“Reminds me of my LSD days”: Ozzy Osbourne picks his favourite Pink Floyd song
When rock ‘n’ roll seized control of Western culture in the 1960s, it brought with it a sense of freedom and anarchy that was at once exhilarating and abrasive. While hippies had their hearts in the right place, their minds were often miles away, floating on a cloud of psychedelic inertia. Of course, many creatives will vouch for the benefits of consciousness expansion, but we need only to study the tragic case of Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett to understand the risks involved.
The use of LSD throughout the 1960s and beyond is generally associated with colourful artists like The Beatles and The Incredible String Band. However, The Cure famously used shed-loads of the drug while piecing together their darkest album, Pornography, and the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, enjoyed a fling with the drug when he wasn’t creeping around graveyards and biting live bats.
Following the example of psychedelic era phenomena such as Pink Floyd and The Beatles, Osbourne and his seminal heavy metal band Black Sabbath appreciated a solid groove adorned with progressive textures. While Pink Floyd built upon The Beatles’ more intricate experimental material, Sabbath seemed to pick up the reins Paul McCartney left loose after recording ‘Helter Skelter’. Using this punchy, hard rock energy, Osbourne and his gloomy menagerie framed decidedly macabre and unholy themes.
In keeping with their hardcore aesthetic, Osbourne and Black Sabbath consumed hard drugs with hedonistic profusion. The early Sabbath albums were recorded in studio rooms dense with cannabis smoke, but the band would accept whatever came their way. Fortunately, the vast quantities of LSD Sabbath consumed didn’t dissuade them from their associative subject matter towards acoustic ditties about sunshine and daisies.
Speaking to Classic Rock, Osbourne recalled the creation of Black Sabbath album Vol. 4 as the peak of his acid consumption. “At that time in America, people were very fond of lacing your drinks with acid,” he said. “I didn’t care. I used to swallow handfuls of tabs at a time.”
Following the release of Vol. 4, Osbourne and his bandmates toured and continued to encounter psychedelic drugs wherever they turned. In 1973, the singer became particularly enamoured with Pink Floyd’s masterpiece album, The Dark Side of the Moon. Although psych rocker and LSD enthusiast Barrett was no longer with the band at this stage, the album became popular among post-hippie-era psychonauts.
Above all other tracks on the album, Osbourne became obsessed with ‘Money’. It is among the heaviest on the record and bounces along on a delightful blues-inspired groove. In a 2004 feature with Rolling Stone, he picked the song as one of his top ten favourites of all time, commenting simply, “Reminds me of my LSD days. I’m glad I survived.”
Indeed, it is remarkable that Osbourne has survived to see his late 70s, given the extent of his drug and alcohol abuse over the years. Although LSD is barely toxic and won’t usually cause any physical harm, its psychological impacts can be dramatic and not always in the short term. Osbourne had his wake-up call in the mid-1970s upon returning to the UK after a few years based across the Atlantic. “The end of it came when we got back to England,” he remembered. “I took ten tabs of acid, then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end, the horse turned round and told me to fuck off. That was it for me.”
