How the ‘Osbourne Identity’ Was Unlocked
-In July 2010, a “phlebotomist”—whatever the fuck that is—took a sample of my blood and sent it to a lab in New Jersey.
-DNA was taken from my white blood cells, dissolved in salt solution, and then sent off to Cofactor Genomics in St. Louis, Missouri.
-At Cofactor, my DNA was “chopped up” into ten or twenty-five trillion pieces thanks to some heavy-duty shaking. After that, they spelled out all the chemical letters—in precise order—that make me the certifiable nutter I am.
-For the next sixteen days, Cofactor used a photocopier-sized machine—which cost more than three Ferraris, I’m told—to “read” my genome thirteen times over and put it on a hard drive.
-The hard drive with “me” on it was sent to Knome, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
-Knome compared the six billion letters in my genome with every other genome on the planet—to find out why the fuck I’m still alive. Then they put all the findings on a little USB stick thing and presented it to me at home.
-While trying to understand what had just happened … my brain exploded.
– Ozzy Osbourne, on having his genome sequenced. (From Trust Me, I’m Doctor Ozzy)
John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne is no longer with us. The lead singer of Black Sabbath and solo metal icon has, sadly, gone to the Great Mosh Pit in the Sky. I should have written this blog a while ago, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t put my thoughts together, or wrap my head around going forward in life without the musician who provided the soundtrack of my life.
A co-worker broke the news to me, and I immediately hung my head and wept. My favorite boy cousin and lifelong bestie Eric was similarly heartbroken. He went home, hid in his ‘man cave,’ got blasted (Ozzy-style, you know?), and watched Ozzy Osbourne: Live at the Budokan. Me? I hid in the den, wrapped myself in a blanket on the couch, and sniffled through Black Sabbath: The End ...
And, yes, there was ice cream involved.
It’s impossible to talk about Ozzy without talking about my early years, during which his music slowly evolved as a massive influence. The following narrative might feel a bit meandering to some, but it makes sense to me. In any case, to quote the Joker from Batman: The Dark Knight …
Here … we … GO!!!
My mother was a religious psycho when I was a kid. No, I don’t mean a ‘Christian’ ; that’d be me. (A crappy one, mind you, but I try.) She was no ‘Christian,’ but she was a ‘religious psycho’ because it made her feel like she was better than everyone else. It also gave her an excuse to exercise brutal, ironclad control over her children’s every word and deed. In the end, it was all about superiority and control; religion was just the means to the end.
So, hard rock and heavy metal were off the table. My mother bought into the ‘Satan hatin’’ hysteria of the eighties, which was fueled by money-grubbing televangelists claiming to represent Jesus while they bowed at the altar of The Almighty Dollar. Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. … Those clowns have a court date in Hell, and, honestly? They keep coming back like toenail fungus. Now, we have Joel Osteen raking in the big bucks while he preaches heresies. And, it’s all preach and no practice to him. Love your neighbor? Use your ‘mega church’ to take in the flood refugees of Houston in their hour of need? Oh, HELL no!!! These are new carpets!
The ‘Satan hatin’’ crowd really was idiotic! Fueled by sleazy TV ‘stars’ masquerading as preachers (many of whom got caught with hookers or busted for embezzlement), parents bought into the absolute DUMBEST conspiracy theories! Your kid loves metal? Pull down his shirt collar; he’s probably wearing a Baphomet amulet. Your kid loves horror movies? He’ll be a serial killer before he graduates high school. Check his room for signs of blood and maybe a few dead bodies. Worst of all, does your kid play ‘Dungeons and Dragons’? Watch for his head starting to spin around while he bazooka-barfs pea soup. Also, check your house for signs of demonic activity. If the spots won’t come off your dishes, your household is probably possessed.
The scary thing is that parents actually bought into this shit! As a writer molded by heavy metal, horror films, and role-playing games, I take extreme offense. For an excellent rebuttal to all this nonsense, check out this podcast starring my long-suffering better half: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhxUdyfMdyE
But, for better or for worse, my parents believed that garbage. They ate it up like pig slop.
Ozzy wrote at great length about how hard it was to deal with protestors and matchstick men masquerading as preachers. I didn’t take that to heart until twenty-sixteen, when my better half and I took a long road trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota to see Black Sabbath during their finale tour.
