Yves here. It’s so out of character for a stodgy venue to run a post on a popular music artist that it seemed worth following suit by reposting it to commemorate Ozzy Osbourne’s death. I have to confess to not knowing his work, but a close colleague (like some readers) was, and even managed to meet him at a concert.
Even though per this fan, the article below has some inaccuracies, it does highlight the role of Sharon Levy, later Sharon Osbourne, in getting Ozzy back to performing and managing his second career as a solo artist. I’m told that managers of successful bands are complete hard-asses; it her father, Don Arden, nicknamed “The Ayatollah,” who had fired Ozzy from Black Sabbath for his drug and alcohol abuse. Had Sharon not made him her project, he likely would have died much sooner with a bottle in one hand.
Many commented, given his high substance uptake, that it was remarkable he lived as long as he did. Ozzy did get sober in his later life. His song Suicide Solution was an indictment of the drink to which he was then addicted. The lyrics:
Wine is fine but whiskey’s quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor
Take a bottle, drown your sorrows
Then it floods away tomorrows
away tomorrowsEvil thoughts and evil doings
Cold, alone you hang in ruins
Thought that you’d escape the Reaper
You can’t escape the Master Keeper‘Cause you feel life’s unreal and you’re living a lie
Such a shame who’s to blame and you’re wondering why
Then you ask from your cask is there life after birth
What you sow can mean Hell on this earth
Hell on this earthNow you live inside a bottle
The Reaper’s traveling at full throttle
It’s catching you but you don’t see
The Reaper’s you and the Reaper is meBreaking laws, locking doors
But there’s no one at home
Made your bed, rest your head
But you lie there and moan
Where to hide, Suicide is the only way out
Don’t you know what it’s really about
By Lachlan Goold, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, University of the Sunshine Coast. Originally published at The Conversation
Ozzy Osbourne, the “prince of darkness” and godfather of heavy metal, has died aged 76, just weeks after he reunited with Black Sabbath bandmates for a farewell concert in his hometown of Birmingham in England.
His family posted a brief message overnight: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning.”
John Michael Osbourne changed the sound of rock music and leaves behind a stellar career spanning six decades, numerous Grammy awards, multiple hall of fame inductions – and a wave of controversy.
An Agent of Change
In 1969, from the ashes of various bands, Geezer Butler (bass), Tony Iommi (guitar), Bill Ward (drums) and Osbourne formed the band Earth.
Realising the name was taken, they quickly changed their name to Black Sabbath, an homage to the 1963 Italian horror anthology film.
With the Summer of Love a recent memory, Black Sabbath were part of a heavy music revolution, providing an antidote to the free loving hippies of the late 60s period.
Despite making their first two albums cheaply, Black Sabbath, released in February 1970, and Paranoid, released September that same year, they were a global success.
Their approach was laden with sarcasm and irony. American audiences mistook this for satanic worship, positioning them as outsiders (albeit popular ones).
After Black Sabbath’s early successes, they were managed by the notorious Don Arden, whose daughter Sharon Levy was the receptionist. More than any musical bond Osbourne had in his life, Sharon would be the most influential character throughout his life.
Osbourne recorded eight albums with Black Sabbath (some to critical acclaim) and was then kicked out (by Sharon) due to his troubles with drugs and alcohol.
Ozzy Solo
Osbourne’s solo career has always been managed by Sharon. While recording his second solo album, Diary of a Madman, guitarist Rhodes died in a tragic light plane crash. Osbourne was close to Rhodes and fell into a deep depression, after never having lost someone so close.
Sharon and Osbourne married only months after this incident. His struggle with drug use did not stop him from making further solo records alongside various guitar players, continuing with moderate success throughout his career.
On the road, Osbourne put the John Farnham’s last tour trope to shame.
He held his last ever gig more times than one can count with names like No More Tours (1992–93), Retirement Sucks(1995–96) and No More Tours 2 (2018–19).
