Dear Ozzy,
So much has happened since I put on Black Sabbath Vol. 4 in my room one night at boarding school in 1981. The Catholic nuns were asleep down the hall. Of course, I had heard all the Sabbath albums already but they were experienced with groups of friends, usually in a party situation. In my room that night, I was truly alone. My divorced parents had sent me to boarding school. They wanted to get on with their lives and not have to keep managing me. They couldn’t even afford it which was even more devastating. They really sacrificed to send me away. I wasn’t going to curse in this letter but to write that sentence above really fuckin’ hits.
Earlier in the day of the night I am describing, I had dropped acid with a few other girls in the concrete basement of our school. Those girls all had roommates that they were locked in with after curfew that night. I had no roommate so was trapped, alone and tripping. I put on Vol. 4.
‘Long ago I wandered thru my mind
In the land of fairy tales and stories
Lost in happiness I knew no fears
Innocence and love was all I knew
It was an illusion’
How did you know these words from Wheels of Confusion were exactly what I needed to hear? And by you, I mean all of you. I know Geezer Butler wrote the lyrics as well as played bass. But you sang those words. How did you know? Validation for disillusion. Musically, this song alludes to the dynamic range of the whole album as it contains two time signatures and various tempo changes. This is because as an intro on the original LP, the track listing was Wheels of Confusion including The Straightener. It was originally two songs. I didn’t know anything about time signatures when I was 13. What I knew is that your voice and the lyrics were comforting while the music kept me on high alert. The lesson – keep your mind clear and calm but be ready for anything.
Fitting that Tomorrow’s Dream talks so much about the mind and protecting what’s in your head. Sabbath has always been on that road of freeing the mind. That’s what this song felt to me then and still now.
When Changes came, I sunk into myself. I must have lifted the needle and played it 100 times. I wept so much that I felt maybe I had disappeared. Maybe I had cried myself into not existing anymore, all the water gone. Humans are mostly water. I didn’t really care. Not because I didn’t care about myself but because I did. I have heard you say in interviews that you revere people who can play a musical instrument. You are so humble and vulnerable and it doesn’t seem that you’ve ever really known your own strength. Your voice is one of the most powerful instruments any of us have heard in rock n roll – ever. And it was leading the way for me to become someone new. This night of my Vol. 4 initiation, there was a total surrender of my scared, lonely self to become part of something larger. The kids today call this an ‘ego death’, I think. A love affair was born in me that night and life is conceived in the dark. If you are indeed the Prince of Darkness, it was to escort us all through some kind of shadow birth canal. I really want you to know that I needed something that night and I could have found something that destroyed me. Instead I found something that saved me.
The instrumental FX anchored me back into my body. It was really the only place I had to go. I was still alive after all. If there was ever a song to be the soundtrack of your acid trip at age 13 it’s Supernaut. All the lyrics are worth saying out loud right here, right now.
‘I want to reach out and touch the sky
I want to touch the sun, but I don’t need to fly
I’m gonna climb up every mountain of the moon
And find the dish that ran away with the spoon
I’ve crossed the oceans, turned every bend
I found the plastic and the gold at rainbow’s end
I’ve been through magic and through life’s reality
I’ve lived a thousand years and it never bothered me
Got no religion, don’t need no friends
Got all I want and I don’t need to pretend
Don’t try to reach me, ’cause I’ll tear up your mind
I’ve seen the future and I’ve left it behind’
I know now that Snowblind is an honest moment of self awareness with your own addiction. I could never have known that then but your honesty has always been something we love about you. It’s why we love you, actually. Maybe it is also why you love us. Sabbath fans are usually people who are forced to be honest with themselves and we look for truth everywhere. Even Lester Bangs, who trashed Sabbath’s debut album in Rolling Stone magazine, later reconsidered in a two-part essay for Creem magazine saying, ‘Despite the blitzkrieg nature of their sound, Black Sabbath are moralists. Like Bob Dylan, like William Burroughs, like most artists trying to deal with a serious present situation in an honest way.’
Cornucopia is a warning shot to the perils of our capitalist society met with the ominous guitar sound from Tony Iommi reminiscent from the whole of Paranoid, the album. Laguna Sunrise, another instrumental with a full orchestra behind the twelve-string guitar, forms into a serene pool of light before turning into strobe with St. Vitus Dance; flashing a formula for the future of many rock songs to come throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. Under the Sun is the finale anthem that brings the album full circle with three time signatures, several tempo changes and the farewell slogan don’t let empty people interfere with your mind.
Something I could have never known in 1981, having never seen Black Sabbath live and with no internet in the world, was the symbiotic relationship between you and drummer Bill Ward. Now I can watch old footage. I can study it. It is so similar to the relationship that exists between the drummer and the dancer in African music and dance. This is not a call and response situation. The drummer and dancer are of one creative source and expression. This is you and Bill. I can see and feel how much you loved each other.
Black Sabbath Vol. 4 being the first album you produced yourselves as a band, it serves as a classic in the history of rock music. In my career, I became a music photographer and director so the cover image of you, shot by Keith Macmillan, inspired me as a teenager as well. The image presents a visual understanding of what all Sabbath fans have come to know as the band’s true wisdom, yes we live in the chaos and shadows often but peace is always accessible.
I was supposed to be at Villa Park in Birmingham on July 5th. My youngest daughter goes to school in Liverpool at Paul McCartney’s music conservatory and I was to come and take her to your final performance, her seeing the whole of Sabbath together for the first time and me going back to the beginning. I wanted to wave hello and goodbye to you with all my being. I would love to have heard Yungblud sing Changes in person.
I didn’t come. My daughter’s band booked their first New York show that week and I was here in New York where I live waiting for the band to arrive and be here to support them. My heart broke not to be there but the babies come first. I think you would agree. It was this daughter who called me on the day you passed on. She said, “Mama, I didn’t want you to learn about Ozzy on social media. I wanted you to hear it from someone who loves you.” There it is. Like you, I did make it back to the beginning. Sitting in my room at 13, listening to your voice, I was hoping someone out there loved me. She was inside.
Rest easy sweet Prince of Darkness & Light. Thank you for everything. Love always,
a true fan
by Leslie Lyons, an American music photographer and director. She has produced images for Rough Trade, Mute, Columbia, Heavenly and Atlantic record labels. Editorial work includes shoots for VIBE, Fader, Gear and other magazines as well as the New York Times. Her music documentary series One Night Stand can be viewed on QWEST TV, the music content streaming platform from Quincy Jones. Leslie has two daughters and currently lives and works in New York City.
