Black Sabbath, \u201cBlack Sabbath\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ozzy-black-sabbath.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tMusicologists will never agree on the precise moment that heavy metal was born, but there\u2019s a strong argument to be made it took place at Black Sabbath\u2019s rehearsal hall in 1969 when they wrote a song so powerful it became the name of their new band. \u201cWe knew we had something,\u201d Iommi writes in his memoir, Iron Man<\/em>. \u201cYou could feel it, the hairs stood up on your arms, it just felt so different.\u201d The lyrics to the six-minute song were inspired by a memory Geezer Butler had of waking up one morning after reading a book about the occult and seeing a large black figure standing at the edge of his bed. Osbourne\u2019s vocal delivery is haunting, including chilling moans of \u201coh noooo\u201d and \u201cplease God help me,\u201d and the song builds to a soaring climax. It set the stage for not just every Black Sabbath song that followed, but also an entirely new genre of music.\u00a0\u2014Andy Greene<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\nBlack Sabbath, \u201cParanoid\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"UNSPECIFIED](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
![\"UNSPECIFIED](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ozzy-paranoid.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tUp until the summer of 1970, heavy metal was dismissed by much of the music industry as a fringe genre with little mass appeal. But then a little band from Birmingham, England released \u201cParanoid\u201d as the leadoff single from their second LP, and watched it chart all over the world, peaking at Number Four in the U.K. and Number 61 in America. The song, which was starts with a Tony Iommi riff, came together in the final hours of the sessions for an album the group was planning to call War Pigs<\/em>. Once they realized the brilliance of their impromptu creation, they changed the name of the album to Paranoid<\/em>. The rest is heavy metal history. And over the past 50 years, whether he was playing solo or with Black Sabbath, Osbourne was unable to leave any concert stage without playing it. \u201cI just call it my anthem,\u201d Osbourne said in 2019. \u201cIt\u2019s a simple song with an effective rhythm. It\u2019s got its own color, it\u2019s got its own vibe. I like to think that people in the years to come will still get enjoyment out of it. Every now and then you get a song from nowhere, it\u2019s a gift.\u201d \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\nBlack Sabbath, \u201cIron Man\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"(NO](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ozzy-iron-man.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tAfter a sighing guitar note and a robotic voice proclaiming, \u201cI am Iron Man,\u201d Osbourne narrates a sci-fi horror story about a jilted metal monster on this hit off Sabbath\u2019s Paranoid <\/em>album. \u201cThis is about a guy who invented a time machine, and he goes through time and finds the world is going to end,\u201d Osbourne said in 1970, explaining bassist Geezer Butler\u2019s lyrics. \u201cComing back, he turns to iron and people won\u2019t listen to him; they think he\u2019s not real. He goes a bit barmy and decides to get his revenge by killing people. He tries to do good but in the end it turns into bad.\u201d The song\u2019s power comes from Tony Iommi\u2019s lumbering guitar riff, but it\u2019s the sadness in Osbourne\u2019s voice as he sings, \u201cNobody wants him, they just turn their heads\/Nobody helps him, now he has his revenge,\u201d that made it an instant classic. \u2014Kory Grow<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\nBlack Sabbath, \u201cChanges\u201d (1972)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-changes.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tBlack Sabbath\u2019s 1972 piano ballad \u201cChanges\u201d is a very atypical song for the band, but it started in very typical fashion: Tony Iommi doing coke late in the evening and messing around with a melody. This was on the piano in the ballroom of a huge Bel Air mansion they used while recording Vol. 4<\/em>, and Ozzy happened to overhear what he was doing. \u201cI hummed a melody over the top,\u201d Ozzy wrote in his memoir, I Am Ozzy<\/em>, \u201cand Geezer [Butler] wrote these heartbreaking lyrics about the break-up Bill [Ward] was going through with his wife at the time. I thought the song was brilliant from the moment we first recorded it.\u201d It was never released a single, but it became a fan favorite and the first sign that Ozzy had more range as an artist than the critics suspected. Sabbath only played the song a handful of times in 1972 and 1973 because it\u2019s so wildly different than everything else in their catalog, but in 2003 Ozzy re-cut it as a duet with his daughter Kelly during the peak of Osbournes <\/em>mania.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\nBlack Sabbath, \u201cSabbath Bloody Sabbath\u201d (1973)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ozzy-sabbath-bloody-sabbath.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tBlack Sabbath wrote their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath<\/em>, in a haunted castle, which explains why Ozzy Osbourne sounds ghoulishly possessed, as he bellows his revenge at all the people who\u2019ve doubted him. Even the sweet, soft-rock parts of the song find Osbourne railing against liars all leading to screechy hellfire: \u201cSabbath bloody Sabbath\/Nothing more to do,\u201d he howls. \u201cLiving just for dying\/Dying just for you.