Just as I was about to start Highschool and had been playing guitar for about 4 years my little brother and his friends ‘borrowed’ my stereo, took it to his room and spent the entire evening with this album:

My brother told me that this album was the lead singer from Black Sabbath ( who they loved ) and that it was the most important album to come out EVER. The cover reminded me of  promos for’ The Exorcist “and I thought it was pretty cool that there was a cat on the cover.

To be honest, Metal wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was becoming a big thing so I learned some of the songs and paid attention to who was doing what. I liked Ozzy the best of the lot because he reminded me of Alice Cooper. He put on shows. He had created a character. His songs had great lyrics.

However, I was never a super fan and I never went to a concert but Ozzy was important to they fans I knew- a lot of them were suburban kids and they didn’t dress up like Ozzy- they wore his concert t-shirts, wrote his name on their school books and hung is posters on their walls. When they played his music, they listened to it as opposed to reacting to it- which yes are two different things.

These kids loved Ozzy- after we all went into our 50’s and had kids and then grandchildren of our own- they STILL loved him. I guess I found that all very endearing.

It didn’t take a  bunch of braincells to realize that Ozzy was the soundtrack of their youth.

When my kids found out that Ozzy  was older then their Mom and around the same age as their Dad- that slayed them.

One day I was listening to one of my cassettes and ” Crazy Train ” started to play. My youngest son- who was in Junior High said, ” That guy is Hella Old, but he’s funny. ”

I have heard Ozzy called a lot of things but ‘ funny’ wasn’t one of them. I asked what he found so funny- I thought it was the theatrics but then he said, ‘ his TV show Mom. He’s a funny guy.”

So yes, me and my family started to watch the Osbournes- mostly because my sons loved watching Ozzy. Sharon hit a little to close to home ( ahem ) so they didn’t exactly laugh at her.

As I look back on it now, I think my sons became fans of Ozzy’s for the same reason my brother and his friends became fans.

There was something about him that they understood- that they may have seen in the people around then and they took joy and strength from that.

All in all, that is not a bad way to be remembered.