Me and Matt had tickets for Ozzy and Priest back in February. I was super excited to be seeing double O live (perhaps one last time) again. JP were a phenomenal addition and Matt was losing his shit about that because he hasn’t managed to see them since they toured Painkiller in the early 90’s.
Regular readers might recall how much I dug the last Priest album. Firepower featured heavily in my 2018 posts. I had loved the Sabbath swan song also and seeing them back together (almost entirely) for The End was pretty epic. Then the news came. Ozzy was sick. No More Tours 2 may be a stub I never tear from a ticket. He’d try to be back at the stump in time for Download festival in June. But the tour was cancelled. We looked to our orb for warning. He made it back to health in time for the rescheduled US leg of the tour but Judas Priest pretty much missed the UK for a whole album of promo.
Then Sharon rescheduled the UK for later on in 2019. We didn’t believe he’d be better in time. Sure enough those dates got cancelled too. Young Courtney at work came to me with genuine concern one morning and asked “is Ozzy gonna die?” The same way a kid asks their parents to confirm in the year that Santa is in question. I wanted to tell her ‘Of course not’, allay her fears, but I didn’t want to lie.
Post Malone got Osbourne back on the air and back on stage by autumn for an awards show performance. Promising. Then right at the end of the year he let slip in the press that he’d put together a new solo album. Zakk didn’t know anything about it. All the usual Blizzard Crew were out of the loop too.
Here is is then. While Ozzy was sick he was working. Making a new studio record we will receive in time for the 2020 tour.
Under The Graveyard sounds like a farewell in this context. A way of saying Goodbye to Romance and Mama I’m Coming Home. It’s less an epilogue of wistful farewells than Ozzy’s previous end credit music and more a confessional conclusion.
“Today I woke up and I hate myself, Death doesn’t answer when I cry for help, No high could save me from the depths of hell, I’ll drown my mind until I’m someone else”
Sounds to me like this album (or this track at least) was something Osbourne felt compelled to do while he was dealing with the cold hard truth. The fact that this time, it probably really is the end.
“Don’t take care of me, be scared of me, My misery owns me, I don’t wanna be my enemy, My misery owns me now”
A more confessional lyric than we’ve heard in a long time. Ozzy’s battle with the demons in his head and the monkey on his back has often been the subject of his solo material. This one sits well with Geezer Butler’s words from the Paranoid era too.
The music is the least Ozzy sounding thing about the whole affair. It’s sort of synthetic in texture without aiming for that. If you told me the whole thing was cooked up with protools and GarageBand on a Mac I’d believe you. There’s a long wait for some Sabbath inspired guitar sludge. It arrives in the nick of time.
“Under the graveyard, we’re all rotting bones”
It’s less elegiac than many an Ozzy slowie but much more fitting if you don’t buy the showbiz bullshit and reality TV version of the man. It fits the John Michael Osbourne who wrote the autobiography a decade or so back quite well. The Feb 2020 dates have been pushed back to October 2020. Now we have a ‘The Dirt in under 6 minutes’ video to go with it, this really does feel like and ending. A ‘Previously on The Osbournes’ before the season finale. All good things…
The day may never come we see him live again. I sincerely hope we do. Not to say farewell, but to go crazy one more time.
Happy New Year!
Seems like as good a final post as any…
This has been like the the DVD special features on SteveForTheDeaf. Now you really do have to say goodbye.
Thank you Amsterdam! Goodnight!
Steve For The Deaf 
When Ozzy was on that reality show, forgot the name but it was his family, there was an interesting segment.
A girl was talking to another girl and they were talking about the song Amazing Grace.
Ozzy was having a complete come apart in the background.
Like he couldn’t deal with hearing anything about the grace of God.
He later said that his mother used to sing Amazing Grace to him when he was a child.
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I’ve had Death Cab’s The New Year in my head today – I recall enjoying a post you wrote last year on Title and Registration last year, which made me break out the Death Cab CDs for the first time in ages. So I have you to thank for the song in the head today – enjoy 2020!
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Cheers for the tunes and tales, Steve. All the best for the new year – I hope it’s a good yin.
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Ozzy was there at the beginning of a very wild teenage years, and here he still is. I hope he’s there for the October concert. I hope you change your mind again about the blog. See you on the flip side!
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We’ve been waiting a while to use our tickets too. Our show was originally scheduled for October ’18, then pushed to June ’19; now, we’re hopeful for June 6, with Marilyn. I, too, was hoping to see the OO/JP match-up (Priest was awesome on the Firestarter tour), but, alas, Marilyn will have to do. (At this point, Manilow would do, as long as Ozzy makes it.) I dig this tune; I love Ozzy when he’s heavy, but anything that showcases my favorite voice in the rock and roll realm is tits with me. As far as this being your very very last post ever and ever, I’m still holding out hope that that might not be the case. Hope you’re well, brother. Peace.
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I’m still reading and commenting. I’m just not posting any new stuff. Might try and sell the novel if I can get an agent interested. Ozzy/Manilow would be a red hot ticket. That made me chuckle some. Thanks (as ever) for the kind words (as ever). Glad you got to see JP on their 50th jaunt. Was talkign about this again today and there’s a lot of folk worried when we do get to use our tickets it will be for a tribute show. I hope he’s strong and happy. I’ll frame the ticket if it means he gets to enjoy the quiet life now he’s got Ordinary Man out of his system. I love the Duet with Elton and the Straight To Hell track too. On aggregate it’s his best album since No More Tears already.
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Yeah, I’m a fan of all the new stuff too, and I’m looking forward to the album. The melancholy life of watching all of our heroes get old and die, eh? Neal Peart was a big blow, but losing Ozzy is gonna be like losing one of my oldest friends. I, too, would dig the Ozzy/Manilow double bill. Can you imagine Barry at the piano and doing those two dudes doing a medley of Looks Like We Made It/Goodbye to Romance/Weekend In New England/Tonight? Man, that’d be a rush. I’m always a sucker for the poppy stuff. Seeing Hall and Oates in late Feb, and I’m just stoked. Great talking with you always, sir. Keep rockin’.
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