\u201d \u201cThat, to me, was the pinnacle of Black Sabbath,\u201d Osbourne said in 2004. \u201cI also discovered, as a singer, the person to harmonize with is yourself \u2014 there\u2019s no one who sounds more like you and you.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cI Don\u2019t Know\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"WEST](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-i-dont-know.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\t\u201cI Don\u2019t Know\u201d opens with the sound of a gong recorded in reverse, which makes for a perfectly disorienting intro to a song about confusion. \u201cWhen people get successful they start becoming backstreet philosophers,\u201d Osbourne once told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m not that kind of guy, I\u2019m a dyslexic fucking rock & roller, so \u2018I Don\u2019t Know\u2019 is me saying, \u2018Don\u2019t ask me questions, I don\u2019t know.’\u201d \u201cYou gotta believe in someone,\u201d he sings over a crisp guitar riff, \u201cAsking who is right\/Asking me who to follow\/Don\u2019t ask me, I don\u2019t know.<\/em>\u201d The track opened the singer\u2019s debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz<\/em>, and with Osbourne\u2019s Lennon-esque delivery of some especially Lennon-esque lyrics along with a pyrotechnic Randy Rhoads guitar solo, it set the tone perfectly for the rest of his career. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cCrazy Train\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"(NO](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-crazy-train.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tAll aboooaard!<\/em> \u201cCrazy Train\u201d was Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s first solo hit and the perfect introduction to his career after Black Sabbath. With a quick-paced, chugging guitar riff by Randy Rhoads and lyrics about feeling Cold War Weltschmerz and crying out for peace by bassist Bob Daisley, Osbourne cast off the heavy boots of lead of his previous band and forged a new kind of metal that was distinctly Eighties. His voice sounds both optimistic and cautious as he sings the opening line, \u201cCrazy, but that\u2019s how it goes\u201d before he lets it escalate into his trademark keening hysteria for the chorus, \u201cMental wounds still heeaaling.\u201d \u201cWhen we did \u2018Crazy Train,\u2019 I knew we had something good,\u201d Osbourne once told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cIt was a magical time.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cMr. Crowley\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-mr-crowley.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tJimmy Page spent much of the Seventies denying rumors that Led Zeppelin\u2019s music was inspired by English satanist Aleister Crowley, but at the dawn of the Eighties Osbourne went out and called his second solo single \u201cMr. Crowley.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d read several books about Aleister Crowley,\u201d he wrote in the liner notes to the box set The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. \u201cWhile we were recording the Blizzard of Ozz <\/em>album there was a pack of tarot cards he had designed lying around the studio. Well, one thing led to another and the song \u2018Mr. Crowley\u2019 was born.\u201d Co-written with Randy Rhodes and bassist Bob Daisley, the song reached Number 46 in the U.K. and, after the huge success of \u201cCrazy Train,\u201d solidified the idea that Ozzy the solo artist was more than just a fluke success. He was going to be around for a long time.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cSuicide Solution\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-suicide-solution.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tOzzy Osbourne was deep in the throes of alcoholism when he began work on Blizzard of Ozz<\/em>, inspiring bassist\/lyricist Bob Daisley to pen a song about the potentially fatal consequence of his addiction. \u201cWine is fine, but whiskey\u2019s quicker,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSuicide is slow with liqueur\/Take a bottle, drown your sorrows\/Then it floods away tomorrows.\u201d It was one of the standout tracks on the album, and it\u2019s been a live favorite for decades, but some critics felt the song was somehow pro-suicide. \u201c\u2018Suicide Solution\u2019 wasn\u2019t written about, \u2018Oh that\u2019s the solution, suicide,’\u201d Osbourne said in 2020. \u201cI was a heavy drinker and I was drinking myself to an early grave. It was suicide solution.\u201d Five years after the song hit, the parents of a teenager who\u2019d died by suicide sued Osbourne, claiming the song was responsible. A judge ultimately dismissed the case. \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cFlying High Again\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"(MANDATORY](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-flying-high-again.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Watal Asanuma\/Shinko Music\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tOzzy never hid his demons, especially his addictions to drugs and alcohol. On \u201cFlying High Again,\u201d he celebrated them. \u201cYou can\u2019t see what my eyes see,\u201d he sings urgently about people who judge him. