The Ozzman
Cometh
(All Quotes from Ozzy Osbourne on
Inside Jacket of Album)
Black
Sabbath
War
Pigs
This version of "War Pigs" was on the same tape."War
Pigs" was probably one of
Sabbath's most tyrically profound
works. This song has always filled my morbid
fascination with war.
Goodbye to
Romance
This song holds such good memories for me. It
was the first song I wrote with Randy Rhoads.
It was sort of my farewell to Black Sabbath.
We wrote this in my small studio at my house in
Staffordshire while Randy was staying there with me
on his first trip to England from the U.S.
Crazy
Train
""I'M GOING OFF THE RAILS ON A 'CRAZY TRAIN'"
reflects everything I was going through at the
time. We wrote this in
Monmouthshire,Wales at a residential studio.The studio
was rumoured
to be haunted by a poltergeist. Most days we
would wake up and
windows would be smashed, crockery shattered, doors
were broken off
their hinges and our clothes would be floating in the
stream outside. The
studio owner was insisting it was us getting drunk
every night and tearing up
the studio, but we stuck by our story that it was always
the poltergeist.
Mr.
Crowley
I'd read several books about Aloister
Crowley. He was a very wierd guy and
I always wanted to write a song about him.While we
were recording the "Blizzard
of Ozz" album there was a pack of tarot cards
he had designed lying around the
studio. Well, one thing lead to another
and the song "Mr. Crowley" was born.
Over the
Mountain
Randy Rhoads was the biggest instigator of this
song. We were both living in
an apartment in Shephard's Bush in London at the
time. While the rest of the
band was out getting drunk and stoned everyday, Randy
decided to stay back
at the apartment and play his black Gibson. When
I came back he had the riff
for "Over the Mountain". But the irony of that
is that there's a part of the song
that sounds like the same chords that are in the song
"Black Sabbath" and yet he
never heard the song, which I always found kind of
spooky.
Paranoid (Live
with Randy Rhoads)
Obviously "Paranoid" was going to be on this album.
There have been many
different versions of this song recorded over the years,
but I chose Randy's
version to go on this album. You've probably
heard of the story of how this
song was written countless times. It was written
in Ireland Studios when we
needed one last track for the album. We actually
thought it was going to be
an album filler, but it turned out to be a
classic.
Bark At The
Moon
The title for this song actually came from a joke I
used to tell where the
punch line was "EAT SHIT AND BARK AT THE MOON".
I'd had
the vocal line for this and Jake came up with the
riff. It was the first song
we wrote together.
Shot In The
Dark
This was my first hit single. I couldn't believe
Ozzy Osbourne with a hit
single! I laugh so much every time I see the video
for this song. I look
like a tattooed truck driver in a sequined dress.
This was probably the
closest I ever came to being a drag queen.
Crazy
Babies
I don't have any strong memories of writing this
song. I actually prefer
the video to the song itself. It was probably
the first video I ever made
which I liked.
No More Tears
(Edit)
We were in pre-production for that
album, but we didn't have a title for the
album yet though we had written a bunch of songs over
a period of time. Mike
Inez had just joined the band and he was just jamming
the riff (the bass run) and
it just seemed to come from nowhere. I remember
I was very drunk and sitting in
the corner of the studio and I just blurted out "that's
it, we'll do it." The song came
together very quickly and it became the title song
on the album.
Mama, I'm Coming
Home
I had been walking around with the melody in my head
for a couple of years but never
got a cahnce to finish it until I was working with
Zakk on the "No More Tears" album.
At that time Zakk and I were doing a lot of writing
on the piano. 'Mama, I'm Coming
Home' was always something I'd say on the phone to
my wife near the end of a tour.
I Don't Want
To Change the World (Live)
I won a Grammy award for this one. The song's
meaning is self explanatory,
in respect that lines like "TELL ME I'M A SINNER I'VE
GOT NEWS FOR
YOU", well, it's kind of spoof on me, you know.
I Just Want
You
Everyone said I should put "Perry Mason" on this album
instead, but this is my
favourite song from "Ozzmosis". I wrote this
song with Jim Vallance in his
studio in Canada. It was one of those magical
days when everything seemed
to be working. We sat there and came up with
these incredible lines "THERE
ARE NO IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS, THERE ARE NO INVISIBLE
SEAMS".
And after all those incredible things said in the song,
the one line "I DON'T ASK
MUCH, I JUST WANT YOU" seemed to be such a nice way
to sum it all up.
Back on
Earth
This song was a track left over from "Ozzmosis".
I was meant to come up with a
couple of new songs for the album, but I was on the
road for the past two years
which left me without any time to go into the studio
to record.