The classic rock band Ozzy Osbourne wanted to join: “It was just so profound”
It’s impossible to imagine someone like Ozzy Osbourne without a horde of demons following him everywhere he goes. Though the ‘Prince of Darkness’ persona has taken a few dents in recent years, seeing him become the world’s most bumbling old man in The Osbournes, there’s still something about seeing him in the flesh that conjures up the spirit of all things heavy metal. That wasn’t really Osbourne’s plan starting out, and from the moment that he started singing, his goal was to become part of The Beatles.
Then again, was there anyone of Osbourne’s generation who the Fab Four didn’t influence in some capacity? There had been rock and roll artists before them who had tried their hand at making a name for themselves, but the spirit of those four lads from Liverpool suddenly made everything feel more exciting when their music played over the loudspeaker.
That’s before they even got to their later career when they started experimenting, too. Though the moptop era was all well and good, hearing them make albums like Sgt Peppers may as well have been a leap off a cliff in the 1960s, hearing them talking about recreational drug use and being absolute heathens by daring to grow moustaches in immerse themselves in the psychedelic scene.
But the moptop era was actually what hooked Osbourne right from the start, telling Jack Black, “The song that made me decide what I want to do in my life was ‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles. I had this blue transistor radio – I remember it like it was yesterday – and I went, ‘Fuck… what is this?’ It was so profound! They just fired my imagination. I wanted to be a Beatle.”
For as much as he shouted their praises, it’s hard to really find any Beatles influence on the first Black Sabbath record. The group had clearly been listening to a lot of British rock to get their foot in the door, but it had a lot more to do with acts like Cream and Led Zeppelin than anything remotely pop-flavoured.
In fact, if The Beatles were the bright sunshine on the radio, Black Sabbath was the equivalent of a storm cloud. They never wanted to be pop stars, but seeing them sharing chart positions with artists like Simon and Garfunkel is still one of the most surreal things to see as the 1970s was underway.
Once they got people used to their thunderous sound, Osbourne did end up having a bit more of a Beatles influence in the way that he sang. When it came time for him to take things down a notch, Osbourne did have that distinct nasal cadence in half of his songs, almost like he was trying to channel some sort of John Lennon vocal tone whenever he sang ballads like ‘Changes’.
No matter how heavy the tunes became, Osbourne still had endless love for The Beatles in his solo career, especially when he dipped into happier fare like ‘Crazy Train’. He wanted to be the one up there singing songs like ‘Hey Jude’, but he would have to settle for playing ‘Paranoid’ instead. It’s definitely not the same dream, but it’s still a decent trade.