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t be inside of me \u2026 flying high again.\u201d It\u2019s a celebration of tripping out as Ozzy pointed his kaleidoscope inward. \u201cI suddenly realized that when I was a drug addict, I used to write things like \u2018Flying High Again,\u2019 \u2018Snowblind,\u2019 all this shit,\u201d Osbourne told Spin <\/em>in 1986. \u201cAnd the other night, I thought, \u2018Fuckin\u2019 \u2018ell, I sing one song for it and then straight after, I sing, one against it.\u2019 But the thing is, that\u2019s OK. \u2026 It\u2019s part of my life. It\u2019s part of what I am and what I will be.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cDiary of a Madman\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"LONDON](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-diary-of-a-madmen.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tOzzy Osbourne always described his musical partnership with Randy Rhoads as one of the most significant of his life. The pair started work on what would become \u201cDiary of a Madman\u201d \u2014 their sprawling, gothic tableau of insanity \u2014 while sharing a London apartment. Once while Rhoads was taking a classical guitar lesson, Osbourne ambled in and asked what he was playing, as he later told Revolver<\/a><\/em>. \u201cMozart,\u201d Rhoads said. \u201cRight. We\u2019re nicking it,\u201d Osbourne replied. \u201cWe can\u2019t nick Mozart,\u201d Rhoads said. They worked on it, bassist Bob Daisley wrote some lyrics reflecting on a nervous breakdown he\u2019d had at age 16, and Osbourne channeled the words into a Munch-like scream. \u201cBy the time Randy had finished messing around with it, there was hardly any Mozart left,\u201d Osbourne recalled. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cBark at the Moon\u201d (1983)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-bark-at-the-moon.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Gary Gershoff\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tWhen Ozzy began work on 1983\u2019s Bark at the Moon<\/em>, he once again had to re-establish himself as an artist without an iconic, beloved guitarist by his side. Randy Rhoads had died in a fluke plane crash the previous year, and Ozzy recruited Jake E. Lee to take on the near-impossible task of replacing him. The first song anyone heard from this new era of Ozzy\u2019s career was the title track to his next album. The song is about a werewolf-like creature that returns from the dead to terrorize a town, essentially making it an \u201cIron Man\u201d for the eighties. \u201cThe title for this song actually came from a joke I used to tell,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the liner notes for his hits set The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>, \u201cwhere the punch line was \u2018eat shit and bark at the moon.’\u201d\u00a0The song is both a showcase for Lee\u2019s virtuosic guitar chops and Ozzy\u2019s ability to turn a metal song into a horror movie of the mind. Lee\u2019s partnership with Ozzy lasted just one more album (1986\u2019s The Ultimate Sin<\/em>), and this song is the duo at their best.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cShot in the Dark\u201d (1986)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"(MANDATORY](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/ozzy-shot-in-the-dark.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Koh Hasebe\/Shinko Music\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tEven though Ozzy Osbourne had been making hits for a decade and a half, he considered \u201cShot in the Dark,\u201d cowritten with bassist Phil Soussan, his first. The track, which was his first to make Billboard\u2019s <\/em>pop chart and dominated MTV with its fantasy video about possession, sports a tense guitar line over which Osbourne sings about being an ambivalent hitman. \u201cPaid for the kill, but it doesn\u2019t seem right,\u201d he sings, \u201cSomething there I can\u2019t believe in.\u201d But its cutting chorus \u2014 \u201cJust a shot in the daaark\u201d \u2014 made it a hit. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe Ozzy Osbourne with a hit single,\u201d he wrote in the liner notes to The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. \u201cI laugh so much every time I see the video for this song. I look like a tattooed truck driver in a sequined dress.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cClose My Eyes Forever\u201d (with Lita Ford) (1989)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ozzy-close-my-eyes-forever.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Jim Steinfeldt\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tLita Ford\u2019s first concert was seeing Black Sabbath at age 13 in 1971. Nearly two decades later, after she established herself with the Runaways and as a solo artist, she found herself jamming and getting drunk with Sabbath\u2019s lead singer and his wife at her new house. \u201cThere was a little side room with a guitar and keyboard and we started messing around, singing and playing, and we wrote \u2018Close My Eyes Forever,’\u201d she once recalled<\/a>. The song features Ford\u2019s spidery guitar playing, and the two artists share vocals about contemplating love and eternity. \u201cNext thing I know the sun was coming up,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI looked at him and I went \u2018Uh-oh, we\u2019re in trouble.\u2019 Sharon had been waiting all night. \u2026 [But] then we had this hit song.