A World Without Ozzy Osbourne

Posted by Wicasta on 24 Jul 2025.

Yesterday I kept thinking about the first time Ozzy Osbourne became a part of my life. I’m pretty sure it was in 1978 when Black Sabbath's Never Say Die album came out. I’d just turned 13. And given that it was Ozzy's last album with Black Sabbath's original run, I was late to the party. I was really just growing beyond my youthful obsession with KISS, branching out into other music on my own for the first time. Sure, I’d heard the obligatory Black Sabbath tracks on the radio; “Iron Man” “War Pigs” “Paranoid” etc. But I’d yet to take a deep dive of my own. Never Say Die was my entry into the Black Sabbath catalog. However much people might grouse about it being one of the worst albums by the original lineup, it was pretty mind-blowing to a 13-year-old who was still getting his feet wet.

I took a different path than most. I was young and at that age where you only want to look forward. So when Black Sabbath released Heaven And Hell with Ronnie James Dio, at about the same time I was discovering Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, I was smitten. I loved that album, and I loved The Mob Rules even more. But I gave proper respect to “the old singer” as well, and wound up doing a deep dive through the entire Black Sabbath back-catalog. I loved all the great music Ozzy had made with Black Sabbath, but my Black Sabbath had Ronnie James Dio as its singer.

Where I really clicked with Ozzy Osbourne was when that first Blizzard of Ozz album came out. Ozzy was Black Sabbath's former singer, sure, but he was something else entirely on his own. Along with Randy Rhoads, songs like “I Don’t Know”, “Goodbye to Romance”, and “Mr. Crowley” were revelatory and a breath of fresh air. It was a win / win as far as I was concerned. Black Sabbath was putting out great music, and so was Ozzy. I was all-in on Ozzy’s solo career, and loved Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. I didn’t see Ozzy live until after Randy Rhoads died, on the Speak of the Devil tour, and I saw him on the tours supporting Bark At The Moon and The Ultimate Sin. I’ll always be grateful that I got to see Ozzy in the earlier stages of his solo career before he became a reality television star and his albums became sleek, well-crafted Pop-Metal events. Back in the early to mid 1980s Ozzy was still dirty and dangerous.

After Randy Rhoads died the shine wore off a bit. I still bought Bark At The Moon and The Ultimate Sin, but with all due respect to Jake E Lee, the loss of Randy Rhoads meant Ozzy’s music had lost something to me. And when Bob Daisley, who’d written the lyrics on Ozzy's first four albums, left, I just didn’t connect with Ozzy’s career in the way I used to. There were still songs I liked on subsequent albums, but I just didn’t connect to the albums themselves in the same way, even as Ozzy’s career kicked into high gear with songs like “Crazy Babies”, “No More Tears”, and “Mama I’m Coming Home”. Honestly, I didn’t buy another Ozzy Osbourne album until Patient Number 9, and had mostly heard Ozzy’s newer songs on the radio. But all that said, I was always glad to know a man who felt kind of like a crazy uncle was still out there terrorizing the population. I may not have been onboard like I was before, but I was still cheering him on from the sidelines. Ozzy was like family to me. And even though we didn’t hang out anymore, we were still family. Know what I mean?

I think the key takeaway here is that it’s a peculiar trait where Ozzy was concerned, that anyone who “met” him at any stage in his career was left with a deep, abiding, and lasting affection for the man. He was our crazy uncle. No one who really understood what Ozzy was about took the whole “Prince of Darkness” thing seriously. But we all played along, because it was fun. Ozzy was our master of ceremony; we lived vacariously through him as he lumbered around stages all over the world and pissed in places he shouldn’t. When The Osbournes TV show started airing, a lot of the people who’d always thought of Ozzy as some kind of scary Satan worshipper found out he was just Uncle Ozzy. And they loved him for it. He was that uncle who told the ocean to fuck off, who angrily complained, “Who’s pissed on my fucking carpet?” and said (probably truthfully), “I don’t know what planet I’m on.” There’s a reason we all loved him. We all wanted to hang out with him. And we all knew that Ozzy was just who he was, that he didn’t have a persona to maintain. For all the “Prince of Darkness” schtick, we all knew behind it all was just Uncle Ozzy, wondering to himself, “What the fuck am I talking about?”

I think that’s the thing a lot of people don’t get about Ozzy Osbourne fans. We all have stories about the guy we love to tell with affection. We may not have known him personally, but we all felt like we did. He was our imp, and we needed him in our lives. And while I may have stopped buying his albums in the 1980s, I never stopped being a fan. I always maintained my affection for Uncle Ozzy. Like I said, he was family.

I never felt that familial connection any stronger than when Ozzy died earlier this week. A lot of legendary artists and celebrities have died in the last few years. Many of them I quite liked. But when I found out Ozzy died it hit me hard. It was a gut punch. I lost a part of my family. I lost a part of my youth. He was like a relative I’d lost touch with, but whose loss I felt no less because of it. I was at work when I found out, and was glad I only had an hour to go in my shift, because I immediately teared up, and I no longer wanted to be there. I watched the clock until time to go, and was relieved for a chance to get into the bathroom and compose myself before leaving for home. Uncle Ozzy was dead.

We were all surprised at Ozzy’s passing. Especially after he had such a spectacular last gig with Black Sabbath, and a proper send-off by his fans and fellow musicians, just a few weeks ago. We all knew Ozzy’s health was failing and was probably not long for this world, but I think most of us were like me, and thought we’d have him at least for a few more months, if not a few more years.

I doubt anything I’ve said here came anywhere near summing up John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne. But that’s not what I was trying to do. I just wanted to think about what he meant to me. In the end, if I had to point to any one thing that sums up the essence of who and what Ozzy Osbourne was to all of us who had affection for him, it’s the fact that most of us just called him Ozzy. Not because he billed himself as such. His albums weren’t released as Ozzy. They were released by an artist named Ozzy Osbourne. We called him Ozzy because we loved him. And what better summation of a man and what he meant to his fans can there be?

It seems wrong to me that there’s no Ozzy in the world now. The world seems off-axis. We needed him in the world. He gave us permission to go fucking crazy and to have a little madness in us. One of The Old Gods has fallen, and we’ll never see his like again. That model was taken out of production a long time ago. They don’t make them like that anymore. I don’t think they can.

As I told friends recently after learning about Ozzy leaving us; it’s going to take a while to process this one. A world without Ozzy. But I’m just so glad he got so much love just a few weeks ago during his final show with Black Sabbath. I think his fans sent him out properly, showering him in love and adoration. He knew how much we loved him before he left us, and that's the greatest gift any of us can ask for. Ozzy knew we loved him.

Ozzy was right when he said, “This will end in fucking tears.” He was right. It has.