The Death of an Idol
As I reflect on the outpouring of tributes in light of Ozzy Osbourne’s recent passing I can’t help but marvel at the impact that his music, particularly with Black Sabbath, had on my own journey as both a musician and a person.
I was progressively politicized from a young age by my lived experiences as a mixed-race Japanese American in an overwhelmingly white majority (over 98%) community in rural/suburban Connecticut. Growing up in a time before the internet as we know it today, access to progressive politics was highly restricted in the socially conservative environment I grew up in. As a non-Christian mixed-race person who did not much care for sports, cars, or other things that white America deemed popular, I lacked a community. From a young age, music became my main outlet – and in many ways escape – from my daily reality in an environment that was hostile to my existence.
While there were many great musical influences including early 90s Hip Hop and second-wave punk that shaped my worldview, none compare to Black Sabbath, who to this day I still consider my favorite band. From an early age I remember spending weekends listening to Sabbath records that my dad would play on his turntable. The church bell intro to their self-titled song on the self-titled album interspersed with the coughing intro on Sweatleaf are both seared into my musical memory as part of the Halloween mixtape that he played to scare trick-or-treaters as they approached the candy bowl. Later when I picked up the guitar in middle school, I taught myself by learning nearly every Black Sabbath song from their first five albums. Singing along to Ozzy’s solo career songs were some of the first I felt confident singing as a beginner vocalist.
For six years in a row from 2001-2006, I saw Ozzy live in concert at his annual Ozzfest music festival at Hartford Meadowlands, including three times together with the original members of Black Sabbath. Our first year living together in Philadelphia in 2011, Cathy surprised me with tickets to see Sabbath at the Wells Fargo Center. We went with my parents to see them at Madison Square Garden a couple years later, and my last time seeing them was in 2016 at the BB&T Pavilion in Camden.
When I was old enough to understand the lyrics of their songs, I soaked up everything Sabbath had to offer. Their views on life and death, and the state of the world in 1970s post-industrial Britain reflected a lot of what I was questioning living in a conservative Christian society in small town America. Then 9/11 happened and I watched as some of my peers and friends’ older brothers got recruited into the forever wars of the Middle East. Some didn’t make it back, and those who did returned with lasting trauma. Sabbath helped me to understand that this was part of a longer continuum of state-sponsored violence by aggressor nations in the Western world.
The album Paranoid was originally titled War Pigs, after the song of the same title that offered searing critique on the warmongering and profiteering that was practiced by the military-industrial complex during the Vietnam War. Sabbath was forced to change the name of that album because their record company worried it would be taken off the shelves in conservative America. If you’ve ever seen the album cover, the artwork still references the original title. The lyrics, written by bassist Geezer Butler and immortalized by Ozzy, still speak to the evils of our world today as excerpted below.
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerer of death's construction
In the fields, the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor, yeah
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah
In their subsequent album Master of Reality, Sabbath explores topics related to peace activism in Children of the Grave.
Revolution in their minds
The children start to march
Against the world in which they have to live
And all the hate that's in their hearts
They're tired of being pushed around
And told just what to do
They'll fight the world until they've won
And love comes flowing through, yeah
Children of tomorrow live in the tears that fall today
Will the sun rise up tomorrow bringing peace in any way?
Must the world live in the shadow of atomic fear?
Can they win the fight for peace or will they disappear? Yeah
So you children of the world listen to what I say
If you want a better place to live in spread the word today
Show the world that love is still alive, you must be brave
Or you children of today are children of the grave, yeah
While War Pigs and Children of the Grave are the most directly political of their songs, other early works explore topics related to environmentalism (Into the Void), anti-nuclear proliferation (Electric Funeral), cautionary tales of heroin use (Hand of Doom), and capitalist exploitation in the music industry (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath).
Many of their songs also explore topics related to the occult in a way that pokes fun at conservative Christian values. Wearing giant crosses while singing songs about Satan (Black Sabbath, N.I.B., Lord of this World) and adopting imagery and lyricism that Christian traditionalists might object to. Not because they actually believed in Satanism, but because they objected to an overly judgmental religious group whose dogma was based in love and acceptance criticizing those whose views were different from their own and trying to dictate how other people should live their lives.
As an impressionable teenager, the hypocrisy of the Christian right was clear as day, many of whom blindly supported US military aggression in the Middle East after 9/11. In my small town at least, there seemed to be little distinction made between terrorist actions and the religion of Islam, with some of the more conservative among my classmates openly calling for a holy war against Muslims.
As I became more vocal in school and church youth group settings about my anti-war and progressive views, I was repeatedly told by both my peers and adults, “if you don’t like it here then you should leave.” After hearing that enough times, I did. When the time came to start looking at colleges, my dad shared with me a postcard that arrived in the mail from Richmond: The American International University in London. I had never considered studying abroad as a real possibility, but after visiting their campus for an overnight stay during my Junior year of high school, it became my top choice. I was ecstatic when I was offered early acceptance to the only university that I applied to.
In all honesty, a big part of why I chose to move to the UK was because that was where Sabbath and the many other British rock and metal bands I listened to originated from. At the time I didn’t have a clear vision of what I wanted to do for a career, but was interested in making a difference. I enrolled in their Political Science program, later switching my major to Communications after becoming disillusioned by electoral politics in my study of the field. All along I was playing in rock bands, hoping that I might be able to quit school and pursue a career as a musician. Based on my own experiences, I understood the power of arts and culture could have in influencing our society. Although I never “made it” in the music industry, the experiences I had along the way taught me how to navigate this world. I also learned a lot about myself in the process.
After my first gig in London an older British guitarist who looked to be about the same age as the members of Sabbath gave me one of the greatest compliments I received in my early career as a musician, when he said that my guitar playing reminded him of Tony Iommi. Gratifying as it was to be compared to my musical idol, at the same time, I realized that if he heard Iommi’s playing in my own, I needed to break free and distance myself from the influence of Sabbath and explore other playing styles.
As a result, I started listening to Sabbath less and expanded my musical tastes and influences as a musician. The blues-based riffs I learned from Iommi gave me a foundation for the blues and blues rock music that I mostly perform to this day. His experimentation with classical guitar also led to my own exploration of the Spanish classical genre, which later expanded into the fingerpicking technique that has become the solid backbone of my current playing style.
After the death of my close friend and bandmate Jason Lee during junior year of college, I decided to study abroad in Japan, which set me on the path that eventually led me to where I am today. When I first met my wife Cathy, learning that she listened to Black Sabbath was one of the first things that attracted me to her. The closest I ever came to getting a tattoo was a flaming cross with the words BLACK SABBATH written across my back.
In a roundabout way, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne (with some help from dad) gave me the perspective to make the necessary changes in my life that have allowed me to become the person I am today. For that I will be eternally grateful to Ozzy for giving voice and emotion to the powerful lyrics that helped shape my early political views.
OZZY RULES