\u201d It peaked at Number Eight on Billboard\u2019s <\/em>pop chart. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cMama, I\u2019m Coming Home\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-mama-im-coming-home.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Martyn Goodacre\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\t\u201cCrazy Train\u201d may be Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s signature post-Sabbath song, but his 1991 power ballad \u201cMama, I\u2019m Home Coming\u201d is actually the one and only time that one of his solo tunes entered the Top 40. He wrote it with Zakk Wylde and Lemmy Kilmister for his album No More Tears<\/em>. \u201cEveryone thinks it\u2019s about my mother,\u201d Osbourne told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cBut it\u2019s not. I call me wife, Sharon, Mama\u2026I had the idea for this and [Lemmy] wrote the lyrics in about three hours.\u201d The song became a mainstay on MTV and helped Osbourne win over an entirely new audience. It remained a key part of his live show for years, and when Sharon was going through her cancer battle in the early 2000s, he had a hard time getting through it every night without sobbing.\u00a0 \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Change the World\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-i-dont-wanna-change-the-world.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Paul Natkin\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tOzzy Osbourne always sounded best when he was being himself, and few songs were as personally Ozzy as \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Change the World\u201d (even if Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s Lemmy Kilmister wrote the lyrics). The track perfectly captured Osbourne\u2019s defiance and sense of humor at the same time. \u201cTell me I\u2019m a sinner, I\u2019ve got news for you,\u201d he sneers at one point. \u201cI spoke to God this morning, and he don\u2019t like you.\u201d \u201cThis song\u2019s meaning is self-explanatory, in respect that lines like, \u2018Tell me I\u2019m a sinner, I got news for you,\u2019 well, it\u2019s kind of a spoof on me, you know,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the liner notes for The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. Thanks to Zakk Wylde\u2019s buoyant guitar riffs and a knockout chorus, the song became a set-list staple for Osbourne, and the performance captured on his Live & Loud <\/em>album later won him a Grammy. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cNo More Tears\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"Ozzy](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-no-more-tears.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Martyn Goodacre\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tThe Nineties were a brutal time for nearly every metal act of decades past. Heavyweights like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and even Black Sabbath simply didn\u2019t know how to adapt to the era of grunge. Ozzy Osbourne was the lone exception. He kicked off the decade with No More Tears<\/em>, his second collaboration with guitarist Zakk Wylde. The title track grew out of a jam session between Wylde and the rest of Osbourne\u2019s band from the era, and they eventually fleshed it out into a six-minute, multi-part epic that could almost be labelled prog metal. \u201c[Producer] John Purdell wrote the lyrics and I came up with the melody line,\u201d Osbourne told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cIt brought me into the Nineties.\u201d\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cI Just Want You\u201d (1996)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"UNSPECIFIED](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ozzy-i-just-want-you.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Mick Hutson\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tAmid all of life\u2019s contradictions, all Ozzy Osbourne wanted was stability \u2014 and that\u2019s the idea behind \u201cI Just Want You.\u201d \u201cThis is my favorite song from Ozzmosis<\/em>,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the Ozzman Cometh <\/em>liner notes. \u201c[Songwriter Jim Vallance and I] came up with these incredible lines: \u2018There are no impossible dreams, there are no invisible seams.\u2019 And after all those incredible things said in the song, the one line, \u2018I don\u2019t ask much, I just want you,\u2019 seemed to be a nice way to sum it all up.\u201d But it\u2019s the song\u2019s urgent bridge \u2014 on which Osbourne sings, \u201cI\u2019m sick and tired of being sick and tired\/I used to go to bed so high and wired\u201d \u2014 where the song\u2019s real honesty comes through. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cDreamer\u201d (2001)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"UNITED](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ozzy-dreamer.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Mick Hutson\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\t\u201cPeople say [\u2018Dreamer\u2019 is] like Ozzy\u2019s \u2018Imagine,\u2019 and I take that as a compliment,\u201d Osbourne once said. Thanks to a gentle piano line and George Martin-esque orchestrations, Osbourne lived out all his fantasies of becoming a member of his favorite band, the Beatles. On the track, he sings about the fate of the environment and his hope for the future, leading to a schmaltzy chorus: \u201cI\u2019m just a dreamer\/I dream my life away\/I\u2019m just a dreamer\/Who dreams of better days.\u201d But just like the Beatles at their most syrupy, Osbourne\u2019s voice always sounds sincere. \u201c[The song] lends itself to a bit of hope,\u201d he once said. \u201cIt\u2019s very positive.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n- \n