This lament for touring led to the most successful era of Osbourne’s career. After being rejected for the 1995 Lollapaloza festival bill, Sharon (and their son Jack) started Ozzfest; initially an annual two-day multiband festival headlined by Osbourne, held in Phoenix, Arizona, and Devore, California.
Subsequently becoming a national – and then international – tour, Ozzfest led to a successful partnership with MTV, which led to the reality TV show The Osbournes premiering in 2002. Here, his previous and ongoing battle with drugs was obvious, proudly on display – and ridiculed – to huge global audiences.
The spectacle of a rich rockstar and his family featured a constant barrage of swearing, battles with lavish TV remotes, canine therapy, never-ending chaos, and Osbourne constantly yelling “Sharrrooon” like a twisted maniacal loop of A Street Car Named Desire.
Struggles and Controversies
Osbourne suffered multiple health conditions over the years, rarely concealing the state of his physical or mental wellbeing.
Notably he’s struggled with drug and alcohol abuse his whole career with drug recovery centres using Osbourne as an exemplar. In 2007 he disclosed he suffered from the Parkinson’s adjacent condition Parkinsonian syndrome. In 2019 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
This resulted in him being unable to walk for his final Back to the Beginning show in Birmingham on July 5 2025.
And Osbourne’s career had more than its fair share of controversy. He bit the head off a dove and a bat (celebrated with a commemorative toy), and urinated on the Alamo cenotaph. He was taken to court multiple times, but was never convicted.
Ozzy and Ne
As a white middle-class boy growing up in the Brisbane suburbs in the 80s, heavy metal music appealed to my testosterone and pimple filled body.
Exploring the secondhand record shops of Brisbane, I would’ve bought my first copy of Black Sabbath around 1985. The sound of thunder and a distant church bell before the first drop-D riff enters seemed like the antithesis to sunny Queensland and 80s pop.
As my life became obsessed with the recording studio and the vociferous music scene in Brisbane in the post-Joh era, and those drop-D riffs influenced a new style that swept the world in the early 90s.
Osbourne’s influence was huge and through grunge, his sound was reborn. Grunge was a marriage of the Sabbath-like drop-D riffs with the energy of punk and the melody of the Beatles.
Listening to Black Sabbath and Ozzy records, equipped me with a sonic palette ready to capture the wave of alternative music emmerging from the Brisbane scene.
While Ozzy’s death is no surprise (except for those who never thought he’d last this long), we should take pause and remember an icon with an endless energy for entertaining, a passion for music, and changing the expectations of popular culture for more than 50 years.
Thanks for this. Ozzy was one of the fixtures of my adolescent years. Saw him in concert, even. “Never Say Die”! May he Rest In Peace. (Or perhaps I should hope he continues to raise Hell in the afterlife, as there are certainly those deserving of additional harassment lol.)
It’s striking that so many ppl are now linking to Ozzy performing “War Pigs” — originally a song from 1970, but which really tells you something about the times we’re living in.
P.S. Tribute to another Osbourne hit:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JPBrA3sV90A&si=kmiU2F4q_sFpWdqV
Sabbath made the first anti-war songs that sounded how I felt.
I used to listen to a late-night alternative radio show while I did uni homework. On the night that the U.S. started to bomb Iraq in 1991, I still remember that the DJ started the show with War Pigs.
Mike thanks for your comment, that’s the same song I’ve always thought of, when the US starts a new war or invasion someplace. I reveled in this song as a 15 year old. My parents were rock and rollers from the 50s and 60s my mom also loved Led Zeppelin, I was the only kid I knew that loved
Heavy metal. My parents used to play my paranoid album for their parties. When the Osborne’s came on Tv, I remember my Dad never missed an epsode, saying he wished Keith Richards would do a reality show. After the Osborne’s went off the air, my Dad tuned into Sammy Hagar traveling
Around and interviewing other musicians. Thanks for running this article and Thnaks to ozzy for all the fun and great music. Finally got to see them on one of their last tours. It was great! Ozzie had
A lot of energy and it was a great show. Farewell Ozzy! It was a great life with your music in it.
