The Real Ozzy
Ozzy Osbourne, who became famous as the lead singer of the band Black Sabbath and then went on to a lengthy solo career, died in July at the age of 76. His notoriety was such that all the mainstream media sources noted his passing. But they did so in the typical, superficial way—frequently revealing nothing in their accounts of the man’s life so much as their utter ignorance of his music and the effect it had on his fans.
This is written to correct those distortions. The music that made Ozzy and Black Sabbath famous in the 1970s was loved by many working class Gen Xers as it spoke directly, and convincingly, to the conditions of our lives. It was largely morally conservative and populist, though you would never know it by listening to the accounts of nearly all American media.
I am a sociologist by training, so cannot help but think in a sociological vein about analytical limitations of nearly all the writers lately discussing the meaning of Ozzy’s life and music. On all sides of the political spectrum, professional writers tend to originate from one, particular, demographic. They are overwhelmingly children of the relatively affluent, or at least of those from the upper reaches of the middle class. The trajectories of their lives are largely explained by their proximity to a social strata in which people somehow manage to make a living thinking about things and writing them down. Because they have lived their lives in such circumstances, they do not know much about the perspectives of people who come from other circumstances—where such a way of living is inconceivable. And they do not know or care much about how those people make sense of their lives, and how they use the culture to help them do that.
I am a full professor in an American university, so I presently inhabit the same social world these writers tend to occupy. But I was born into a white underclass family and grew up in a working-class neighborhood. And it was there that I fell in love with the music of Black Sabbath.
Ozzy’s biggest fans, given the times and heavy metal’s generally déclassé position in American culture, were doubtless those of my generation and social position among the dispossessed. Generation X are the children of the Baby Boomer generation to which the members of Black Sabbath, two decades or so our elders, belonged.
The long, complicated story of the collective experience of white working class and underclass Gen Xers has been examined to good effect in many scholarly works—including Donna Gaines’s book Teenage Wasteland, to cite just one stellar example. (Readers may also want to examine my own little contribution to this academic literature.)
The shorthand version of this complex tale is as follows: We were angry at the world. So very angry. Not just rebellious, as the Boomers had been, but actively and highly enraged about our situation.
A lot of us were mistreated by our parents, the Boomers, who partied and carried on as utter narcissists in the spirit of the 1960s—divorcing in record numbers and leaving our families shattered, emotionally abandoned, and by and large on our own. They did not seem to care much what became of us. We survived anyway.
In learning to make our way through that mess, we hardened like stone as we looked at the world. We learned how to be ruthless and how to turn our hearts cold because that was what it took to survive the storm our irresponsible elders made for us. But inside we were not stone. We just wanted to love and to be loved. And we knew we had missed something important. Later in life, we turned culturally conservative in large numbers—partly in reaction against the social catastrophe that our Boomer parents inflicted on us, but mainly because of our desire not to do the same awful thing to our own children.
While we were young, however, we did not yet know a better way to express our desperation and our longing. So this music reached us in ways few things did. It put our anger and our hurt and our yearning for something better in the form of fat distorted guitar riffs and thundering bass lines—but most of all the crashing drum fills and the earnest, astonishingly energetic, utterly unique voice of John “Ozzy” Osbourne.
Black Sabbath spoke to that generational and class experience for me in a way no other music of my youth did. The rage of that band, the titanic heaviness, its perfect expression of the experience of being trampled upon and refusing to be defeated by it. But there was also the warmth and the love we had for each other—fellow combatants against the world’s injustice—and for the musicians who made this music for us. It is difficult to overstate the way that music filled my soul with force and energy and a determination never to let the bastards get me down.
Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath saved my life. This is not hyperbole at all. It is simply the truth.
Because of this, I was upset by the stupidity and the malevolence of much of what was said publicly about Ozzy upon his passing. “Upset” does not tell the full tale. My Gen X white trash self was infuriated at the presumption of these people to speak so cavalierly of this man and this music about which they so evidently knew next to nothing. From the woke left at National Public Radio to the religious right at First Things, the response to Ozzy’s death revealed not an inkling of the kind of experience I and millions more among his fans have had with him.
An NPR commentator spoke of the “occult underpinnings” of Black Sabbath and of Ozzy (“for all his flaws, of which there are many”) giving “permission to five decades of miscreants and cast-offs to lean into their anger, confusion and debauchery.” In USA Today, a professor of something or other declared that Ozzy embraced Satanism as rebellion and described Sabbath’s anti-war song “War Pigs” as a celebration of Satan’s triumph.