\n\u201cPatient Number 9\u201d (2022)<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t![\"INGLEWOOD,](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ozzy-patient-number-9.jpg?w=300\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Kevork Djansezian\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\n\tOn 2020\u2019s Ordinary Man <\/em>and his Grammy-winning Patient Number 9<\/em>, Osbourne collaborated with artists who inspired him, his peers, and others who he\u2019d inspired. On \u201cPatient Number 9,\u201d he worked with his longtime foil, guitarist Zakk Wylde, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo (once a member of Osbourne\u2019s solo band), the Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 Chad Smith, producer Andrew Watt, and guitarist Jeff Beck. The track is a sprawling, dark epic in line with Osbourne\u2019s early solo recordings as he sings convincingly, once again, about going crazy. \u201cOzzy\u2019s voice has always been a godsend to me,\u201d Trujillo once said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just beautiful \u2014 the soul, the grease, the grit, and even the notes that he may struggle with are part of what makes him so special.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
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\n\tMusicologists will never agree on the precise moment that heavy metal was born, but there\u2019s a strong argument to be made it took place at Black Sabbath\u2019s rehearsal hall in 1969 when they wrote a song so powerful it became the name of their new band. \u201cWe knew we had something,\u201d Iommi writes in his memoir, Iron Man<\/em>. \u201cYou could feel it, the hairs stood up on your arms, it just felt so different.\u201d The lyrics to the six-minute song were inspired by a memory Geezer Butler had of waking up one morning after reading a book about the occult and seeing a large black figure standing at the edge of his bed. Osbourne\u2019s vocal delivery is haunting, including chilling moans of \u201coh noooo\u201d and \u201cplease God help me,\u201d and the song builds to a soaring climax. It set the stage for not just every Black Sabbath song that followed, but also an entirely new genre of music.\u00a0\u2014Andy Greene<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tUp until the summer of 1970, heavy metal was dismissed by much of the music industry as a fringe genre with little mass appeal. But then a little band from Birmingham, England released \u201cParanoid\u201d as the leadoff single from their second LP, and watched it chart all over the world, peaking at Number Four in the U.K. and Number 61 in America. The song, which was starts with a Tony Iommi riff, came together in the final hours of the sessions for an album the group was planning to call War Pigs<\/em>. Once they realized the brilliance of their impromptu creation, they changed the name of the album to Paranoid<\/em>. The rest is heavy metal history. And over the past 50 years, whether he was playing solo or with Black Sabbath, Osbourne was unable to leave any concert stage without playing it. \u201cI just call it my anthem,\u201d Osbourne said in 2019. \u201cIt\u2019s a simple song with an effective rhythm. It\u2019s got its own color, it\u2019s got its own vibe. I like to think that people in the years to come will still get enjoyment out of it. Every now and then you get a song from nowhere, it\u2019s a gift.\u201d \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tAfter a sighing guitar note and a robotic voice proclaiming, \u201cI am Iron Man,\u201d Osbourne narrates a sci-fi horror story about a jilted metal monster on this hit off Sabbath\u2019s Paranoid <\/em>album. \u201cThis is about a guy who invented a time machine, and he goes through time and finds the world is going to end,\u201d Osbourne said in 1970, explaining bassist Geezer Butler\u2019s lyrics. \u201cComing back, he turns to iron and people won\u2019t listen to him; they think he\u2019s not real. He goes a bit barmy and decides to get his revenge by killing people. He tries to do good but in the end it turns into bad.\u201d The song\u2019s power comes from Tony Iommi\u2019s lumbering guitar riff, but it\u2019s the sadness in Osbourne\u2019s voice as he sings, \u201cNobody wants him, they just turn their heads\/Nobody helps him, now he has his revenge,\u201d that made it an instant classic. \u2014Kory Grow<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tBlack Sabbath\u2019s 1972 piano ballad \u201cChanges\u201d is a very atypical song for the band, but it started in very typical fashion: Tony Iommi doing coke late in the evening and messing around with a melody. This was on the piano in the ballroom of a huge Bel Air mansion they used while recording Vol. 4<\/em>, and Ozzy happened to overhear what he was doing. \u201cI hummed a melody over the top,\u201d Ozzy wrote in his memoir, I Am Ozzy<\/em>, \u201cand Geezer [Butler] wrote these heartbreaking lyrics about the break-up Bill [Ward] was going through with his wife at the time. I thought the song was brilliant from the moment we first recorded it.