You had cool parents!
That’s a great clip – I wish I had that music teacher!
As you get older, it’s interesting to watch how the people who were once considered to be ruining the moral fabric of society slowly become accepted cultural icons.
Here’s another live rendition of War Pigs I just ran across – the brightly colored rainbow framing the stage is a nice touch. I used to play the drums myself back in the salad days and I always tried to emulate John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. Looking at some of these old Sabbath clips over the last few days, I realize I should have paid more attention to Bill Ward. Maybe I would have if videos of him playing were easy to find as they are now. The man beats the drums like he has a violent and longstanding grudge against them. Horns up!
Side note: noticed a shorter form of that same video on youtube and it was captioned “I would be a liberal in 1974”. Amen.
> Bill Ward … The man beats the drums like he has a violent and longstanding grudge against them.
What’s most striking about that clip is the gigantic audience. I’m pretty sure that has something to do with the performers’ highly exaggerated movements, c.f. the Townshend Windmill.
Drummers always had the raw deal of being seated, at the back and more-or-less hidden behind the kit. But even the front-of-stage rockers swinging enormous hair would be only just visible in the middle of that audience.
I noticed that concert was in 1974 at Ontario Motor Speedway. They really lucked out on the smog that day. I can remember racing at OMS in the late 1970s when the smog was so heavy it was not possible to take a deep breath (and you couldn’t see the far side of the facility much less the mountains a couple miles away), and the fans would have had a different experience watching Ozzy and the other singers gasping up on the stage trying to pull in enough air to sing.
OMS had the worst smog in the greater LA area in the 60’s and 70’s, and that’s really saying something!
You made my day!
I echo the sentiment that is a great clip. Thank you for posting the full version. I saw a partial version the day before yesterday.
Odd that you mention War Pigs.
First sabbath song that jumped into my mind on hearing the news was… “War Pigs”. It really hasn’t aged as a song and lyrics given the world we are in. :(
The progeny of hard rock bands that followed would be a real testament* to the lasting, enduring impacts on the music and entertainment industries. That’s pretty interesting to learn about Ozzfest!
During my younger, teenage years and into college, Ozzy tracks were in prevalent supply on the older rock stations I would listen to. Even though I moved readily into the grunge era bands, bands I liked best were Soundgarden or Alice in Chains, I appreciated the songs and sounds that paved the way. And I dare to suggest I enjoyed the harder rock music acts more than my older siblings who veered into say, the Eagles, Boston or Journey (I can find much to enjoy, and it ranges so I have a tin ear perhaps).
This is a quite reasonable diversion, thanks for posting. I wouldn’t dare to begin listing the various rock bands that flourished once Sabbath kicked in the door. Lot of bands that make loud, raucous songs that are neither memorable or good enough to hear on repeat.
Ozzy’s second act solo career provided a vehicle for several great gultarists who probably would have been footnotes in rock music, or given up and gotten a 9-5 job without the break Ozzy gave them. Even more obscure players like Alex Skolnick (great player, BTW) had cameos with Ozzy or fill-in gigs.
Jake E. Lee, Zak Wylde, and even Randy R. would not have likely achieved the success they did without him.
Ozzy was more or less a constant during my youth. Blizzard of Oz was the record that did it for me. I only discovered his earlier catalog with Black Sabbath later on.
I’m loathe to admit to not knowing any Black Sabbath ditties as they weren’t me, babe.
Thus, I only know Ozzy though off-stage activity, where I never went any deeper than the headline, which brings up that bat incident.
Been a bumper crop of passings of the old music guard in the past month, and sadly its how I learn who was in a given band that I didn’t follow, via their obit.
You still have time to catch up, on the reality show they had an episode where Ozzy came to Louisville Kentucky and a local childrens group here played one of his songs for him. The Louisville leopards percussion group.
