It was all Ozzy’s fault. 

That kid who shot himself. His headphones were mostly blown off when they found him. According to the label of the record on his turntable, the last song he must have heard, the song they said urged him subliminally to “get the gun…Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” was “Suicide Solution” by Ozzy Osbourne.

If a bird or bat was beheaded in your town in the 1980s, you could rightfully blame Ozzy.

If an Alamo was pissed on, specifically in San Antonio, Texas…Specifically on Feb. 19, 1982, you could definitely blame Ozzy.

I grew up in the eighties in Texas. It was a time and place that devoured scapegoats. Ozzy Osbourne had begun that decade splattering the Cradle of Texan Freedom with margarita piss and subsequently released albums called Bark At The Moon and The Ultimate Sin. 

We were taught the Bible said that suicide was the ultimate sin. We didn’t bother to check, that’s what they told us it said. “Suicide Solution”…Ultimate Sin. Ozzy wanted you to buy his records, maybe check out a concert or two and then kill yourself. Simple as that.

1986. My mother is in the hallway of the high school between classes. She was born in San Antonio. She spots the fresh jersey tee emblazoned with The Ultimate Sin album cover image on one of her students’ scrawny torso. “Hey, what’s this?” 

“Aww, Mrs Briggs, you don’t understand…. Ozzy’s changed!” the kid pleaded. That’s how I remember my mom telling it to me. I wish I could ask her to corroborate but she passed earlier this year. Which is why I can’t care too much about the death of a guy who I didn’t know, who ferociously mocked death for half a century. 

It’s also why I’m sentimental about everything. Even Ozzy? Fuckin’ aye! Especially Ozzy.

In my mother’s eulogy, I talked about how as a high school teacher and vice principal, she was a champion and guardian of knuckleheads, weirdos and misfits. 

That was Ozzy. He was a ding dong from an industrial town who heard The Beatles on the radio, freaked out and reached for the unattainable. “That’s what I wanna do!”

But Ozzy never learned how to play an instrument. “I can’t read music. I don’t even know what key I sing in. I can’t play an instrument either.”

The other guys in Black Sabbath did know how to play their instruments.

Tony Iommi was a skilled classical guitarist before he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand in a Birmingham sheet metal factory. He fashioned new plastic replacements and tuned his guitar down, creating Black Sabbath’s trademark evil gloomy sound.

Bill Ward and Geezer Butler also happened to grow up in the same town as Ozzy and Tony. And as The Dark Lord would have it, they also turned out to be two of the funkiest white boys ever. 

This rhythm section. The Devil’s Interval. Three notes, when played together invoke evil spirits. “Black Sabbath” from the album Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath. That’s all it took

Butler wrote virtually all of the lyrics, though he said Ozzy came up with vocal melodies. And key phrases that berthed classics. Like “Iron Man.” 

Ozzy wasn’t the leader of Sabbath, more like the vocalist/mascot/hype man. His raw warbling plea. “Oh no! God! Please, nooooo!,” on the aforementioned eponymous track is bone chilling and also kinda goofy at once. That was Ozzy. It was meant to be. 

“Satan laughing spreads his wings.”

About a decade later, Ozzy got canned from Black Sabbath for being the most fucked up in a group of coked up fuck ups. 

He emerged from that to be a mega successful solo act and poster boy for the dangers of rock music. You have to understand in the eighties, we still used phrases like “poster boy” and “rock music.”

That decade, he dominated Headbanger’s Ball on MTV, snorted ants for the entertainment of the guys in Mötley Crüe and generally horrified nerds, scolds, Jesus freaks and other assorted dipshits who got caught up in that decade’s greatest unintentional comedy craze, the Satanic Panic.

He was everywhere. At one point, probably around 1986 or 87, he and my mom had the same hairdo. Hair helmet with frosted tips. Not just my mom. Several moms of classmates had that blown out, stuck my head out of the “Crazy Train” look.

I went to a “Dangers of Rock Music” presentation given by a friend’s evangelical church when I was around ten. My mom didn’t want me to go because I was already an anxious kid as it was. But I went. It was the first time I saw the cover of Bark at the Moon and heard about the bat biting exploits of the frosted tipped demon John Michael Osbourne. 

They also projected a picture that they claimed was him eating or at least portraying the eating of human flesh. It’s a fuzzy memory but I do remember the preacher saying “human flesh.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is, Ozzy rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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