\u201d It was never released a single, but it became a fan favorite and the first sign that Ozzy had more range as an artist than the critics suspected. Sabbath only played the song a handful of times in 1972 and 1973 because it\u2019s so wildly different than everything else in their catalog, but in 2003 Ozzy re-cut it as a duet with his daughter Kelly during the peak of Osbournes <\/em>mania.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tBlack Sabbath wrote their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath<\/em>, in a haunted castle, which explains why Ozzy Osbourne sounds ghoulishly possessed, as he bellows his revenge at all the people who\u2019ve doubted him. Even the sweet, soft-rock parts of the song find Osbourne railing against liars all leading to screechy hellfire: \u201cSabbath bloody Sabbath\/Nothing more to do,\u201d he howls. \u201cLiving just for dying\/Dying just for you.\u201d \u201cThat, to me, was the pinnacle of Black Sabbath,\u201d Osbourne said in 2004. \u201cI also discovered, as a singer, the person to harmonize with is yourself \u2014 there\u2019s no one who sounds more like you and you.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI Don\u2019t Know\u201d opens with the sound of a gong recorded in reverse, which makes for a perfectly disorienting intro to a song about confusion. \u201cWhen people get successful they start becoming backstreet philosophers,\u201d Osbourne once told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m not that kind of guy, I\u2019m a dyslexic fucking rock & roller, so \u2018I Don\u2019t Know\u2019 is me saying, \u2018Don\u2019t ask me questions, I don\u2019t know.’\u201d \u201cYou gotta believe in someone,\u201d he sings over a crisp guitar riff, \u201cAsking who is right\/Asking me who to follow\/Don\u2019t ask me, I don\u2019t know.<\/em>\u201d The track opened the singer\u2019s debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz<\/em>, and with Osbourne\u2019s Lennon-esque delivery of some especially Lennon-esque lyrics along with a pyrotechnic Randy Rhoads guitar solo, it set the tone perfectly for the rest of his career. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tAll aboooaard!<\/em> \u201cCrazy Train\u201d was Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s first solo hit and the perfect introduction to his career after Black Sabbath. With a quick-paced, chugging guitar riff by Randy Rhoads and lyrics about feeling Cold War Weltschmerz and crying out for peace by bassist Bob Daisley, Osbourne cast off the heavy boots of lead of his previous band and forged a new kind of metal that was distinctly Eighties. His voice sounds both optimistic and cautious as he sings the opening line, \u201cCrazy, but that\u2019s how it goes\u201d before he lets it escalate into his trademark keening hysteria for the chorus, \u201cMental wounds still heeaaling.\u201d \u201cWhen we did \u2018Crazy Train,\u2019 I knew we had something good,\u201d Osbourne once told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cIt was a magical time.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tJimmy Page spent much of the Seventies denying rumors that Led Zeppelin\u2019s music was inspired by English satanist Aleister Crowley, but at the dawn of the Eighties Osbourne went out and called his second solo single \u201cMr. Crowley.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d read several books about Aleister Crowley,\u201d he wrote in the liner notes to the box set The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. \u201cWhile we were recording the Blizzard of Ozz <\/em>album there was a pack of tarot cards he had designed lying around the studio. Well, one thing led to another and the song \u2018Mr. Crowley\u2019 was born.\u201d Co-written with Randy Rhodes and bassist Bob Daisley, the song reached Number 46 in the U.K. and, after the huge success of \u201cCrazy Train,\u201d solidified the idea that Ozzy the solo artist was more than just a fluke success. He was going to be around for a long time.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tOzzy Osbourne was deep in the throes of alcoholism when he began work on Blizzard of Ozz<\/em>, inspiring bassist\/lyricist Bob Daisley to pen a song about the potentially fatal consequence of his addiction. \u201cWine is fine, but whiskey\u2019s quicker,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSuicide is slow with liqueur\/Take a bottle, drown your sorrows\/Then it floods away tomorrows.\u201d It was one of the standout tracks on the album, and it\u2019s been a live favorite for decades, but some critics felt the song was somehow pro-suicide. \u201c\u2018Suicide Solution\u2019 wasn\u2019t written about, \u2018Oh that\u2019s the solution, suicide,’\u201d Osbourne said in 2020. \u201cI was a heavy drinker and I was drinking myself to an early grave. It was suicide solution.\u201d Five years after the song hit, the parents of a teenager who\u2019d died by suicide sued Osbourne, claiming the song was responsible. A judge ultimately dismissed the case. \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tOzzy never hid his demons, especially his addictions to drugs and alcohol. On \u201cFlying High Again,\u201d he celebrated them. \u201cYou can\u2019t see what my eyes see,\u201d he sings urgently about people who judge him. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t be inside of me \u2026 flying high again.