5 stars. But it didn’t stop him from making more music…some better than others, granted, but regardless of who was playing guitar from the late Randy Rhoades (a death that really fucked Ozzy up for decades), Jake E. Lee, Zak Wylde, Gus G, Slash, Eric Clapton, etc. you always knew it was Ozzy.
Of all the crazy shit Ozzy did, the craziest thing that always stood out to me was the Osbourne’s TV show. Remember, Ozzy was protested by pretty much every religious group on the planet for being “evil” during pretty much every tour he did throughout the 1980’s, but all of the sudden Ozzy became a TV Dad. Everything we knew about Ozzy was normalized. He was a lovable doofus…just like the rest of us Dads.
I don’t know about you, but to me Ozzy was this immortal figure. Someone who was impervious to death, despite all the abuse he put himself through. He embodied sex, drugs and Rock n Roll.
Then reality sets in…all the legends die, Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart, Prince, David Bowie and the Ozzy’s friend Lemmy (he did write a song that said he would be “Killed by Death”)
While we can all be sad that Ozzy is gone, the stories about Ozzy will live on and his music will last for ever.
…and think about this, we can now say The Prince of Darkness is now in Heaven.