Though he's departed, what Ozzy Osbourne's left us is going nowhere, because it really is timeless
Ozzy Osbourne was the sound of my high school carpool when I was 14 years old and also the sound of the Sooners coming back onto the field after their Owen Field warmups or coming off the field after their warmups.
Maybe it was both.
What I’m more certain about is “Crazy Train” has been played on Oklahoma Memorial Stadium’s speakers during pregame at every single home game since I gained entry into the press box, which is all but seven or eight going back to ’97.
Oh, yeah, and I’ll turn 57 in about five weeks.
All the time in between, Ozzy always felt present, never appearing to have left the scene, and maybe he never did or maybe the one song none of us will ever outrun is that one, the so-called Prince of Darkness’ absolute classic.
Do you know the lyrics?
Because they’re something.
Here are the verses:
Crazy, but that's how it goes
Millions of people, living as foes
Maybe it's not too late
To learn how to love
And forget how to hate …I've listened to preachers
I've listened to fools
I've watched all the dropouts
Who make their own rules
One person conditioned to rule and control
The media sells it and you live the role …Heirs of a cold war
That's what we've become
Inheriting troubles, I'm mentally numb
Crazy, I just can not bare
I'm living with something that just isn’t fair
How about that?
I know other things about Ozzy, who died yesterday, Tuesday, at 76.
I know he mostly didn’t write his own lyrics, and still received co-writing credit on about every song he ever recorded.
He was a melody maker, which is no small thing in a genre, heavy metal, not typically celebrated for melody.
I know this, too, which we’ll go deeper on later.
Ozzy, not unlike my favorite band, Rush, had little interest in making music with nothing to say.
Whoever wrote the lyrics, be it Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Buttler, a guy named Bob Daisley, who you can read about here, Zakk Wylde or Motörhead’s Lemmy, they were writing for Ozzy’s voice, his interpretation and interest, frequently with Ozzy’s help crafting those lyrics.
I know, as a solo artist, I eventually gravitated to the vocalist who replaced Ozzy in Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio, and you might prefer him too if I can just talk you into watching this.
Nonetheless, though I gravitated to Dio, whose voice surely influenced more vocalists than Ozzy’s, if we’re going to be honest about it, Ozzy’s still the man, still the one.
For better or worse, mostly better, he was never not in a class by himself.
Ozzy’s voice?
Nobody could sing like him because nobody could sing like him.
Among the best things written in the wake of his passing, was a column from the Washington Post’s Chris Richards, who wrote “Osbourne sang about war and madness in a dismal moan that he often torqued to resemble a dying ambulance siren, frequently cutting through the noise of rock-and-roll writ large.”
Try emulating that!
And even though most of us are tired of “Crazy Train” because we’ve simply heard it too much, it remains so ubiquitous because it really is timeless, from the day it was recorded until every tomorrow any of us will see.
If you doubt it, take a listen.
Off the same album, Blizzard of Ozz, came “I Don’t Know,” which is wildly good, not to mention “Mr. Crowley,” about British occultist Aleister Crowley, which is also alarmingly good and a great way to scare or piss off your 1982 parents, not to mention the inescapably ridiculous televangelists who also chased us through the 80s.
Off the next one, Diary of a Madman, came “Over the Mountain” and “Flying High Again,” two more classics, the latter the best argument for Randy Rhoads’ consideration as a top-five or -10 all-time guitarist, despite having died in an entirely preventable plane crash in March of ’82, about four months short of his 26th birthday.
The last conversation they had, Ozzy later said, Rhoads told Ozzy he’d kill himself “one of these days” if he kept drinking as he was drinking.
Ozzy lived another 43 years.
Rhoads died the next day.
Life.
Finally, there’s this.
Richards’ column in the Post aside, the majority of obits and remembrances that began coming in Tuesday, centered on two aspects of Ozzy’s journey.
One, that Black Sabbath practically invented the heavy metal genre, and perhaps it did, though Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin might like a word and, if you can believe it, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr might like one, too, for it was the The Beatles who went super heavy first, releasing “Helter Skelter” on Nov. 22, 1968.
Of course, The Kinks put out “You Really Got Me” in August of ’64 and dropped “All Day and All of the Night” three months later and if they’re not metal, they’re at least bridges to it.
I digress.
Two, that Ozzy and his family kind of invented the family-oriented reality show genre, too, “The Osbournes”running on MTV from ’02 to ’05.
Perhaps it made some younger folks fans of better music, which is always worthwhile, but given the awfulness it spawned, from the fake reality of the Kardashians to the Housewives, the basketball wives and all the other wives, can we just forget that four-year nugget and merely see him as a timeless talent, a musical visionary and a man who turned his demons into art, eventually, kind of, sort of, overcoming them along the way?
The thing the obit writers left out, were the songs themselves, the words within and the topics Ozzy sang and sang about, because they were every bit as heavy as the sound behind them.
For instance:
Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness, I cannot feel
And love, to me, is so unrealAnd so, as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could, but it's too late
In the fields, the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh, Lord, yeahPoliticians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeahTime will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'til their judgement day comes, yeah
People look to me and say
“Is the end near, when is the final day?”
What’s the future of mankind
How do I know, I got left behindEveryone goes through changes
Looking to find the truth
Don't look at me for answers
Don’t ask me, I don't knowHow am I supposed to know
Hidden meanings that will never show?
Fools and prophets from the past
Life’s a stage and we're all in the cast
Your higher power may be God or Jesus Christ
It doesn’t really matter much to me
Without each other’s help, there ain’t no hope for us
I’m living in a dream, a fantasy
Oh, yeah-yeah-yeahIf only we could all just find serenity
It would be nice if we could live as one
When will all this anger, hate and bigotry be gone?I′m just a dreamer
I dream my life away
Today
Good, right?
Ozzy always had something to say.
He never quit saying it.
And he made great, great music for a long, long, long time.
Maybe click on a few of these links.
Remember him, even if you’re hearing him for the very first time.
It’s the stuff.