Music historians laud Ozzy Osbourne and his band, Black Sabbath, as pioneers of the heavy metal genre. But if you were to ask the Prince of Darkness himself, he had a different idea about what “heavy metal” really meant (and whether his band qualified for that genre at all).
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Moreover, Osbourne wasn’t so sure that the Beatles served as the founding fathers of heavy metal, no matter how he defined it, like some people claim based on tracks like “Helter Skelter” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” We revisit some of Osbourne’s more surprising comments about heavy metal and Paul McCartney’s comments about Osbourne.
Ozzy Osbourne Wasn’t So Sure He Was That Heavy
Years before Black Sabbath would release their eponymous debut, the Beatles were dabbling in subgenres of rock ‘n’ roll that were far heavier and grittier than the teeny-bopper music they were writing in their early years. One of the Fab Four’s heaviest offerings of their career came in the form of the Paul McCartney composition, “Helter Skelter,” which they included on their self-titled “White Album” from 1968. Many consider this song to be the groundwork for the heavy metal that came after.
Ozzy Osbourne disagreed. In a 2020 interview with GQ, Osbourne said he didn’t believe “Helter Skelter” was the first heavy metal song. “It’s not heavy,” he argued. “It’s just a fast song about a helter-skelter. Maybe you could say “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks or a song by the Who. But I don’t even consider myself as heavy metal. I did a few heavy things, but I’ve done melodic things too, ballady things.”
The fact that Osbourne wouldn’t find “Helter Skelter” to be that heavy metal isn’t terribly surprising, especially when he cited the Who as being a likelier contender. (McCartney famously wrote the song to try to one-up the Who’s title of having the loudest rock record to date.) But it’s somewhat more eyebrow-raising to hear Osbourne exclude himself from the genre that so many rock ‘n’ roll lovers credit him for creating.
Nevertheless, Osbourne didn’t set out to define a new era of rock. “We were just having fun, and it felt like a good idea we did it,” he told GQ. “Tony Iommi is an incredible guitar player. There’s no one who can come up with those demonic riffs like him. He’s the king. At the time I’d go, ‘He ain’t gonna beat that one,’ and he would every time.”
Paul McCartney Certainly Thought Black Sabbath Was Dark
A closer look at Ozzy Obsourne’s lyrics, both as the frontman for Black Sabbath and as a solo performer, are compelling evidence that the Prince of Darkness never thought his music was that, well, dark. Despite what his all-black image might suggest, most of Osbourne’s songs were about love, enlightenment, protecting the vulnerable, and trying to be the best version of oneself. And just like he argued to GQ, plenty of his songs centered around a strong melody that he sang, not screamed.
Still, even if Osbourne didn’t think he was the most heavy metal musician ever to exist, his idol, Paul McCartney, certainly recognized the darker elements of the English rock band. “Listening to it now, it doesn’t sound that crazy,” McCartney said of Black Sabbath’s music in the 2011 documentary, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne (via Rock and Roll Garage). “But then it was quite sort of off the wall. In life, we know about the dark side and the light side, the good side and the bad side.”
“I think that’s probably the attraction, is that it hadn’t been done until Black Sabbath started dealing with it,” he continued. “People go, ‘Oh, yeah, this is great, well, cool.’ It’s like the attraction of Dracula or vampires. It’s a rich source for exploration, I think.”
Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images)
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