In the conservative religious journal First Things, the interpretive lens was precisely the same, that is, Ozzy and Black Sabbath as a celebration of rebellion and darkness. The only difference was the Christian criticism of this purportedly malevolent musical phenomenon in place of the qualified countercultural acknowledgment of Ozzy’s rejection of the good. Fifteen years before his death, First Things had already established this position, describing Sabbath’s music (without citing examples) as “prais[ing] Satan and mock[ing] Christianity.” The piece they published upon Ozzy’s death reiterated this theme, trashing his entire musical career and its meaning to his audience, preposterously arguing that he must have been the actual Prince of Darkness because he was popularly known as such. The evidence provided to back up the substance of Ozzy’s satanic motivations consisted of a scrap of lyrics from one song (“NIB”), interpreted incorrectly, and a claim that a mass murderer, Son of Sam, enjoyed another Black Sabbath song, “After Forever.”
In reading these reviewers, what was clear to me—and doubtless for many other fans of Ozzy’s music—is that none of them had listened to this band with anything like the care and attention I had, nor had any of them approached it with the same kind of interpretative framework brought to that music by the listeners for whom it was intended—those who, like me, shared something of the populist lower-class social origins of the Birmingham band.
A short trip through a bit of the band’s catalog will demonstrate just what I mean when I say these people missed everything important about Ozzy’s legacy. This is a huge cultural blind spot—especially in these times.
The title song on Black Sabbath’s first and eponymous LP is often regarded by critics as a kind of summary of the band’s supposed interest in things dark. And to be sure, the song is about a visitation from an evil spirit. But it is hardly a celebration of that evil. Ozzy’s vocal narration of the experience is one of terror. At one point he cries out “No, no, please God help me!” Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, who wrote these lyrics, as he did for most of the songs on their classic albums, described the song as “written as a warning not to dabble in all that kind of stuff.”
In his recent autobiography, Butler also provided insight into the origins and interpretive base of “NIB,” one of the two songs mentioned by the First Things writer in his vicious denunciation of the meaning of Ozzy’s life:
The funniest misinterpretation is of “N.I.B.,” which people soon decided stood for “Nativity in Black.” It’s a love song. But I couldn’t just do a normal one, I had to put a twist on it, so I made it about the devil falling in love. The reason it’s called “N.I.B.” is because Bill’s [drummer Bill Ward] beard looked like a pen nib, which is what we used to call him. But because “Nib” would have been a pretty bad song title, I capitalized it and stuck some punctuation in there, to make it more intriguing.
Indeed, the band saw themselves as anti-hippies, and many of their fans shared this view. Black Sabbath’s music was less superficially optimistic and utopian than much of the rock music popular just before they emerged in the early 1970s. Many of their songs are political and cultural commentary that fit in with the more populist, anti-war and anti-elite politics of the 1960s.
In “Wicked World,” for example, the suffering of the powerless and poor in the world is described, with the narrator clearly taking their side: “A politician’s job, they say is very high, For he has to choose who’s gotta go and die, They can put a man on the Moon quite easy, While people here on Earth are dying of old diseases.” The same theme is at the core of “War Pigs,” one of the band’s signature songs, which focuses on the evil machinations of war mongers who send their compatriots to die en masse for what often seems no reason at all. The song’s final verse pictures the end of time and the judgment of God that is coming to such wicked men: “Now in darkness world stops turning, Ashes where the bodies burning, No more war pigs have the power, Hand of God has struck the hour, Day of Judgment God is calling, On their knees the war pigs crawling, Begging mercies for their sins, Satan laughing spreads his wings.”
Similarly, “Electric Funeral” warns of the dread possibility of nuclear holocaust, and again with those guilty of bringing it about being cast into Hell. The imagery of the judgment of God of those guilty of bringing on Armageddon is again straight out of the Christian narrative: “Supernatural king takes Earth under his wing, Heaven’s golden chorus sings, Hell’s angels flap their wings, Evil souls fall to hell, Ever trapped in burning cell.”