It was fabulous! May be on YouTube.
Thanks for this … :)
I was introduced to Ozzy/Sabbath by learning to play the song “Iron Man” in high school.
Man, MTv changed the world twice: firstly with music videos; and secondly with reality TV shows. The latter has become a scourge to my reckoning, but having a life that spans from before MTv, reality TV and “the internet” is truly a trip.
Well, we may have lost Ozzy, but Keith Richards is still with us … :)
Of ALL the great music that emerged from the 60’s and 70’s, I listen to Black Sabbath more than all the others combined. I am an Ozzy purist, and only listen to the first 6 albums that he participated in. The CD’s are loaded sequentially in a 6 disc magazine that lives in my daily driver for weeks at a time. Ozzy’s soundtrack has lived in my head from my days as a very unhappy 14 year old to my current “curmudgeon” status. I seriously doubt that will ever change.
I enjoyed learning yesterday about the model on the front cover of the first album. Until 2020 her identity wasn’t well known. Read about it here, a French metal blog but with the best media, or elsewhere. Especially fun is that Louisa Livingstone is now releasing music of her own composition and production. You can preview and buy tracks on Bandcamp.
I must have been about 11 years old when Dougie McNichol risked a thumping by playing his big brother’s copy of that LP. The image on the front cover, with Livingstone as the Figure in black which points at me, it all goes together in my introduction to Black Sabbath, the og, and still the best in an important way. Huge impact on me and my 50-year quest to play guitar.
I saw them live only once, many years later at the 2004 Ozzfest in Hartford CT. It was very exciting as the original lineup. Ozzy wasn’t on good form but the band sounded tremendous. I remember being impressed by Butler. As I mentioned in Tuesday’s links, the performance of War Pigs was accompanied on huge screes by video of Iraq edited together with the happy faces of Rummy, Dubya, Condi, Cheney while Ozzy sang…
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Our younger son’s band performed War Pigs at our wedding, and I am forever grateful.
Rest in peace Ozzie.
This is a good “break” from normal programming :)
He was one of my “heroes” though I don’t know if that is quite the right word.
Black Sabbath changed my life as a teenager (for the better!). I once dressed up like him for a high school English class where we had to read a biography and do a skit or something related to the person. I am a younger fan so I impersonated him calling Sharon (like on the Osbournes).
He’ll be greatly missed by me and I think many other metal fans.
My then girl friend bought Black Sabbath which was a very innovative aand excellent debut album, and I was then at Uni with several West Midlanders, who were all highly impressed with Paranoid, the second album, as was I, but they were all also Aston Villa fans, (where Ozzie’s Villa Park statue is positioned).
Tony Iommi is a fine creative rock and blues influenced guitarist and was responsible for much of the Sabbath sound.
Sabbath certainly ‘invented’ metal, very much originally a British rock genre, but not grunge which was American in origin as an offshoot of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse sound and more mimicked by West Coast musicians like Mark Kozelek and the Seattle bands than West Midlanders who had both Sabbath and Led Zep as role models.
Sabbath raised almost £200m for Parkinson’s research and children’s hospitals and Ozzie surely redeemed all the criticism he had as a legendary indulgent rock musician drug and alcohol abuser.
Genocidal “Ozzy Osbourne among 200 stars accusing BBC of anti-Israel bias”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ozzy-osbourne-among-stars-demanding-125405590.html
That should be Sharon Osbourne. I doubt Ozzy knew what was really going on, and that does not detract from Osbourne’s musical legacy.
I had a record shop back in the day…think Hi Fidelity. Punk, New Wave, Reggae, Metal. Anything to subvert the youth of America. When you can sell Daniel Johnston you can sell anything.
Of course several cohorts came into the shop. Kids 11 and 12 would come in with the big guys or their big brothers. When the got around to buying their first record it was typically Led Zeppelin’s self titled 4th album. They were rockin’ out with Stairway to Heaven. They were immediately at a crossroads…’what do get next?’ It may seem presumptuous to say this, but they were making a serious lifestyle choice at a very young age. They either bought a Pink Floyd record or an AC/DC platter. Their life course was settled and they were barely teens.
