A Brief Tribute by Doug Draper, with an excerpt from Ozzy’s memoir
Posted July 23rd, 2025 on Niagara At Large
“If I don’t live a day longer, I’ll have had more than my fair share,” wrote Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer and co-founder of the mega-group Black Sabbath, in his 2009, in the final pages of his 2009 best-selling memoir ‘I Am Ozzy’.
“The only thing I ask,” he continued, “is that if I end up brain-dead in a hospital somewhere, just pull the plug please. But I doubt it will get to that.”
“I’ll go out some stupid way. I’ll trip on the doorstep and break my neck. Or I’ll choke on a throat lozenge. Or a bird will shit on me and give me some weird virus from another planet. …”
“Don’t get me wrong: I don’t worry about that kind of heavy-duty stuff on a daily basis. I’ve come to believe that everything in life is worked out in advance. So whenever bad shit happens, there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You’ve just gotta ride it out. And eventually death will come, like it comes to everyone. …”
With his wife Sharon, who was with him till the end.
“I’ve told Sharon (Ozzy’s wife): ‘Don’t cremate me, whatever you do.’ I want to be put in the ground, in a nice garden somewhere, with a tree planted over my head. And a crabapple tree, preferably, so the kids can make wine out of me and get pissed out of their heads.”
“As for what they’ll put on my headstone, I ain’t under any illusions. If I close my eyes, I can already see it:
“Ozzy Osbourne, born 1948
Died, whenever.
He bit the head off a bat.”
Ozzy Osbourne died this July 22nd, 2025, surrounded by his family, six year’s after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and two weeks after performing with his old band at a sold-out concert in his hometown of Birmingham, England.
Ozzy Osbourne with one of his heroes, Paul McCartney
Within hours of reports of his passing, countless tributes began pouring in from around the world, including the following message from his idol, former Beatle Paul McCartney who simply wrote; “Devastating news.”
And whatever you might want to say about him – whether you liked his music and anarchistic persona or not – he was one of a kind, multi-talented and a very humorous guy who will never be replaced and he deserves far more than to be remembered for biting the head off a bat.
I will leave you with an anti-war song he co-wrote and performed with his fellow band members in Black Sabbath in 1970, during the height of the Vietnam War, that seems just as appropriate now as it was then. To hear it, click on the video immediately below –
R.I.P. Ozzy Osbourne
For a CBC Radio tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, complete with a 2022 interview you can listen to, click on – https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-50-q/clip/16159485-remembering-ozzy-osbourne .
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