There was this whole crowd of yahoos on the sidewalk in front of the venue, screaming into bullhorns. “THIS IS THE SONG OF FOOLS!!! YOU ARE ALL HERE TO WORSHIP THE DEVIL!!! YOU WILL BE DAMNED AND BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY!!! WE WILL BUY BACK YOUR TICKET TO SAVE YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL!!!”
My first thought was you haven’t figured out that nineteen eighty-five left without you?
My second thought came from a much angrier place: if those idiots were standing outside one of the Planned Parenthoods, gay bars, strip clubs, or Masonic lodges that we passed on the way to venue, I’d have asked to borrow a bullhorn so I could join them. We would have unarguably held the moral high ground! But, a concert? Raining on everyone’s parade during what might have been the high point of their lives? How many people can say they’ve seen BLACK SABBATH, and these clowns had to shit all over it?!
This scrawny dweeb with a bullhorn got in my better half’s face, which was a mistake; scrawny dweebs should never confront burly, muscled men who weigh an eighth of a ton. That’s just dumb. “YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!!!” he shouted.
My better half didn’t yell at him, and that was bad. When he yells, he’s just blowing off steam. When he speaks in a calm, measured tone he means exactly what he says. “If you don’t get that horn out of my face,” he said with a menacing half-smile, “I’ll shove it so far up your ass that it comes out of your nose.”
Scrawny Dweeb got the hint and backed off. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that he didn’t get into my face. It’s one thing to poke the bear; it’s quite another to poke the bear’s mate. My better half would have dragged him out into the street, curb-stomped him into pothole filler, and up-ended his bullhorn over his carcass as a makeshift traffic cone.
It’s one thing to read someone else’s account of being hassled by nutjobs. It’s quite another to have nutjobs coming at you! In real time. In your face. Foaming at mouth and screaming out psychotic ideas that they’re too crazy to ever be talked out of. The experience was unnerving, and I’ll never forget it. I’ll talk about the concert later, because I’ll also never forget THAT!!!
Yeah, this was the garbage that my parents fell for. So, yep! No metal for me.
But, there was my crazy uncle …
My mother gave birth to me when she was sixteen, so when I was old enough to start remembering things (around four) she was twenty. Her baby brother is six years younger than she is, so he would have been fourteen. Letting him babysit me was a ‘measure of last resort,’ but it occasionally happened.
And, my uncle would always bring over a backpack with records in it. I remember the first time I ever heard Ozzy’s ‘Crazy Train.’ I was dancing all around the living room, gleefully head-banging like a pint-sized maniac! “Careful, V!” laughed my uncle. “You’ll make the record skip!”
My uncle was my lifeline. He introduced me to music that reflected the darkness that I felt even at such a tender age. My childhood was defined by brutal verbal—and occasional physical—abuse. I always felt like I was strangling from the ironclad control exercised over my every word, my every move. I couldn’t breathe, and the dark music that my uncle brought over was oxygen. For just a few hours, I felt free. I could breathe again. People were singing thoughts that mirrored my own, and suddenly those thoughts became a lot less scary. Ozzy—and others like him—made it okay to harbor dark ideas about the suffering being inflicted upon me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Metal is catharsis. By turning fear and pain into art, fear and pain are robbed of their power over you. Horror films have the exact same effect. Life moved on, and soon I wasn’t four anymore. I was seven…
I loved listening to my hometown rock station, FM99, on my headphones after my mother and stepfather went to bed. As much as I enjoyed their music, it bugged me that they rarely played metal. Oh, they had all the ‘classic rock’ and ‘glam rock’ covered—and I loved both genres—but playing the likes of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, or Metallica? You were lucky to get one song a day by those bands. Metal wouldn’t become ‘mainstreamed’ until Metallica released their self-titled album in nineteen ninety-one.
So, I had to get my hands on cassettes. There was no other option.
The only record store with bike-riding distance to me was this tiny shop that sat in what was otherwise a sprawling, empty lot between Sewell’s Point Road and I-64. The window was completely covered in fading, dusty posters of pop, soul, and R&B stars. It was widely rumored that the shop was just a cover for less-than-legal activities, and it was on the bad side of the Five Points intersection.
But, it was a RECORD store!!!
I talked a neighborhood boy into making the initial journey with me, since I was kind of scared of the neighborhood. That wasn’t hard; I was always a pretty lil’ gal (no brag, just fact) and getting a boy to tag along was effortless. He was like, whoa! I get to hang out with V?!