\u201d It\u2019s a celebration of tripping out as Ozzy pointed his kaleidoscope inward. \u201cI suddenly realized that when I was a drug addict, I used to write things like \u2018Flying High Again,\u2019 \u2018Snowblind,\u2019 all this shit,\u201d Osbourne told Spin <\/em>in 1986. \u201cAnd the other night, I thought, \u2018Fuckin\u2019 \u2018ell, I sing one song for it and then straight after, I sing, one against it.\u2019 But the thing is, that\u2019s OK. \u2026 It\u2019s part of my life. It\u2019s part of what I am and what I will be.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tOzzy Osbourne always described his musical partnership with Randy Rhoads as one of the most significant of his life. The pair started work on what would become \u201cDiary of a Madman\u201d \u2014 their sprawling, gothic tableau of insanity \u2014 while sharing a London apartment. Once while Rhoads was taking a classical guitar lesson, Osbourne ambled in and asked what he was playing, as he later told Revolver<\/a><\/em>. \u201cMozart,\u201d Rhoads said. \u201cRight. We\u2019re nicking it,\u201d Osbourne replied. \u201cWe can\u2019t nick Mozart,\u201d Rhoads said. They worked on it, bassist Bob Daisley wrote some lyrics reflecting on a nervous breakdown he\u2019d had at age 16, and Osbourne channeled the words into a Munch-like scream. \u201cBy the time Randy had finished messing around with it, there was hardly any Mozart left,\u201d Osbourne recalled. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Ozzy began work on 1983\u2019s Bark at the Moon<\/em>, he once again had to re-establish himself as an artist without an iconic, beloved guitarist by his side. Randy Rhoads had died in a fluke plane crash the previous year, and Ozzy recruited Jake E. Lee to take on the near-impossible task of replacing him. The first song anyone heard from this new era of Ozzy\u2019s career was the title track to his next album. The song is about a werewolf-like creature that returns from the dead to terrorize a town, essentially making it an \u201cIron Man\u201d for the eighties. \u201cThe title for this song actually came from a joke I used to tell,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the liner notes for his hits set The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>, \u201cwhere the punch line was \u2018eat shit and bark at the moon.’\u201d\u00a0The song is both a showcase for Lee\u2019s virtuosic guitar chops and Ozzy\u2019s ability to turn a metal song into a horror movie of the mind. Lee\u2019s partnership with Ozzy lasted just one more album (1986\u2019s The Ultimate Sin<\/em>), and this song is the duo at their best.\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tEven though Ozzy Osbourne had been making hits for a decade and a half, he considered \u201cShot in the Dark,\u201d cowritten with bassist Phil Soussan, his first. The track, which was his first to make Billboard\u2019s <\/em>pop chart and dominated MTV with its fantasy video about possession, sports a tense guitar line over which Osbourne sings about being an ambivalent hitman. \u201cPaid for the kill, but it doesn\u2019t seem right,\u201d he sings, \u201cSomething there I can\u2019t believe in.\u201d But its cutting chorus \u2014 \u201cJust a shot in the daaark\u201d \u2014 made it a hit. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe Ozzy Osbourne with a hit single,\u201d he wrote in the liner notes to The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. \u201cI laugh so much every time I see the video for this song. I look like a tattooed truck driver in a sequined dress.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tLita Ford\u2019s first concert was seeing Black Sabbath at age 13 in 1971. Nearly two decades later, after she established herself with the Runaways and as a solo artist, she found herself jamming and getting drunk with Sabbath\u2019s lead singer and his wife at her new house. \u201cThere was a little side room with a guitar and keyboard and we started messing around, singing and playing, and we wrote \u2018Close My Eyes Forever,’\u201d she once recalled<\/a>. The song features Ford\u2019s spidery guitar playing, and the two artists share vocals about contemplating love and eternity. \u201cNext thing I know the sun was coming up,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI looked at him and I went \u2018Uh-oh, we\u2019re in trouble.\u2019 Sharon had been waiting all night. \u2026 [But] then we had this hit song.\u201d It peaked at Number Eight on Billboard\u2019s <\/em>pop chart. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cCrazy Train\u201d may be Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s signature post-Sabbath song, but his 1991 power ballad \u201cMama, I\u2019m Home Coming\u201d is actually the one and only time that one of his solo tunes entered the Top 40. He wrote it with Zakk Wylde and Lemmy Kilmister for his album No More Tears<\/em>. \u201cEveryone thinks it\u2019s about my mother,\u201d Osbourne told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cBut it\u2019s not. I call me wife, Sharon, Mama\u2026I had the idea for this and [Lemmy] wrote the lyrics in about three hours.\u201d The song became a mainstay on MTV and helped Osbourne win over an entirely new audience. It remained a key part of his live show for years, and when Sharon was going through her cancer battle in the early 2000s, he had a hard time getting through it every night without sobbing.