For Ozzy

 

By Jack Rafferty

Music would not be what it is without Black Sabbath, without Ozzy Osbourne’s influence. The projects that Ozzy has been a part of and contributed to over the years have had a major impact from heavy metal to many of its sub-genres and beyond metal as well. It truly is hard to estimate the extent of influence Ozzy’s career has had. Pete Pardo from Sea of Tranquility put it well when he said that Ozzy’s music was “firmly entrenched in my DNA” in his tribute video. In many ways, Ozzy’s music is the foundation upon which much of my trajectory as a music fan is based. 

I’ll always think about the material conditions that Black Sabbath came from. The ruins of post-war Birmingham, where the children played in “the bomb site.” An industrial hellscape full of factories and slaughterhouses that claimed the lives and spirits of the working class. That is the atmosphere that Sabbath was built from. I remember the quote from the documentary The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne where he said that the “first thing I did when I got some money was get drunk, buy some shoes and socks.” That was the reality they were facing in the midst of their beginning with the band, and I think it is important to recognize those roots. 

I very recently wrote a piece about my first time listening to Sabbath and what that entailed, so I won’t go too deep into that here, but I think it is worth noting for myself, in the context of a tribute to Ozzy, that my life would probably not be the same had I not listened to his music throughout the years. That seems a bit like hyperbole to write, but I know it is true, and I think Ozzy had a singular voice that none could mimic. Tony Iommi got it right when he said in reaction to Ozzy’s passing that, “There won’t ever be another like him.”

There’s something to be said of Ozzy’s range as well. To go from the dirge-like, doomier sound of early Sabbath, to those later Sabbath records and eventually the more high-octane, higher-register work with his solo albums (and the slower ballads on those albums as well), he was an excellent vocalist in his own way. I’ve had conversations on Ronnie James Dio versus Ozzy with some folks throughout the years (which I think is a dumb dichotomy to argue, to begin with), where the staunchly Dio-sided folks always branded Ozzy as “one-note,” which I didn’t think was fair or accurate at all. 

Much like the point I made in my piece about Shane MacGowan after he passed away, I think increasingly unrealistic and dangerous expectations were made of Ozzy throughout his life that were sensational in nature and are a product of a sick celebrity culture (particularly after the bat incident). Much of the exaggerated press around Ozzy at that time (some of which the Osbournes capitalized on, no doubt) was the result of his struggles with addiction and unpredictable mental state. It was not something that should have been made into a topic of romanticization regarding his persona (this obviously could be an opinion being made in hindsight, but I think it’s a nauseatingly common occurrence for fans and the media to obsess over and glorify these struggles). Another parallel with Shane is how this behavior comes to be expected, and how it is perceived as charmingly buffoonish, something to make a joke out of (a lot of his behavior on the television show reinforced this). 

I even remember when I was kid in school, and I was pretty freshly listening to Sabbath, I’d talk to other kids who I knew were into that kind of music at the time, and they would either know Ozzy because he was called The Prince of Darkness or because he bit the head off a bat. This always annoyed the fuck out of me, since I wanted to talk about his music. I’ve always had a problem with the whole persona behind rock and roll and whatnot, and it’s no different with Ozzy’s situation. It’s not to excuse much of the behavior he exhibited while he was fucked up, either. He was a bad drunk most of his life and at times a monstrous person who negatively influenced a lot of people around him. It’s unfortunately an integral part of his life story and needed to be discussed. 

However, I am glad that Ozzy was able to do his final show just a couple weeks ago. To know he was able to go out on his terms from a certain point of view, knowing that his health was in bad shape, is gratifying to a degree. 

Writing a tribute for Ozzy is a bit complicated because I think I have a complicated view of him as a person. However, it is undeniable how much his music means to me. That is just a complex fact of life that I deal with regarding many artists. All I know is that I will be listening to a lot of Sabbath and Ozzy’s solo shit for the next couple weeks. Particularly “Changes,” “Mama I’m Comin Home,” and a few other of the more melancholy tracks, and remembering him in my own way, in the way his music has played such a significant role in my life. 

I feel like this quote from Ozzy caps this off pretty well: “You know the time when I will retire? When I can hear them nail a lid to my box. And then I’ll do a fuckin encore.”