The bike ride was pretty scary, but, times were different then. You didn’t have to afraid in a bad neighborhood until you were a teenager. Gang-bangers didn’t mess with small children. Now? They’ll murder a three-year-old but it wasn’t like that back then. So, we made it to the record store safely. (Notice that I’m not giving the name of the record store? Just in case the owner wasn’t involved in less-than-legal activities, I don’t wanna slander him …)
(That having been said, I’m pretty sure he was.)
So, we walked inside. The owner was watching a flickering black-and-white TV behind the counter. He was a, um, ‘large gentleman of color,’ and he looked at my escort and I like we both had three heads. “Whatchoo lil’ crackas’ DOIN’ in here?!” he demanded.
“Just looking for some tapes, Sir,” I replied politely. (I’ve been called a ‘cracker’ more times than I can count. That’s what it was like to grow up in culturally-divided Norfolk, Virginia. Honestly? It never really offended me. Yes, I’m white. Which—in colloquial terms—makes me a ‘cracker.’ I don’t get bent out of shape over racial slurs. I don’t think it’s any worse to use a racial slur than it is to call someone a ‘big, fat stupid-head.’ An insult is an insult, no more and no less. It’s dumb to elevate one kind of insult over another.)
But, I digress …
A cursory look through the dust-covered records and cassettes made one thing immediately obvious: This record store had a ‘no white artists allowed’ policy. “Sir,” I asked the portly owner, who still looked shocked by our presence, “do you have any Black Sabbath albums?”
“I don’t sell no ‘white people music’!” he proclaimed.
I hung my head, defeated …
And, then his demeanor softened. Despite whatever sketchy business he may or may not have been involved in, he obviously had a heart. “But,” he added, “I do got dis catalogue!”
I perked up as he pulled a phone-book sized catalogue out from under the counter. “You tell me whatchoo want,” he explained, “and gimme fi’ dolla. Come back next week, and I’ll have yo’ tape and you pay the other fi’ dolla den.”
And, that’s how I got my hands on a cassette copy of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid …
I did a fair amount of business with that portly black gentleman over the next couple of years. The routine was always the same: bat my eyelashes at a boy to get him to go with me, tremble in fear on the bike ride there and back again, tell the fat man what I wanted and give him ‘fi’ dolla,’ and then repeat the ritual the next week to pick up my cassette.
I kept my cassettes hidden in my closet. If I didn’t, they’d get confiscated and I’d get grounded for engaging in ‘Devil worship.’
It’s funny, when Guns n’ Roses came out with Appetite for Destruction, I went in and ordered a copy. Upon being given the band name the fat man hastily blurted out ‘I don’t sell guns!” Which, of course, immediately told me everything I needed to know. Of course he did! I’ll wager that he had a dozen handguns under his counter (sans, of course, a dozen serial numbers).
But, you know what? I don’t give a shit. He was kind to me and we did a lot of (legal) business. What lawn-mowing money of mine didn’t go to him went for comic books, and thus I was content.
When I was twelve or so, my parents bought me a mountain bike for Christmas that went a lot faster than my dirt bike. I was also getting bolder about venturing further afield, so one day I made the journey to Traxx Records in Ward’s Corner.
Traxx was the TAJ MAHAL of record stores!!! Think Empire Records from the movie by the same name. Suddenly, the angels started singing from the heavens. No more paying ‘fi’ dolla’ in installments; they had everything in stock!
Ward’s Corner is in the Jewish section of Norfolk. The Jews have a synagogue there, and they all live huddled in this one neighborhood so they can walk to the synagogue on nice days without breaking Moses’ law about walking too far on Saturday. I felt much safer because—unless I’m badly mistaken—you don’t often hear about people being robbed by Orthodox Jews.
So, my bike trips to Traxx Records continued until I got my driver’s license at the age of seventeen. And. no, thank God, I never got mugged by a rabbi.
So, what treasures from Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne did I discover during those years? What amazing music did I acquire whilst trembling past gang-bangers and waving cheerfully at Jews on hot summer days?
