People say to me, if you could do it all again, knowing what you know now, would you change anything? I'm like, f*** no. If I'd been clean and sober, I wouldn't be Ozzy. If I'd done normal, sensible things, I wouldn't be Ozzy.
Look, if it ends tomorrow, I can't complain. I've been all around the world. Seen a lot of things. I've done good... and I've done bad. But right now, I'm not ready to go anywhere.
At the age of sixty-nine, Ozzy Osbourne was on a triumphant farewell tour, playing to sold-out arenas and rave reviews all around the world.
Then disaster.
In a matter of just a few weeks, he went from being hospitalised with a finger infection to having to abandon his tour - and all public life - as he faced near-total paralysis from the neck down.
Last Rites is the shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Osbourne's descent into hell. Along the way, he reflects on his extraordinary life and career - including his turbulent marriage to wife Sharon, his regrets over Black Sabbath's reunion, encounters with fellow hellraisers including Slash, Bon Scott, John Bonham and Keith Moon and the harrowing final moments he spent with Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister.
Last Rites, Ozzy Osbourne
Somewhere in this memoir there's a throw away comment from Ozzy about most of their fans / audiences being male and that made me doubly sad that I never did manage to catch Black Sabbath live. Led Zeppelin's 1972 tour wasn't something I'd even considered possible, and in 1974, no matter how dramatic the hissy fits I threw, for some reason my parents weren't keen on the idea of many hours driving just to deliver this teenage daughter to their Melbourne concert. In 1978 though I managed to catch Jethro Tull at Festival Hall, but from then on, whenever Sabbath were in Australia the concerts were in the wrong state or I was (in a different wrong state). Missed them. Never forgiven myself because I was a massive fan from a very young age, and then it was over.
Reading LAST RITES so soon after the sad, but I guess inevitable death of one of the truly nice ratbags of rock, was a bittersweet experience. The book touches on lots of things he did - the mad, the gloriously crazy, the sad and the bad. He's probably pulling some punches on the bad, but then again he's pretty honest about the things he fucked up, the things he went back and fixed, and the ones he never got a chance to.
Aside from the rock, the roll, the drugs, the alcohol and the madness though you do get a feeling that despite the Black Prince, satanic trappings, Ozzy Osbourne was a really nice, if not quite "normal" bloke. A man who loved (and frequently was a bit scared of his wife Sharon), somebody who adored his kids, grandkids, dogs, life, and dealt with the cards that he could see when they appeared before him.
The later years are all here - the break up of Sabbath, the solo work and tours, and all the myriad of health problems - some of which were bad luck, a lot of which were self-inflicted. (Flying into bed at his age was always going to end badly, but I doubt anyone would have imagined just how badly).
It's pleasing to know that he made it home to England, that one last concert, to the place that started it all. It's really pleasing to know there's tributes to him in Birmingham, and it's really pleasing to know that along the way he must have had some serious fun. Loved the opening quote of this memoir:
People say to me, if you could do it all again, knowing what you know now, would you change anything? I'm like, f*** no. If I'd been clean and sober, I wouldn't be Ozzy. If I'd done normal, sensible things, I wouldn't be Ozzy.
Look, if it ends tomorrow, I can't complain. I've been all around the world. Seen a lot of things. I've done good... and I've done bad. But right now, I'm not ready to go anywhere.
Gone too young, astounding he got to the age he did. Thanks for all the fun and music when I was young, and thank you most particularly for having the good grace and sense to be Ozzy Osbourne regardless of what anybody said / thought / did.