Ozzy & Me

 

A lot has been said about Ozzy in recent days, it feels like we are bracing to give an eulogy. But he is an important artist, and will always defend his solo work in terms of quality being up there with Sabbath. A fair match up if you are going with the first 8 albums of Ozzy’s solo output vs his 8 albums with Sabbath. Which is a different conversation altogether. Even his merits as a singer could be heard at the “Back to The Beginning “ concert, as most of the singers paying tribute struggle to perform his songs, even the ones who hit the notes could not capture the eerie emotional plea of his voice. 

If you ask people what musical artist they associate with me, it’s likely David Bowie, King Diamond, or Morrissey. People who have known me longer might add Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, or Ozzy to that list. My history with Ozzy pre-dates all those other artists mentioned. Back to a time when the only cassettes I had were Kiss and Alice Cooper, who I discovered from the back of a comic book and thanks to to the Muppet Show. My father has the LP of the first Black Sabbath album, which I would put on, mistaking it for my Sounds of the Haunted House album; they had a similar opening, rain and a bell ringing, then when the opening chord crashed down, it would scare me. 

Then one day my grandfather was watching wrestling via his satellite dish and andd there was his robotc voice that announced it was Iron Man before the Road Warriors ran out and started whipping ass. The next day, my cassette of ‘Speak of the Devil” was in my hand.  Soon after, followed by “Bark at the Moon “ and “Blizzard of Ozz” . He blended horror and the darkness I loved which is imagery I would later know as being called “gothic” but as a kid I just loved castles, most autistic kids are into trains it was mosnters and castles for me. “The Bark at the Moon” tour, his stage was a castle, and he had a little dwarf coming out to bring him drinks. Spellbound is the only word that describes how I felt. There was never a time he went on tour that I thought, “I’m just going to sit this one out”. When one of the later albums, I had to go back and give a listen to my musical tastes shifted to hardcore and more extreme sub-genres of metal. 

I never liked how guitar players would idolize Randy Rhodes the way people will say they only listen to the Smiths for Johnny Marr. The songs would not be the same without Ozzy; there is something tragically human in his voice that I have always related to, perhaps thanks to my mental illness. I never thought there was something about me that was not like other kids, but it was alright, because mental illness made Ozzy an outsider as well, and it was something to celebrate. When Ozzy shouted he wanted us to go fucking crazy, I was already there camped out., Ozzy was also the first person I heard of going to therapy and trying to manage his insanity. Perhaps I went the extra mile and have been more successful than he has in this regard, but regardless, it is the struggle and the pain that made him relatable. I have always had crazy people in my family, and Ozzy has always felt like an extended family member or father figure, I did not have otherwise in my teen years, which might explain a great deal of the chaos that swallowed my life, but that made me who I am in the samw way that Ozzy’s influence on my life is incalcuable in the inspiration that is a part of who I am.

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