The metal heads were metal heads forever. No pussy New Wave for them. The Pink Floyd kids always demonstrated curiosity. New Order, Marley, Minor Threat, Throwing Muses. I’m sure many of them are Bach heads now, or happy to tune in to Music for Airports. Ozzy’s fans are Ozzy fans ’till the grave. You can all give me hell now.
lol.
not gonna give you hell…but i was among those who chose the Pink Floyd Path, and i now(at 55) listen to literally everything except that corporate algorithm drivel.
Folk i know/knew who took the Metal Forever Path are far less diverse in their musical tastes.
(and yes, i listen to Bach,lol)
Growing up in a gritty working-class neighborhood, across the street from an oil refinery, I was attracted to the raw, heavy and industrial sound of Black Sabbath. Osbourne’s voice was unique, powerful, and always hit the notes. The rest of the original lineup were also incredible: Iommi, Ward, Butler. Although I like a wide spectrum of music, Ozzy and Sabbath will always be timeless and classic.
Like others above mention, War Pigs is my absolute favorite anti-war song. (Metallica’s “Back to the Front”, written by Cliff Burton, is also a good one)
I was just a baby when this was recorded, but it is still one of my faves. Ozzy and the lads were only like 20 or 21 in this clip – just kids!
I like to turn it up to 11 when listening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3b6SGoN6dA&ab_channel=BlackSabbath
Never Say Die is my fave from them…just wish it was longer,lol.
got me through some hard scrapes.
and the last guitar solo is one of my top 5 favorites, after Trapeze’ “til my judgement day…”…Black Cloud.
the other solos are, in no particular order:
Rush: Xanadu
Hendrix at winterland: are u experienced
Monte Montgomery: Romeo and Juliet(whole song is a guitar solo, faiap)
Rush, Hendrix.. all greats. I’m familiar with Wes Montgomery, but not Monte. I’ll check it out, thanks
Monte is acoustic with a pickup mounted.
amazing shit, dude.
i’d link, but i have too many tabs open and would get lost(stoned).
Wishing Well, and his version of Little Wing are my other faves of his.
Black Sabbath was huge for me in my youth, thanks for this.
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Punk Rock movement. It will be instructive to observe how the MSM remember it, and which songs/bands are memory-holed.
A few weeks ago a made a compilation of the best 80s heavy metal (think Ozzy, Iron Maiden, WASP, Twisted etc) and almost all songs from Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon made it to the list.
What is great with his bands Sabbath and solo is that you can’t really find any knock-offs cf. AC/DC vs Krokus & Rose Tattoo. Unimitable music, I would say. Randy Rhoads also lead the way of the new guitarists coming out then.
Bonn Scott’s Ac/Dc is still my fave heavy rock band.
Powerage,lol…i cant listen to jess one song, i Must be the whole album.
i dont do that for anybody, save Miles Davis(kind of blue, esp), Pink Floyd and Abby Road.(and, in the end….)
and i had a couple of drummers, back in the days when i was a regional guitar god, of sorts…who would attack the drums, thusly.
they were fun to play with…so long as you gave them the reins from time to time…but they always burned out rather quickly.
my favorite drummer i ever played with was Carl…who became an optrician(lens grinder), and actually studied music…ie: was really anal, but a cool dude, nonetheless.
he could play anything at all…jazz…complicate Police songs, and still beat the hell out of the things, if the situation called for it.
finesse AND brutality,lol.
My introduction to Ozzie and Black Sabbath was in 1973, when a childhood friend came back from a year’s sabbatical in England. I wrote a poem for an eighth grade English class in 1974, stealing a lot of lines from Into The Void; the teacher thought I was a genius. I always liked a lot of their more obscure songs. Check out: A National Acrobat.