The song that Ozzy Osbourne called “the change of my life”
(Credits: Far Out / Sony Music UK)
When the Summer of Love began, there was a feeling that rock and roll could change the world. It started as a fad that would probably have worn off after a few years, but as artists like the Beatles began to venture into other areas, what was once an average pop song became something that could be enjoyed on the same level as high art. While most of it was positive, many bands wanted to explore the darker side of life, and Ozzy Osbourne knew something had changed when Black Sabbath made their first song.
Considering that the hippie movement died out, it’s probably safe to say that Sabbath was the final nail in the coffin. The riots in America didn’t help matters, and the tragedy at the Altamont Festival marked the end of idealism, but once bands started writing songs about dealing with black magic and devils, it seemed as if any great hope for humanity had been permanently extinguished.
But was it really that bad? Black Sabbath may get credit or blame for destroying the era of flower power, but their music was the wake-up call many fans needed to get on with their lives. While everyone else was practicing love and freedom, Sabbath was being told the cold, hard truth about what was really going on downstairs.
But that wasn’t the beginning of Osbourne’s life. Like every other singer of his time, he wanted to be a Beatle as a child, but even when he started singing in the band Earth before Sabbath, much of the music they played consisted of 12-bar blues numbers typically found on early Led Zeppelin records.
During a rehearsal, however, Osbourne said that the whole mentality of the group seemed to change suddenly, which Rolling Stone, “We were rehearsing in a community center near Tony Iommi’s house, opposite a cinema. It was something like The return of the vampire. (Iommi said), “Don’t you think it’s weird that people pay money to be scared? Maybe we should write scary music.” That’s when we came up with Black Sabbath. That was the fucking change of my life.”
The basis of the tune was still blues tropes, but once Iommi hit the tritone on his guitar, it was enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine. Although artists like Jimmy Page flirted with occult imagery in their live shows, Sabbath’s ode to a figure in black taking Osbourne to hell marked a massive shift in the way rock should sound.
Although they were by no means popular with critics, everyone who heard Sabbath followed their example, writing songs that tried to outdo each other in terms of raw aggression and darkness. Whether it was the sound of heavy metal, gothic, industrial, or any genre in between, Osbourne probably didn’t even realize that this one song didn’t just change his life. It changed the entire course of rock’n’roll.
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