Ozzy Osbourne. No matter who you are, that name instantly conjures up some sort of visual. I’m hard-pressed to think of a more formidable musical presence in my young life. To a boy of ten years old, dropping the needle on records like Blizzard of Ozz and Paranoid was an utter revelation, and I’d sit, open-mouthed, in front of the stereo while that inimitable voice roared its way into my psyche. Ozzy wasn’t a great singer in the traditional sense, and I doubt he would have ever said that he was – but he didn’t need to be. He possessed qualities that no other singer or front man before or since has done, and his voice remains among the most instantly recognizable on the planet.
Ozzy seemed like he could be everything at once; a vocal shapeshifter who sounded menacing in one song, sorrowful in the next, and frenzied in the one after that. He seamlessly alternated between the creepy subjects of Misters Crowley and Tinkertrain; the wistful, heartsick road veteran of Mama I’m Coming Home; or the shrieking asylum inmate in… well, numerous songs. He could terrify listeners or be terrified right along with us, and that was even more unsettling in a way. Who among us did not have raised neck hairs the first time they heard him scream ‘Please God, help me!‘ as he encountered the shadowy figure on the cover of the first Black Sabbath album? Or feel the first twinges of claustrophobic insanity as he recounted his Diary of a Madman?
He could even be socially conscious, railing against environmental destruction in the hauntingly beautiful Revelation Mother Earth, and in Miracle Man taking jabs at the type of hypocritical televangelism that had demonized every move he made. And while he may not have written these lyrics, he often delivered them in such a commanding style, they seemed to emanate from the core of his soul.
But no matter how many ballads he crooned, he never seemed insincere, and no matter how many crazy laughs he emitted or macabre characters he portrayed, he never seemed nasty or hateful. Even at a young age, I instinctively knew I liked this guy. My parents didn’t, of course. To their generation, he seemed unhinged, profane, and over the top. And he was! He was one of those rare larger-than-life characters who was thrust into the spotlight as a young man and never again allowed to step out of it. So he lived his life exactly the way he wanted to, and you could come along for the crazy ride if you wanted – and I certainly did. Much of the timeline of my youth and major coming-of-age events can all be tied to Ozzy in one way or another. My memory banks are loaded with these anecdotes, whether from my own fairly normal life or his extraordinarily singular one.
How terribly sad it is when we must face the inevitable losses of life: our youth, our companions, our former selves. And in this case, a god-like embodiment of all three, who in the end turned out to be all too human… and maybe that’s the hardest thing to accept.
Bon voyage Ozzman… many a rock star has stood on your giant shoulders. You leave a towering legacy, and you have brought – and will continue to bring – much joy into the lives of millions of listeners. You were the very definition of one-of-a-kind.
‘I guess that we’ll meet, we’ll meet in the end.‘
Lorne Murphy, 22 July 2025
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