Lessee …
After Paranoid, I’m reasonably certain that the next album I bought was Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut. Talk about getting blown away, now! The opening track gave me the absolute shivers; it reminded me of the old Universal Studios horror films that I so loved as a kid. What is this/ that stands before me/ figure in black/ which points at me/ turn ‘round quick/ and start to run/ Find out I’m the chosen one/ OH, NO!!! (Fittingly, Black Sabbath takes their name from a horror film starring Boris Karloff of Universal Studios fame. On a side note, I have a pet sugar glider named Boris. Yep, after Boris Karloff.)
Another song that blew me away was ‘N.I.B.’, so named after the shape of drummer Bill Ward’s head which looked like a fountain-pen nib. The rabid ‘Satan haters’ claimed that the name was an acronym for ‘Nativity in Black,’ which would later become the title of a Black Sabbath tribute album. I loved the song because I love any song that tells a story! The lyrics come from a seductive lover wooing a young woman: Some people say my love cannot be true/ please believe me, my love/ and I’ll show you/ I will give you those things you thought unreal/ the sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal…
But, I love the twist ending. After all the sweet talk and self-adulation, the young lady finds that her seducer is actually the Devil: Now I have you with me/ under my power/ my love grows stronger now/ with every hour/ look into my eyes, you’ll see who I am/ my name is Lucifer, please take my hand …
Cue the BASS riff!!!
That song became particularly poignant in my twenties. Who hasn’t fallen for some smooth-talker that finally tipped his hand and went from being an angel to becoming the Devil?! ‘N.I.B.’ is a timeless tune.
Another album I bought after Black Sabbath was Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. (An album/song title that U2—the worst band ever to have set foot on a stage in my opinion—would later rip off.) The title cut, in my opinion, is Ozzy’s best vocal performance ever. Sabbath bloody Sabbath/ what you gonna do?/ living just for dying/ dying just for you. Recorded in a creepy castle (as described in Ozzy’s autobiography I am Ozzy), the album is a fitting reflection of the drug-addled, dark circumstances under which it was recorded.
I also bought Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon. Honestly? I didn’t like it and I still don’t. But, Ozzy was still reeling from the sudden death of his guitarist Randy Rhoads, and I think he struggled to work with his new guitarist Jake E. Lee. The album was born of a disjointed working relationship, and it shows. Except, of course, for the title cut which is pure GENIUS!!!
I loved that Jake E. Lee used a movable chord for the main riff, much like Zakk Wylde would later do with the iconic balled ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home.’ The lyrics—once again—were reminiscent of my beloved black-and-white horror films. Howling at shadows/ living in a lunar spell/ he finds his heaven/ spewing from the mouth of Hell/ those that the beast is looking for/ listen in awe and you’ll hear him/ BARK AT THE MOON!!! I love the werewolf howl at the end; I always have to do it when I’m singing along. AWOOOOOOO!!! Whoa, whoa, yeah, bark at the moon!
Ozzy’s next release with Jake E. Lee on guitars, however, was NOT ‘disjointed’!!! I have only ever used one word to describe The Ultimate Sin: ‘elegant.’ My favorite song on the album is ‘Killer of Giants,’ but, honestly? Like Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Iron Maiden’s Brave New World, I can never just listen to one or two songs. I MUST let the album play all the way through!
Then came No Rest for the Wicked …
THAT was the first Ozzy album to feature guitarist Zakk Wylde, who is, um, yeah, kind of a demi-god in my household. Zakk went on to become the front man for Pride and Glory and Black Label Society, and he also released two brilliant acoustic albums under his own name. What’s cool, though, is that while Zakk would go on to become an incredibly nuanced musician, No Rest for the Wicked is an amazingly raw piece of work. Ozzy’s iconic voice played off of Zakk’s heavy riffing, and the world was handed a slice of heavy metal at its absolute finest.
Then came No More Tears ...
Good grief, y’all! Can you imagine a world without ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’? The one track that always hit me hardest was ‘The Road to Nowhere.’ I’m still haunted by lingering ruin that was my twenties, and Ozzy sung quite eloquently about the topic: The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me/ it won’t leave me alone/ I still find it all a mystery/ could it be a dream?/ the road to nowhere leads to me …
So, yep, that’s the hodge-podge of albums that I bought from the fat black man and Traxx Records. But, it didn’t end there. When I was seventeen, Ozzy released Ozzmosis. I can’t even BEGIN to tell you what that record meant to me and what a profound influence it was during my late adolescent years. Me n’ my favorite boy cousin Eric used to sing along to it for hours. We weren’t izzackly ace singers, but, that’s okay. Music is about participation, not perfection; it’s about enthusiasm, not operatic training. I don’t give a shit if you sound like Bob Dylan, just go ‘head and sing! I don’t mind. I’ll sing along with you!
