The Beautiful Death Of Ozzy Osbourne – How Metal Teaches Us to Live

Ozzy you are greatly missed. Can't believe you've been gone already for a year. But mostly not forgotten. (RIP) Prince of darkness 🤘🏻😢

A symptom of the universe a love that never dies

Ozzy was loved so much because he was real. He seemed to have kept himself grounded. He remembered where he came from, guys like him and Lemmy could be the guys you hung out with at the pub. I'm sure a lot of us have, or had guys we drank and partied with who had the qualities of an Ozzy or Lemmy, they just weren't famous. There are some musicians that you may love their music but you know they're an arse, you probably wouldn't want to hang with them. When Lemmy passed it was almost like losing a family member and I felt the same way when Ozzy passed, that's when you know they touched you in some way that went beyond their music.
RIP OZZY. RIP LEMMY. 🤘

Part of why people forgave Ozzy compared to others is definitely down to what they did, and how they owned it. Hulk Hogan never apologised for his lifetime of stabbing people in the back and various isms. He dies an unapologetic ism spewer, leading to the cheers, jeers and scorn afterwards.
Ozzy did not do the "Oh poor me", or "Look what I did". He said it was evil, and he did it to someone else, he was not the victim, he owned being the malefactor. Most people who attack partners either say nothing, or are performative, usually making it about them; "I did this and this is how it makes me feel, please pity me"; Ozzy did not do that. Nor was he noted as a spewer of isms; I honestly don't really think he cared about other people's sexuality or ethnicity, in an odd way, his brain just did not go there, it never occurred to him, even as a working class white guy from Aston.
Ozzy never pretended to be perfect, owned his bad things and tried to change, and changed, even the doves and the bat, he is open and honest about how awful they were, however unwitting the bat incident was. (He was also genuinely funny. Like the time his first wife accidentally gave his marijuana cake made with weapons grade skunk to the local vicar, the vicar tried some, and tried to hold a bring and buy sale for Martians while only wearing his priest dog collar and nothing else).
So, yeah. This is part of why people were more sanguine over Ozzy, warts and all, compared to Hogan, and many other deaths. He was flawed, messy, did some vile stuff, but never hid it, lied about it, and owned it and tried to be a better person than his mind tried to make him (his own family from its history thought he would end up some combination of army, prison, early grave), and that takes work, that takes a lot more effort than most people are willing to put in.
I don't like Sharon, but she is why he lived so long, and no-one can say she lacked patience dealing with a someone with a mind like Ozzy.
And, all respect to the rest of Sabbath, they would not get the pull for a final gig on their own, without Ozzy, for all their magnificent influence on rock and metal; not bad for four working class kids from Aston, and not bad for a guy who inherited the "family illness" (an oft used Midlands euphemism for extreme personality disorders that often follow families around, like bipolar and BPD) like Ozzy. A life fully lived, if not always well lived.

Legacy; the only true immortality is to be the worst copper merchant in history.

This is so cool, I just started reading Kahn-Harris' book "Extreme Metal". Very happy to have heard of this one and excited to get it! Ozzy has been a huge inspiration for me and has represented a really profound shift in my understanding and beliefs, from the things that I was brought up to believe were evil or bad, to what was really true about "dark" things and about Ozzy and how good he really was at the end of the day. Thanks so much for this!

Ozzy Osbourne is still the greatest and may his soul rest in peace