\u00a0 \u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tOzzy Osbourne always sounded best when he was being himself, and few songs were as personally Ozzy as \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Change the World\u201d (even if Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s Lemmy Kilmister wrote the lyrics). The track perfectly captured Osbourne\u2019s defiance and sense of humor at the same time. \u201cTell me I\u2019m a sinner, I\u2019ve got news for you,\u201d he sneers at one point. \u201cI spoke to God this morning, and he don\u2019t like you.\u201d \u201cThis song\u2019s meaning is self-explanatory, in respect that lines like, \u2018Tell me I\u2019m a sinner, I got news for you,\u2019 well, it\u2019s kind of a spoof on me, you know,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the liner notes for The Ozzman Cometh<\/em>. Thanks to Zakk Wylde\u2019s buoyant guitar riffs and a knockout chorus, the song became a set-list staple for Osbourne, and the performance captured on his Live & Loud <\/em>album later won him a Grammy. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tThe Nineties were a brutal time for nearly every metal act of decades past. Heavyweights like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and even Black Sabbath simply didn\u2019t know how to adapt to the era of grunge. Ozzy Osbourne was the lone exception. He kicked off the decade with No More Tears<\/em>, his second collaboration with guitarist Zakk Wylde. The title track grew out of a jam session between Wylde and the rest of Osbourne\u2019s band from the era, and they eventually fleshed it out into a six-minute, multi-part epic that could almost be labelled prog metal. \u201c[Producer] John Purdell wrote the lyrics and I came up with the melody line,\u201d Osbourne told Planet Rock<\/em>. \u201cIt brought me into the Nineties.\u201d\u00a0\u2014A.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tAmid all of life\u2019s contradictions, all Ozzy Osbourne wanted was stability \u2014 and that\u2019s the idea behind \u201cI Just Want You.\u201d \u201cThis is my favorite song from Ozzmosis<\/em>,\u201d Osbourne wrote in the Ozzman Cometh <\/em>liner notes. \u201c[Songwriter Jim Vallance and I] came up with these incredible lines: \u2018There are no impossible dreams, there are no invisible seams.\u2019 And after all those incredible things said in the song, the one line, \u2018I don\u2019t ask much, I just want you,\u2019 seemed to be a nice way to sum it all up.\u201d But it\u2019s the song\u2019s urgent bridge \u2014 on which Osbourne sings, \u201cI\u2019m sick and tired of being sick and tired\/I used to go to bed so high and wired\u201d \u2014 where the song\u2019s real honesty comes through. \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cPeople say [\u2018Dreamer\u2019 is] like Ozzy\u2019s \u2018Imagine,\u2019 and I take that as a compliment,\u201d Osbourne once said. Thanks to a gentle piano line and George Martin-esque orchestrations, Osbourne lived out all his fantasies of becoming a member of his favorite band, the Beatles. On the track, he sings about the fate of the environment and his hope for the future, leading to a schmaltzy chorus: \u201cI\u2019m just a dreamer\/I dream my life away\/I\u2019m just a dreamer\/Who dreams of better days.\u201d But just like the Beatles at their most syrupy, Osbourne\u2019s voice always sounds sincere. \u201c[The song] lends itself to a bit of hope,\u201d he once said. \u201cIt\u2019s very positive.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n \t<\/p>\n \n\tOn 2020\u2019s Ordinary Man <\/em>and his Grammy-winning Patient Number 9<\/em>, Osbourne collaborated with artists who inspired him, his peers, and others who he\u2019d inspired. On \u201cPatient Number 9,\u201d he worked with his longtime foil, guitarist Zakk Wylde, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo (once a member of Osbourne\u2019s solo band), the Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 Chad Smith, producer Andrew Watt, and guitarist Jeff Beck. The track is a sprawling, dark epic in line with Osbourne\u2019s early solo recordings as he sings convincingly, once again, about going crazy. \u201cOzzy\u2019s voice has always been a godsend to me,\u201d Trujillo once said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just beautiful \u2014 the soul, the grease, the grit, and even the notes that he may struggle with are part of what makes him so special.\u201d \u2014K.G.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\nBlack Sabbath, \u201cParanoid\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n
Black Sabbath, \u201cIron Man\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n
Black Sabbath, \u201cChanges\u201d (1972)<\/h2>\n
Black Sabbath, \u201cSabbath Bloody Sabbath\u201d (1973)<\/h2>\n
\u201cI Don\u2019t Know\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n
\u201cCrazy Train\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n
\u201cMr. Crowley\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n
\u201cSuicide Solution\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n
\u201cFlying High Again\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n
\u201cDiary of a Madman\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n
\u201cBark at the Moon\u201d (1983)<\/h2>\n
\u201cShot in the Dark\u201d (1986)<\/h2>\n
\u201cClose My Eyes Forever\u201d (with Lita Ford) (1989)<\/h2>\n
\u201cMama, I\u2019m Coming Home\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n
\u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Change the World\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n
\u201cNo More Tears\u201d (1991)<\/h2>\n
\u201cI Just Want You\u201d (1996)<\/h2>\n
\u201cDreamer\u201d (2001)<\/h2>\n
\u201cPatient Number 9\u201d (2022)<\/h2>\n