‘Miracle Man’: how Ozzy Osbourne prompted pigs to defecate en masse
Anything remotely associated with Ozzy Osbourne was enough to send a chill down people’s spines in the 1980s. While the thought of ‘The Prince of Darkness’ committing any heinous crime seems laughable these days, there was a moment when his nefarious extracurricular activities often landed him in trouble. Osbourne suffered a lot of unfair criticism during this time. However, one accusation was unavoidable, and being labelled a danger to animals was a title he earned in many ways.
The thought of Osbourne as a sinister figure looks a bit different now. Outside of becoming one of the biggest elder statesmen of rock and roll, Osbourne has become the bumbling dad of everyone who watched MTV back in the day. The Osbournes completely reinvented his image as a guy who was more than happy to take orders from his wife, Sharon, pick up the mess left behind by his beloved dogs and generally totter around the house like a comfortable man in his comfortable slippers.
As soon as he left Black Sabbath, he set out to reclaim the wild persona of his glory years. While Sabbath’s appeal often lay in their dark, macabre image, Osbourne took things to another level—biting the head off a dove during an album showcase meeting, a stunt that many found tasteless. Though he may have enjoyed the moment, it wasn’t until he bit into a bat onstage that people began to see him as truly unhinged.
But it was all part of the spectacle. Osbourne may have partied a lot more than the average rock and roll frontman, but he wasn’t sitting down to dine on fresh bat meat every night. He could be courteous to wildlife when he wanted to, but things took a drastic turn when he started the next chapter of his career with guitarist Zakk Wylde.
Since the man’s last name already implied that things were bound to get weird, ‘Miracle Man’ was the best indication that they were starting off right. ‘The Ozzman’ had already been dealing with some dated production coming out of The Ultimate Sin, so hearing him making his way back into heavier material was the perfect foot forward for when he was making his first steps back into the limelight.
When he descended upon an English farm to film the music video for the song, the music was a bit too much for the bowels of most of the animals, with Osbourne remembering, “When the music went on, the pigs all took a massive shit at the same time. Because it was so fucking loud in there. My wife went, ‘Oh, fuck!’ The playback started, and they all went pfffffftttt! 60 pigs shitting! I had a pair of brand-new suede boots on, and I never wore them again. I couldn’t get the fucking smell of pig shit out of them.”
At the same time, anyone who heard the song knew they would be in for something heavy before Osbourne even came in. Considering the video itself also featured Osbourne impaling famous evangelist Jimmy Swaggert, it wasn’t like he was trying to make a video that would send him to the top of the hit parade.
Then again, that sounds like it should be a complement to everyone involved with the production of the album. There have been many productions that people claim have scared them to death, but nothing is going to be a better honour than making an album heavy enough to make an animal shit on command.