So, let’s switch gears here …
I’ve often said that Ozzy Osbourne’s/ Black Sabbath’s music is the soundtrack of my life. Why? What moments during my short existence could have conjured such music into the forefront of my brain?
Lessee …
‘Crazy Train’ – I remember jamming around my living room at the age of four or so, and I asked my crazy uncle ‘what did Ozzy say there? I didn’t understand.’ So, my uncle explained that the lyric was mental wounds not healing. I didn’t understand that either, so he had to explain what ‘mental wounds’ were. At which point I sat down on the carpet and mournfully replied, ‘yeah, I got those.’
I’ll never forget the look on my uncle’s face. He knew how crazy his sister was and he tried his best—particularly during my adolescent years—to shield me from her relentless abuse. ‘Let’s order a pizza, kiddo,’ he said kindly. ‘Your mom said we could.’
‘Miracle Man’ – Ozzy penned the lyrics to this one after televangelist Jimmy Swaggart got busted with a hooker. Miracle Man got busted! I found the song quite cathartic. Suddenly, one of ‘Satan haters’ who caused me so much pain got his just desserts. Jimmy Swaggart fanned the flames of the anti-metal movement, blaming Ozzy’s song ‘Suicide Solution’ for a tragic teenage suicide. Even a cursory glance at the song tells you that it’s a song about alcohol addiction and not an endorsement of suicide: wine is fine/ but whiskey’s quicker/ suicide is slow with liquor/ take a bottle, drown your sorrows/ then it floods away tomorrows/ evil thoughts and evil doings/ cold, alone, you hang in ruins/ thought that you’d escape the reaper/ you can’t escape the Master Keeper.
Jimmy Swaggart fucked up my life just like he fucked up Ozzy’s. I was quite happy to hear that ‘Miracle Man’ GOT BUSTED!!!
‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’ – Yes, this is just a pretty ballad to most people. But, it has much more meaning to me. A few times a month, my better half stumbles home from work looking like he’s been run over by a truck. He’s pushed himself to the limit and he’s finished. When that happens, my world comes to a complete stop. It doesn’t matter what I wanted to write or what I meant to do that evening; the head of my household is down for the count and now I’m ‘up.’ I know my place. Genesis says that ‘the Lord God said “it is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper who is suitable for him.”’
I’m not the ‘mover-and-shaker’; I’m the helper. My better half always gushes with gratitude when I take care of things after he’s been busted to shit; he always tells me he looks forward to coming home. It scares me when he comes home in such a condition because he’s not the same strong, happy-go-lucky guy who left for work that morning. That’s when Ozzy’s song springs to mind: Times have changed/ and times are strange/ here I come but I ain’t the same/ Mama, I’m coming home.
My role was assigned at the beginning of Creation: ‘a helper who is suitable for him.’ His was assigned at Creation as well: ‘subdue the earth.’ If either one of use fail to do our jobs? Another line from Ozzy’s song will come true: selfish love/ yeah, we’re both alone/ the ride before the fall …
That’s probably anti-feminist but I was never much of a feminist anyway. God ordered this world to work in a certain way, and men and women were both created for specific purposes. I know mine. When I peep through the kitchen curtain and see the head of my household stumbling out of his truck, I think here I come but I ain’t the same …
He thinks Mama, I’m coming home.
And, that’s marriage. To understand your place in Creation leads to a happy relationship. Fighting against your place in Creation leads to being alone, embittered, and wondering where the hell all the good men went.
I’m not alone and I’m not embittered. ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’ is also one of my favorite songs to play on guitar. When I was first learning to finger-pick that was one of the first tunes I figured out. And, I’ll never forget Ozzy’s profound lyrics until I either croak or go completely senile.
‘I Just Want You’ – There are no un-lockable doors/ there are no un-winnable wars/ there are no un-rightable wrongs or un-singable songs/ there are un-beatable odds/ there are no believable gods/ there are no un-namable names/ shall I say it again/ there are no impossible dreams/ there are no invisible seams/ each night when they day is through/ I don’t ask much, I just want you.
People have often asked me why I love that song so much when it says ‘there are no believable gods.’ To me? Even as a Christian, that lyric makes perfect sense. A deity, by definition, is unbelievable. That’s why we’re rewarded for having faith; we found the strength to believe the unbelievable. Ozzy spoke the truth: there are no believable gods.
