When I learned that Ozzy Osbourne had died I surprised myself by not feeling sad about it and smiling a wry smile. Embattled by myriad health issues he had made it through to his last gig* and then took his final curtain. Good on him.
Ozzy was the first metal voice that ever really made an impression on me, aged about 11 I was exploring a compilation tape my dad had made and there, devoid of any context, explanation or excuses was ‘Symptom Of The Universe’. It knocked me for six, it was stupidly heavy, scary and then oddly light and groovy, that resounding doom trumpet of a voice was unlike anything else I had ever encountered**.
When I was at school I gradually encountered some classic Black Sabbath and OO was a staple of Kerrang! mostly for a lot of the wrong reasons, my mate Andrew told me tales of Randy Rhoads, bats, the Alamo and we dug ‘Mr Crowley’ but he was in the minority. Most of us just weren’t interested, Sabbath were in the doldrums, Ozzy was an oddly-hued tubby man, without anything at all of a voice left, who was increasingly famous for his various habits, bouncing up and down on stage and throwing buckets of water at his audiences.
Save for reasons of historical or comedic interest it really wasn’t until the Seattle scene hit really big that I saw Sabbath getting anything like positive coverage. All these hip, loud, rainswept, unhealthy looking chaps praised Black Sabbath to the rafters, covered them, borrowed their dynamics. It made all of us metallers and non-metallers take more note of them and their singer. It was all whirlwind heat and flash, I stole my dad’s Vertigo swirl copy of Black Sabbath hit the road and never looked back.
That perfect doom trumpet voice, famously, menacingly flat at times just made everything even bleaker and better. I fell very much in love with him and his bleak morality songs. I still adore seeing film and pics of young Ozzy, you can watch the life flicker all around him, so much better than his chubby barmaid period in the late 80’s. He looks so vital, sharp.
My NWOBHM uncle left me a couple of OO autographs on We Sold Our Souls For Rock And Roll, but never told me about meeting him which is a shame; Bristol gig I suspect. My mate Andy (different one) met him at a signing in Liverpool for Blizzard Of Oz and said he and his band were quiet and nervous, a bit shy even.
I like the way that OO has died with national treasure status, all manner of the great and good paying tribute to him and not just the usual metal suspects either. You take out all the music he has influenced off my shelves and I’d pretty much be left with two calypso LPs and something by the Wurzels.
I haven’t listened to any Sabbath yet, I never really want to throw myself into the work of someone I love straight after they’ve gone and I will leave it a bit longer for Ozzy.
Take my hand, my child of love, come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean I've been crying all these years
With our love we'll ride away into eternal skies
A symptom of the universe, a love that never dies
1286 Down (still).
*which I tried to get tickets for, but by the time I got through only the £450 ones were left. Having watched bits of it, sentiment aside, I’m very glad I didn’t do it, plus for that price I’d have wanted to sing one myself.
**it took me about a decade to work out what the tune was, not helped by fuzzy recording. The only other track I remember was Alice Cooper ‘Pain’.