If Ozzy was really the Prince of Darkness, how does one explain the many songs in the Sabbath discography that are clearly celebrations of peace and love? In “Into the Void,” the Earth has been completely ruined by “brainwashed minds and pollution.” The song tells a science-fiction story of “freedom fighters” who “leave the earth to all its sin and hate [to] find another world [where they can] make a home where love is there to stay, peace and happiness in every day.” As is common in Sabbath imagery, those who do not repent of the sinfulness that destroys life pay the ultimate price: “Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves, Leave them to their future in their graves.” “Children of the Grave” is a heartfelt paean to the youth who seek peace in a violent world: “Children of tomorrow live In the tears that fall today, Will the sunrise of tomorrow, Bring in peace in any way? Must the world live in the shadow Of atomic fear?“
Moreover, there are frequent appeals to the basic goodness of the world and of human life that strongly hint at a virtuous spiritual essence at the core of their understanding of humanity. “A National Acrobat” discusses the immortal soul that is within each of us: “Don’t believe the life you have will be the only one, You have to let your body sleep to let your soul live on.” The message for life in this world is uplifting: “Just remember love is life and hate is living death.” In “Spiral Architect,” Ozzy sings “Of all the things I value most of all, I look upon my earth and feel the warmth and know that it is good.” “Symptom of the Universe” glows with the same kind of innocent joy that could be found in the pop music of the pre-’60s—a celebration of the wholesome romantic love: “Woman, child of love’s creation, come and step inside my dreams, In your eyes I see no sadness, you are all that loving means, Take my hand and we’ll go riding through the sunshine from above, We’ll find happiness together in the summer skies of love.”
There are many more songs like this—songs wherein the narrative is clearly on the side of good against evil. I know quite well the entire catalog of Black Sabbath’s classical period—that is, when Ozzy was in the band—and I know of not a single example of a lyric that is sympathetic to the perspective of evil. You would think a truly satanic band could find a better way to get on the side of the Devil than this.
Of course, all of this comes before we even examine the many Black Sabbath songs that are explicitly Christian in their attitude and their morality. (Butler, the lyricist, is a cradle Catholic who is no longer practicing but is clearly inspired by the Church’s imagery in his songwriting.)
“Lord of This World” (the title refers to Satan, who has become the de facto ruler of Earth due to the moral depravity of humankind—see 2 Corinthians 4:4 “Satan, who is the god of this world…”) depicts a human race offered God’s love but rejecting it to gratify their own transgressive desires: “Your world was made for you by someone above, But you choose evil ways instead of love…Lord of this world, He’s your confessor now!…You think you’re innocent you’ve nothing to fear, You don’t know me, you say, but isn’t it clear?, You turn to me in all your worldly greed and pride, But will you turn to me when it’s your turn to die?”
“After Forever”—far from being a song that ought to have impressed a serial killer—is a testament to the Christian faith of the song’s author and against the secular and conformist world that has rejected the Gospel. This song alone ought to be enough to dismiss claims that the group was anti-Christian. I quote it at length to show just how much both the author at First Things, and Son of Sam, misunderstood it:
Have you ever thought about your soul—can it be saved?,
Or perhaps you think that when you’re dead you just stay in your grave,
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?,
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?,
When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?,
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope – do you think he’s a fool?,
Well I have seen the truth, yes I’ve seen the light and I’ve changed my ways,
And I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared at the end of our days,
Could it be you’re afraid of what your friends might say if they knew you believe in God above?,
They should realize before they criticize that God is the only way to love,
Is your mind so small that you have to fall in with the pack wherever they run?,
Will you still sneer when death is near and say they may as well worship the sun?,
I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ,
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced,
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don’t believe?,
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can’t retrieve,
Perhaps you’ll think before you say that God is dead and gone,
Open your eyes, just realize that He’s the One,
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate.
This is supposed to be the band doing Satan’s work and headed by the wicked Prince of Darkness? A band proclaiming that you need to, “Open your eyes, just realize that He’s the One”?
If you’ve ever seen Ozzy during a live performance that includes the intro or conclusion of a song, you’ve heard him enthusiastically calling out to the crowd about his love for them. His basic working-class warmth and sense of gratitude for his success glowed brightly in those declarations. He did it constantly, this Prince of Darkness, and we emphatically loved him right back.
Goodbye, Ozzy. Whatever foolishness might be said about you by people who did not know you or your music, I know what kind of human being you were, and I thank you for everything. I hope to see you again.