But, this song has always held an even deeper meaning for me. When I started dating my better half it always played in my mind’s ear. Yeah, I’m told I have a near-genius IQ. What the fuck ever. If I do indeed possess all the smarts that my educators said I did, it still doesn’t mean a damn thing. Everything I know is a drop in the bucket compared to all that there is to know.
I didn’t know any more when I was dating my better half than I do now, but I did know this: I wanted that relationship to be my last. No more fooling around, no more mistakes, and no more disappointments. Each night when the day is through/ I don’t ask much, I just want you.
I got what I wanted. Life is good!
Honestly? I could go on forever. Ozzy Osbourne was a profound thinker but he always delivered his profound thoughts in a blue-collar, relatable manner. His sense of humor was amazing, as was his humility. He made a boatload of mistakes (like, you know, going on a forty-year bender) but he always readily admitted to them. When his album Ordinary Man came out, I slowly began the mourning process: I’ve been the bad guy/ been higher than the blue sky/ but the truth is I don’t wanna die an ordinary man. (That was a duet with his longtime friend Elton John, by the way.)
After Ordinary Man came Patient Number Nine. Patient Number Nine was fitting finale for our beloved Prince of Darkness. The songs were all co-written with a ‘who’s who’ of epic guitarists. Zakk Wylde, Toni Iommi, Eric Clapton, the late, great Jeff Beck … That album was INCREDIBLE!!! But, it was also haunting. You could hear Ozzy facing his own upcoming demise. I love the song ‘Mr. Darkness’: Dear Mr. Darkness/ I write you again …
Who hasn’t felt so low that he feels like his only solace are his own dark thoughts? While Ordinary Man was a fairly even-tempered album, Patient Number Nine was heavy as HELL!!! Talk about throwing a hand grenade through the door on your way out.
In twenty-sixteen, I saw Black Sabbath in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was worth the road trip and it was worth fighting past the bullhorn-wielding idiot who nearly got himself snapped in half by my husband. To hear the First Voice of heavy metal shouting ‘GOD BLESS YOU ALL’ and demanding that you clap along with him, well …
I clapped. And, clapped and clapped until my arms felt like rubber. And, then, clapped some more. That’s the magic of the legend that was Ozzy Osbourne. Seeing him live didn’t feel like a concert. It felt like a party, and he was your enthusiastic host! He made it his duty to ensure that you had a wonderful evening and you left his party with a wide grin. He once wrote about that: ‘That’s what I do. I’m an entertainer.’
Yes. Yes, he was!
Shortly before his passing, Ozzy rejoined Black Sabbath for a finale concert. Who’d have guessed that he was giving us his two-week notice? But, that was the Oz-man for you. I waited a while to write this blog because I needed to recollect my memories to give that ol’ bat-eating maestro a fitting tribute. One does not simply take the entire soundtrack of one’s life and then re-arrange it into a neat blog in one day …
I didn’t start writing until I stopped crying.
That’s what Ozzy wanted. As he wrote in Trust Me, I’m Doctor Ozzy: I honestly don’t care what music they play at my funeral—they can put on a medley of Justin Bieber, Susan Boyle, and “We Are the Diddymen” if it makes ‘em happy—but I do want to make sure it’s a celebration, not a mope-fest. Also, it’s worth remembering that a lot of people on this earth see nothing but misery their whole lives. So by any measure, most of us in the Western Hemisphere—especially rockers like me—are very lucky. That’s why I don’t want my funeral to be sad. I want it to be a time to say ‘thanks.’
I’m trying not to be sad. I’m trying to remember the wise words of Dr. Seuss: ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’ On a final note, I will leave all you lovely readers with this: a few thoughts on death sung by the Man Himself. Don’t cry, just sing along. That’s what Ozzy wanted you to do. That was his final wish, and I for one honor it.
As the iconic playwright Jack Thorne once wrote: ‘Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch.’ It is impossible to write about Ozzy without mentioning his well-documented foibles, and I have. But, as Jack Thorne also wrote: ‘They were great men, with huge flaws, and you know what—those flaws almost made them greater.’
Rest in peace, Old Friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9yYJ6ZAYns&list=RD-9yYJ6ZAYns&start_radio=1
Well said.